"Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist"

"On the day before Balmain and South Sydney played the rugby league final of 1939, the armies of the Third Reich invaded Poland; two days later Britain and France, joined by Australia and New Zealand, declared war on Germany. So, for the second time in a quarter of a century the world was at war. When the cannons at last fell silent six years later 55 million men, women and children were dead.

"In that sombre and threatening year the NSW Rugby League chose, somewhat incongruously, to open their season in an atmosphere of carnival and celebration. In April, a month after German troops had marched into Prague and Hitler had declared, "Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist", the NSW Rugby League staged what The Rugby League News modestly described as "The most spectacular and colourful pageant ever carried out by any football organisation outside America."

"At the Sydney Cricket Ground 6000 fans saw the eight clubs play four matches of 15 minutes each way in what was calle the "Minor Competition" of 1939. Before the games there was a gala march past of the teams, who then assembled in the middle of the ground in a formation closely resembling a "huge and colourful flower bed". Six members of the original teams of 1908 led the march, with E. "Son" Fry the standard bearer, and James Joseph Giltinan joining the six. Members of the Referees Association, led by Tom McMahon, followed the veterans. Then, breathlessly reported the RLN, "there was an almost simultaneous 'bang bang' as 36 brand new footballers were booted into the air to accompaniment of tumultuous cheering and hand clapping". One thousand pigeons were liberated from boxes on the baselines of the field" - from 'True Blue' by Ian Heads .