William Ernest ‘Billy’ Ring, was not a man produced from the modern day goalkeeping blueprint given that the previous season he had played for Wollongong Boomerangs as a left half. He fit more the model of the modern day midfielder, tipping the scales at around 70kgs and standing just 172cms, but in goal he stood for the Boomerangs for the second of his two seasons at the club.
Ring enlisted for action on March 4th, 1915. He embarked for the front on June 25 aboard the Ceramic and was posted to B Company of the 19th Battalion of the AIF, his first sight of the action was Gallipoli. Being 30, with the impetuosity of youth well behind him and with his short exposure to the horrors of Gallipoli, Billy’s attitude towards authority found him on charges a number of times during his short military career.
The first encounter with the Courts Martial occurred in Alexandria only six months after enlisting, going AWL for seven hours. It happened twice more within a short space after being shipped to France. He suffered a gunshot wound to the hand in France requiring enforced recuperation in England, where he again found himself up on charges not once but twice after going AWL and being docked a total of five days pay.
He re-joined his Battalion in early 1917 where clearly the conditions did not agree with him contracting a gum infection which saw him hospitalised for a month. Billy was transferred to the 4th Field Ambulance. Within a week he was reported missing at Bullecourt, but this time there was no coming back.
He was reported Killed in Action some five months later. He was survived only, as far as we know, by his married sister, Mary Thomas, also of Wollongong. Billy Ring rests forever in France near where he fell, a Boomerang that did not return.