John Ashall arrived in Perth from England in 1912 and was a referee in the local competition in 1914 and 1915.
A few months after disembarking in Cairo in February 1916 he was admitted to the hospital with arthritis. On 10 June 1916 he was invalided back to Australia and soon discharged from the AIF.
In 1919 the Westralian Worker reported that he “returned home in time to take the stump in support of the anti-conscription fight, an action that the Labor Movement was grateful for.” There is no record of him taking up the whistle again after the war.
He passed away in 1974 in Murray, WA, at the age of 86.