Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take the time of the House this morning to recognise and pay tribute to the Croydon Football Club Past Players and Officials Association led by Mr Roger O’Brien, a past player and stalwart of the club. The association is dedicated to all of the past players and supporters of the club and is this year recognising and celebrating the club’s centenary year. Each year they have a special function, which I had the pleasure of attending just a couple of weekends ago on Sunday, 23 July.

One of the things they do is recognise and remember the past players of the club who lost their lives serving Australia in all our conflicts. Just a few weeks ago at that function I had the pleasure on behalf of the club of presenting certificates to three families whose relatives had died during World War II. They were three players who had played for the club in their 1937 premiership team and who volunteered for service in World War II and lost their lives. Those three players included John Beck, who enlisted in the Army and joined the Second 33rd Infantry Battalion, was wounded in the Middle East, twice in New Guinea and died in 1943 after being shot. The second was Jack Cowley, who joined the RAAF and was an air gunner in the South-West Pacific. In May 1944 his plane was badly shot up and the plane and the crew were never found. The third was Frank ‘Skeeter’ Black, who enlisted in the Army in 1941, saw active service in New Guinea and Bougainville, left the Army at the end of the war but unfortunately died of wounds just a few weeks after returning to Australia. These three past players of the Croydon Football Club deserve to be remembered, and I want to place on record the great work that Roger O’Brien, his wife, Dot O’Brien, and Alan Baldwin do with the past players association in remembering the important history of the Croydon Football Club.