Arthur Errington would seem to have been an unlikely soccer player and war hero. A Hindley St hairdresser with several court appearances for underpaying his apprentices and running illegal totes on the Adelaide races, he was 35 and a Boer War veteran (with the 5th Imperial Bushmen) when he joined the AIF in July 1915. Born in the Adelaide suburb of Plympton, Errington played for the Hindmarsh soccer club in 1912, and then for Corinthians in 1913 and 1914. A match report from May 1913 describes a 3-0 win for Corinthians over South reserves, with Errington scoring one with a “fast low shot”.
With the 32nd Battalion he was soon promoted to sergeant. Serving at base depots in Australia and England he was involved in training troops, and didn’t arrive at the Front until December 1917. At the Battle of the St Quentin Canal on September 29th 1918, the Australians were supporting American troops. Arthur Errington led two other Australians in an attack on two German machine gun posts that were holding up the Allied advance, successfully silencing them. He was subsequently awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross.
Errington returned to his hairdressing business in Adelaide, although in poor health from the after effects of gas. He died at Keswick Barracks Repatriation Hospital in 1934 aged 54, a death attributed to service.