GO WITH IT
WE WILL REMEMBER The tradition continues as Glenelg and Sturt play on Anzac Day at the Bay in a highly-anticipated grand final re-match. A league game on Anzac Day was held for the first time in 1948, when the previous season’s top two sides West Adelaide and Norwood started something that has since become as South Australian as pie floaters and Fruchocs. The Glenelg-Sturt clash will be the 58th time the previous year’s SANFL grand finalists have been honoured to play on Anzac Day. The AFL has a much more recent Anzac Day tradition of Collingwood v Essendon games – today will mark their 29th clash – while SANFL’s system gives every club the chance to earn the right to be part of the nation’s most special day. The Bays and the Blues will face off for their fourth Anzac Day grand final re-match, the Blues having won in 1970 (by 28 points) and ’71 (15) and the Tigers in 1975 (by 16 points). Of the 57 Anzac Day grand final re-matches, the reigning premier has won 30, lost 26, with one draw. Last season the beaten grand finalist scored a win with North Adelaide, pipped by one point by Norwood in the 2022 grand final, winning convincingly by 54 points at The Parade. These clubs wonderfully acknowledged the contribution and sacrifice of those who have served and died in wars and peacekeeping operations in moving ceremonies and tributes before the game. Colin Churchett, a Navy veteran of World War II, was one of many ex-servicemen who loved being involved on Anzac Day in emotional pre-game motorcades. The remarkable war-time story of the Glenelg great, who died in 2012 aged 86, is featured on Pages 6-7.
Colin Churchett before the Adelaide Oval motorcade on Anzac Day 2011 with fellow Tiger Russell Lucas, who served in the Army in World War II.
sanfl.com.au
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