Patrick Devirs (sometimes spelt Deevers) was a coalminer from the Illawarra who played his football for the Balgownie Rangers club. Early reports show him on the team sheets for Balgownie’s second team in 1892 when he was around 15 years old.
In 1898 Devirs represented the South Coast and combined country against Metropolitan teams for trial matches to select the New South Wales team to tour Queensland that year. Devirs was a regular for his club through the 1890s and the early 1900s and played centre-half in the Balgownie’s team that lost the Gardiner Cup Final in 1901. He also likely played in Balgownie’s losing Gardiner Cup Final in 1899, although full team lists aren’t available to confirm this. Devirs was also secretary of Balgownie Rangers during the early 1900s. Devirs was a keen cricketer and one time secretary of the Balgownie Cricket Club and the Illawarra cricket association.
Devirs enlisted in July 1915 at the age of 38 and was killed in action near Fleurbaix in France on 6 May 1916.


