NSW umpire Bert Osborne umpiring an army football match in England in 1917 (Photo courtesy of Lloyd Fisk)
By Rod Gillett
Corporal William Roy Osborne was one of four field umpires from Sydney to go to the front in World War I. The others were George Barry, Leslie John Pitcher, and Vic Brown.
Another George May took up umpiring in 1917 after returning to Australia from Egypt because of illness and subsequently discharged from the AIF in Sydney in 1915.
“Bertie” Osborne was a blacksmith who enlisted in the Engineers and embarked on 8th August 1917 and served in France in 1918. He returned to Sydney on 1 July 1919.
He umpired in the Sydney competition after the war. There is a newspaper report of Mr. Bert Osborne, the ‘official umpire of the crack A.I.F. Divisional teams when on active service,’ umpiring a match between Sydney and Newtown in 1919 and is quoted after the match as saying, “… that it was a glorious game with Newtown the unlucky side” (Arrow,11 September 1919).
Osborne relocated to Melbourne and umpired eleven matches in the VFL from 1921–1928.
George Barry also umpired matches between Australian army teams in England during the First World War. The best-known match that Barry umpired was in London between a team representing the 3rd Division, wearing jumpers with a map of Australia on the front, and one representing Australian Training units, wearing jumpers emblazoned with a kangaroo on the front.
The match was played at the Queen’s sporting complex in West Kensington and attracted over 3000 spectators including the Prince of Wales. Both army teams were made up of top-line players from the VFL, SANFL, and WAFL. NSW was represented by state representative Fred McGargill, better know as Freddie Mack, the “dashing Sydney half back with the cheeky smile” (Macpherson & Granland, 2015).
Barry travelled to England at his own expense and enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service on 10 March 1916 where he served as an Able Seaman. Not much is known about his war service.
Leslie John Pitcher, a clerk, also umpired in the Sydney league prior to enlistment. He umpired the NSW v Victoria game played at the SCG in the ANFC Carnival on 11 August 1914.
Pitcher enlisted on 27 November 1915 and served in the 56th Battalion in France.
His fitness and endurance as an umpire saw him attached to the Brigade headquarters as a runner taking messages and orders from the colonel to the other brigades in the Battle of Fromelles. He was wounded twice and evacuated to hospital but returned to duty within a few weeks.
In September 1917 he was detached to the 1st Australian tunnelling company. The war diary for the tunnellers for this period is missing and it isn’t known what he was doing.
However, he was back with the 56th Battalion as a lance-corporal for the unit’s battles at Corbie, Villers-Bretonneux and Peronne in 1918.
Following armistice Pitcher was transferred to the Australian Army Pay Corps, promoted to sergeant and stationed in London. He married an English woman in November 1919 and returned to Australia at the end of March 1920.
Vic Browne is listed in the Arrow (11 August 1917) as one of the four umpires to serve overseas in the AIF. There is 9 other Vic Browns on the list but there is insufficient information to establish his identity in relation to military service.
A barber by trade, George May served in WWI in the AIF’s 2nd Battalion. He enlisted on 17 August 1914 and embarked on 18 October 1914. He returned to Australia on 15 August 1915. He took up umpiring upon his return.
(Source: A Game to be Played: The Great War and Australian Football in Sydney by Paul Macpherson and Ian Granland, NSW Australian Football History Society, 2015)