Cliff Geddes and Fred Easton are the reason why cricketers respect Anzac Day so much
Gordon District Cricket Club | April 22, 2025
Australian cricketers' special reverence for Anzac Day reflects both personal connections and the deep historical relationship between cricket and military service in Australia:
The shared cultural values such as mateship, resilience, sacrifice for the team, performing under pressure closely mirror the values emphasized in Australian cricket culture. This natural alignment creates a strong affinity between cricketers and the Anzac tradition.
Many Australian cricketers have direct family connections to military service, creating personal investment in Anzac commemorations. These family histories are often shared within team environments, strengthening the collective appreciation.
Australian cricketers are acutely aware that they represent their nation on the international stage. This representative role creates a natural connection to others who have represented Australia in different, more consequential arenas.
Both cricket and the Anzac tradition are foundational elements of Australian national identity. Cricketers, as prominent cultural figures, often feel a responsibility to uphold and respect these national traditions.
The cricket-Anzac connection is frequently highlighted in sports media, reinforcing the relationship and creating expectations about cricketers' engagement with Anzac traditions.
This respect isn't simply ceremonial, it reflects genuine appreciation for the sacrifices made by service personnel and recognition of how those sacrifices have shaped the nation that cricketers are privileged to represent.
On August 19, 1914, Sydney was experiencing the early impacts and responses to World War I, which had been declared just over two weeks earlier on August 4. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was actively recruiting volunteers across Sydney while training camps were being established, with many recruits gathering at Liverpool. Naval vessels in Sydney Harbour were preparing for deployment and a military parade was marching through the streets of Sydney to gather at a patriotic rally in Martin Place.
A mix of patriotic fervour and anxiety pervaded the mind of Cliff Geddes (pictured in blog image) as he queued up at the Recruitment office in Victoria Barracks in Paddington. He was going on the adventure of a lifetime. He was the first Gordon cricketer to enlist. “You will be in the 4th Battalion of the 1st Division of the Australian Imperial Force and you will sail to England on October 14 aboard the HMAT Euripides. God’s speed” was the likely statement made by the recruitment officer.
Cliff and his good mate Fred Easton lived a few streets from each other near to Chatswood Oval and played together in Gordon’s Third Grade team. Fred had work commitments on 19 August and enlisted the following day also at Victoria Barracks. He would be joining the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Division and would also sail to England on board the HMAT Euripides. They were excited as the two month journey would give them plenty of time to play knock up games of cricket aboard the ship with their fellow Aussies. They would then be back by Christmas and play the second half of the season for Gordon…or so they thought.
Fifty two Gordon cricketers enlisted in the First World War and at least 150 first-class cricketers served in the war and cricket was played by Australian soldiers in both training camps and at times in a war zone as a morale booster. The game became a symbol of normality and "home" for soldiers abroad.
On October 20, 1914, Sydney Harbour buzzed with unprecedented activity and emotion as the troopship HMAT Euripides prepared to depart for England with Australia's first volunteers for the Great War.
The wharf areas around Circular Quay and Woolloomooloo were crowded from early morning with thousands of civilians gathered to bid farewell to their loved ones. Families pressed close to the barriers as many mothers, wives, and sweethearts including Cliff’s girlfriend Elsie Gall, were fighting back tears while maintaining brave faces.
The mood was complex, patriotic enthusiasm mixed with the gravity of departure. Bands played stirring martial tunes and popular songs like "Australia Will Be There" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary." Streamers and handkerchiefs created rivers of colour connecting ship to shore, these paper lifelines stretching and breaking as the distance grew, symbolizing the separation about to occur.
The Governor-General's representative delivered a brief address and as departure time approached, the ship's whistle sounded three long blasts. Cheers erupted from both ship and shore. The massive vessel slowly pulled away from the dock, assisted by tugboats, gradually making its way toward the harbor entrance. The crowds followed along the shoreline as far as possible, waving until the ship became a distant silhouette passing through the Heads into the open ocean.
Few present that day could have imagined that this departure marked just the beginning of what would become a four-year conflict that would transform Australia forever.
Cricket was already firmly established as Australia's national summer sport by the early 1900s, with the first Test match between Australia and England played in 1877 and had become a source of intense national pride. Fred and Cliff had experienced this first hand, having played for the club at the same time as Victor Trumper and would have shared nets with him at Chatswood Oval.
Like most Australian diggers, Fred and Cliff entered the war with a sense of adventure, an untested notion of heroism and glory and a limited understanding of modern warfare's realities. There was a fear of missing out on what they saw as the "great test" of their generation and like in their parochial attachment to Australian cricket they were eager to prove Australia’s worth to the Empire. After all, it would only be a few battles and they would be home by Christmas.
