The Army-Navy game that packed out a stadium in Sydney 1943

At the height of the Pacific campaign during WW2, the residents of the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown were busy helping the war effort by searching their neighbourhood for a goat.

It would be a stretch to say that finding the goat was crucial to the US-Australian alliance but the search went ahead in earnest nevertheless.

During WW2, Australia had become an important base for the United States military. General Macarthur even issued his famous line “I shall return,” from a railway station in South Australia.

Macarthur’s headquarters were in Brisbane but significant numbers of US personnel were also based in Sydney.

With campaigns in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea in full swing, it was decided to celebrate the alliance on the fourth July 1943 – Independence Day.

A host of events were organised across Australia. The centrepiece of the Sydney festivities was to be a game of American Football between the US Army and US Navy.

To ensure the match would be a played to the highest possible standard, players from both teams were given three weeks leave to prepare. The players camped at the training oval, four men to a tent. Curious sports reporters from the Sydney papers were allowed to watch the training sessions.

A press conference was held and the two coaches, Captain Duncan of the Army, and Lieutenant Gabrielson of the Navy, explained the rules of the game.

One reporter commenting on the sport said, “Lithe American wrestler Joe Lynam is a guard in the Army team. He says it’s tough. And when Joe says it’s tough, well, it’s just that.”

Of course no game of American football is complete without mascots and efforts were made to source the traditional Army mule and Navy goat.

Eventually, the mascots were provided by a Mr H Bowden from the inner-city suburb of Newtown. Mr Bowden supplied two of his show animals, a mule called Jinny and a goat named Joey.

Now Jinny was a bad-tempered old thing and a vicious buckjumper. It was claimed no person had sat more than two “bucks” on Jinny. Joey was a beast of an entirely different temperament and was prone to go a-wandering.

So it was that a couple of days before the game Joey absconded himself from Mr Bowden’s house.

The residents of Newtown came out in force to find the missing goat and even school children helped search backyards, side streets and piles of rubbish for Joey. In his own time, Joey sauntered back into Mr Bowden’s yard, unaware of the fuss that he had caused.

On Sunday, 4 July, the Stars and Stripes were draped over office buildings across the country. The day began with special Independence Day church services. Mrs Macarthur was reported to have attended a church service at an American Red Cross centre, ‘somewhere in Australia.’

In the afternoon, attention turned to the Army-Navy football match.

Sports events on Sundays were almost unheard of in Sydney but tramway employees gave up their Sunday holiday to run 200 trams bringing spectators to the ground. It was just as well, since crowds began to arrive at the Sydney Sports Ground from 10 in the morning.

As well as US servicemen, many curious Australians made their way to the ground. Eventually a crowd of 33,000 paying spectators packed the small stadium. An estimated 4,000 people climbed fences to gain admission.

People were perched on the grandstand roof, shimmied up light poles or watched from the balconies of nearby houses. It was reported that as many as 10,000 people were turned away.

Many locals, brought up on rugby, were scratching their heads at the stop/start nature of the play but all were impressed by the enthusiasm of the players, the military bands and the cheer squads. The big hits and long forward passes were also commented on favourably. The match was won by Army 14-0.

In a great display of allied unity, all proceeds from the match were donated to comfort funds for Australian soldiers.

During the evening crowds converged on dance halls and nightclubs throughout the city. The famous Trocadero nightclub in George Street was so well patronised that crowds of revellers had to be turned away.

There seems little doubt the celebrations on the fourth July, 1943 were a success and provided a much need morale boost for both the Australian public and the visiting American servicemen.

US Army Chaplain T.E. Cooke, addressing a crowd at the Lyceum theatre that night said, “I want to assure you that the memories of our visit to your shores and the precious contacts we have made will linger with us to the very end of life. These memories are indestructible and we shall cherish them just as surely as we have forged the ties of comradeship.”

It is not known what happened the two mascots but it is safe to assume that Jinny the mule went back to his cranky old ways and Joey the goat stilled wandered the back lanes of Newtown whenever the thought occurred to him.

This article was originally published in 2016 under the headline ‘Standing room only for Army-Navy game in wartime Sydney’.