John Martindale was a station hand working in Rockhampton when he enlisted at the age of 23 in March 1916. He was sent to the Depot Signalling Company in Chermside, where he played for the base’s soccer team against a Brisbane select team on 24 June 1916. The “Signallers” played a series of games against the Brisbane team across the middle of the year. Martindale played in the second match of the series, and missed the third, but may have played more games as the line-ups of the other matches were not published in the newspapers.
Martindale arrived in Australia sometime between 1911 and 1913, when he was living in Cairns. From there he moved to the Rockhampton region. Whether he played in the Rockhampton district is unknown, though soccer had been played in the region since the 1880s. He was also a sailor, which may explain the difficulty tracking his life in the years before the war.
After his signalling training, Martindale was sent to England in September 1916. In February 1917, he arrived in France where he was transferred to the 47th Battalion. He was accidentally wounded in April, receiving a gunshot wound to the face, and was evacuated to England. Here he stayed, moving around various camps for the rest of the year, before attending the Army Signalling School in Dunstable until February 1918. He did not return to France until September 1918, though was sick in hospital with influenza when the armistice came into effect.
Martindale started back for Australia in January 1919. He married Alma Pankhurst in 1923 and lived variously at Northgate and Gympie. He re-enlisted at the age of 48 in June 1941, at which time his occupation was clerk. He was stationed in Brisbane, and then Warwick, acting as a clerk, where he was eventually promoted to Warrant Officer, until he was discharged in early 1945. Martindale died in 1966.