By JARROD POTTER
FOOTBALLERS Matthew Buntine and Private Frederick Baxter trod the same path across Berwick’s Arch Brown Reserve until the outbreak of war forced one towards the most noble sacrifice.
Both shared a grand love of Victoria’s famous pastime and it was only ordained by the timing of their births – nearly a century apart – that one would rise to greatness on the football field and the other on the battlefield.
Buntine (born 1993) had opportunities at his disposal only peace could ever afford – a chance to pursue sport professionally, which he achieved in 2011 joining AFL club Greater Western Sydney.
Pte Baxter (born 1892) would lose his life on the Somme in 1918 as part of a prolonged five-month series of trench warfare battles in World War I.
Above all though, the pair remains irrevocably connected by a mutual point of contact – Berwick Football Club.
Buntine, 21, originally from Berwick, donned the blues as a junior footballer and has climbed the steep cliffs of Gallipoli.
Baxter had to leave Berwick Football Club and his homeland at 22, as he embarked aboard the HMAT Berrima en route to Gallipoli, before heading to Egypt and the Western Front.
Baxter was noted as a “fine type of athlete” in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal (a predecessor to the current Star News Group paper The Dandenong Journal) on 6 May 1915 and was gifted a wristlet watch as one of the club’s “most consistent players, on the occasion of his volunteering for active service”.
Baxter was a promising footballer – who could “soar for the ball with the best of them“ – so much that his absence was worth mention in the papers as the fleet-footed forward consistently was listed in the team’s best and goalkickers through the 1914 season.
He was one of Berwick’s 24 players to head to war at the time, with amazingly only seven of those men passing away in the line of duty.
Baxter didn’t get the choice to leave for Gallipoli, unlike Buntine. But he managed to survive the disastrous campaign until troops were withdrawn in early 1916.
Buntine’s arrival at Gallipoli, as a fresh-faced 17-year-old was a lot more subdued than Baxter’s, it is safe to say.
His AIS/AFL Academy team was given the rare opportunity on Anzac Day 2011 to watch the sun rise over Anzac Cove and honour some of Australia’s bravest.
“We are very fortunate to be in our position thanks to the Anzacs,” Buntine said.
“It’s quite daunting to think that if I was born a century ago I could potentially have been on that beach breaching and trying to protect Australia.
“It certainly put – especially with the career that I’ve had – life into perspective where I’m very fortunate to play on Anzac Day and celebrate and commemorate the troops that gave up their lives for us, so it’s very humbling to be in the position we are now.”
Buntine vividly remembers the sheer cold of the Turkish beach and the awed silence and overwhelming emotion of the experience standing at Anzac Cove as a humble footballer and Australian rather than a serviceman.
“The terrain was steep – really hard and hilly – I couldn’t imagine arriving on the shores and being bombarded with Turkish gunfire as the terrain was certainly very harsh and very cold at night-time,” Buntine said.
“The boys were huddled up together and still freezing, so it was very harsh conditions just to sit watching a service, let alone fight for your life.”
With the nation’s capital set to be the centre of Australian attention on Saturday, Buntine hopes he will line up for the Giants in their Anzac Day blockbuster at Canberra’s Manuka Oval and get a chance to honour the fallen servicemen and women by playing the game most of them never got a chance to flourish in.
“To be able to commemorate and play on Anzac Day will be great for us, especially in Canberra where a lot of the big Anzac services are,” Buntine said. “It would be great to try and honour the Anzacs as well as we can when we face the Gold Coast and try to put on a good show.”
Buntine’s Giants face Gold Coast from 5.40pm on Saturday.