It wouldn’t be long before Fred and Cliff could test out the theories shared by their digger mates as their 3rd and 4th Battalions were assigned to the invasion of Turkey with Cliff in the first wave of troops and Fred in the second wave to land on the shores of Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
In the first three weeks of life at Anzac Cove there was intensive fighting between the landing forces and the Turkish defence as every inch of land was taken and then lost again by each side. In the first week, 860 Australians were killed and in the month of May alone, 2,298 died. Fred and Cliff didn’t see a lot of each other in those first few weeks as they were in different battalions but knew where each other was stationed as Anzac Cove wasn’t a very big place.
On 19 May the Turks launched a major assault at Anzac, with 42,000 men attacking 17,000 Australians and New Zealanders. Lacking sufficient artillery and ammunition, the Turks were relying on surprise and weight of numbers for their success but the Anzacs had detected their preparations and were ready.
Nearly the entire Anzac force, led by the ‘fighting 4th Battalion’, which included Fred Easton was waiting with their guns pointed at the trenches when the three Turkish Divisions were sent over the top. At one point, its sector was infiltrated and was fighting hand-to-hand with the Turks. The Turkish troops kept coming, wave after courageous wave, but the night and early dawn attack resulted in now desperate Turkish bayonet charges.
As a result of the attack, the Turks had suffered about 10,000 casualties with 3,000 killed and 7,000 wounded. By comparison, the Anzac casualties were low with 160 killed and 468 wounded. Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, of ‘Simpson and his donkey’ fame and the first Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross, was killed in this battle.
Cliff, who was a prolific diary writer during his time in the war, was stationed with his 4th battalion on that evening and wrote the following:
Along with others I was ordered to lie on the ground above the trench. When we climbed out a startling sight met our eyes. The darkness of No Man's Land was lit by the fire of blazing rifles from the grass, and the Turks were within 25 yards of our trenches.
The orders of my brigade within the 4th battalion from Captain Austin, company commander, were that if the Turks got very close to jump across the trench and charge them with the bayonet, but on no account to fire our rifles and let them know we were there.
Thus, I was a spectator of the most thrilling game I have ever seen.
The Australians were magnificent. Every man who could was firing across the trench at the line of fire from the dark ground as fast as he could pull the trigger and pull back the bolt to reload. When the rifle got too hot to hold, or jammed, the man below on the floor of the trench handed up his with more cartridges. The machine-guns poured back their hail of lead.
Many of our grand chaps fell shot through the head, but immediately another man took the place of him who fell.
The dawn now began to break and what a sight lay before our eyes. It seemed as if an army lay asleep in the grass. So confident were the Turks that they attacked with blankets strapped to their backs, presumably to sleep the next night in our trenches, but the majority were sleeping their last sleep in No Man's Land. The remainder could stand the fire no longer and raced back towards their own trenches.
As Cliff Geddes knew that his Gordon Third Grade mate was also in the front line during this battle, he no doubt would have been concerned for his safety.
If witnessing this battle wasn’t enough for Cliff to lose his sense of adventure, it definitely did the next day when news came that his mate Fred Easton was one of those 160 diggers who had died during the battle that night. He had bravely leapt from his trench to help a mate who had been hit and was only a matter of metres onto no man’s land when he succumbed to a Turkish bayonet.
Fred had only been at Gallipoli for twenty-five days, but his brave yet fatal defence of his fellow diggers meant that he would not return to his home in Mowbray Road or again take that stroll along Orchard Road to the Oval. As Fred and Cliff were both bowlers, sadly there would be no opportunity to return together to Chatswood to share the bowling attack for Gordon.
Fred was buried in the 4th Battalion Parade Ground Cemetery on the road between Wire Gully and Anzac Cove and his grave site is still there today. All of those killed in Cliff’s 3rd Battalion are buried in the same graveyard.
The first three weeks at Gallipoli had exposed Australians to unprecedented violence where machine guns, artillery, and entrenched warfare created casualties on a scale few had imagined. The harsh terrain, extreme weather, disease, and poor sanitation compounded the suffering. The soldiers also witnessed firsthand the flaws in British command decisions and the futility of repeated failed offensives eroded faith in military leadership. Recognition grew that they were expendable pieces in a larger strategic game
Cliff wasn’t well for a long time after the loss of Fred and the continuing carnage at Gallipoli and after a number stays at military hospitals in Lemnos and Malta came home to Australia in January 1916 suffering from enteritis and cardiac strain.
In an amazing turn of events, after almost two years at home, and hearing about the major losses on the Western Front following the disaster of Gallipoli and major losses on the Western Front, Cliff re-enlisted in October 1917 with the will to want to do whatever you could for his mates, to help them in a time of crisis. As recruits were starting to dwindle significantly, Cliff was put on a ship to Devonport, England and arrived back in France in March 1918, just in time for the Spring Offensive. It was his chance to honour the life of his mate Fred Easton and by this time, the 30 other Gordon cricketers who were now on the Western Front.
Cliff was stationed with the 13th Battalion where he spent the first three weeks on the march from the French coast to the Amiens region. After being in the first wave at Gallipoli, he now found himself in the final battle for Villers-Bretonneux on Anzac Day 1918, which is considered the other most consequential battle for Australians. It was the first time in the war that a German advance had been decisively stopped and the action helped secure Amiens and prevented a potential breakthrough that could have changed the war's course. The successful defence of Villers-Bretonneux is considered one of Australia's most significant military contributions in World War I and helped establish Australia's military reputation on the world stage. They had cemented a reputation as elite shock troops.
Cliff and his very weary mates were sent to various towns near Amiens to try and recover from the massive effort of defeating the German army at Villers-Bretonneux.
Fortunately, Cliff still had his trusty diary ready and recorded the following:
Who would have thought April & May such a sudden change would come over things? The Aussies have more than done their bit in this great push. We have lost some grand men though, part of war's hellish price.
God grant, there may never be another one on this earth! Our brigade are all out for a thoroughly well-earned rest, but there are French, English & Yanks galore to carry on the big advance unceasingly & Fritz will get no respite.
I have been very crook lately with diarrhea & pains in the stomach & was sent today in a motor ambulance to the 61st Casualty Clearing Station. There are 3 wounded Huns in the ward I'm in, & to complete the mixture, a tall Indian came in.
Arrived by hospital train at Rouen & was taken to No. 10 General Hospital. The advance goes on within all sectors & Fritz is getting the hell he deserves. The whole of the Aussie division is to have a long spell, so I won't be destined to see any more German stoush & fireworks. Our numbers are so small now that I think the heads have brought our chaps out because they're too weak to carry on without being re-organised & several battalions have been cut out altogether.
This Rouen front, on which I conclude this diary, is certainly more cheerful than that celebrated "health resort", Villers-Bretonneux where I spent so many exciting moments, where gas & shells were as plentiful as rabbits in N.S.W. I am truly thankful to be alive & sound as I close this off.
On his return to Australia, following two months in England recovering from the Spanish Flu, Cliff married his sweetheart Elsie (pictured below) and they lived in Chatswood where he continued to play for the club from 1919 to 1924. Cliff played mainly in Third grade where he had hoped to be joined by his lost mate Fred Easton and took 160 wickets at an excellent average of 10.96.
After he finished playing, Cliff would regularly visit Chatswood Oval and following the Second World War, would take his teenage son, Geoff, who was playing Green Shield for the club, to the oval to watch the legendary Gordon cricketers, Ginty Lush, Sid Carroll and Jack Potter. During this period, Gordon won two First Grade premierships in the 1945-56 and 1947-48 seasons when crowds of three to five thousand were not unusual.
Tragically one a Saturday in late 1947, while sitting near the Macartney Scoreboard at the oval, Cliff suffered a stroke. His distraught son urgently sought medical attention and he was rushed to hospital. Unfortunately, Cliff wasn’t able to recover and he died one month later.
Cliff loved his cricket and his club before, during, and after the war and will be remembered as one of our true heroes.
Cricket’s revival after the war coincided with Australia seeking a new national identity, and the emergence of Donald Bradman in the late 1920s gave Australians a new sporting hero when the nation needed one. The Gordon District Cricket club became an important place for veterans to reintegrate into society. The game took on added significance as a way to honour those who had fallen and was a binding force in Australian society after the war which helped bridge social divides between returning soldiers and those who stayed home. During the war, Gordon had served as important community hub, and became a centre for fundraising efforts, recruitment drives, and support for soldiers' families which continued after the war.
When club players come together in August and September this year to prepare for another season, do not forget the sacrifice made by Fred Easton, the eight other Gordon cricketers who died in the war, the 52 who served in the First World War and the 110 who served in the Second World War. When you look over at the Macartney Scoreboard remember what Cliff Geddes gave up to keep fighting in the war and returning to the Western front to honour his mate who had fallen.
Lest we forget
Paul Stephenson
