Robert Henry Ormrod was born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1888. He had arrived in Adelaide by 1914, playing in North’s league championship side in that year.
He enlisted at the Light Horse depot at Oaklands in November 1914, giving his occupation as “motor driver”. Within a month he had been discharged as a “bad character, unlikely to become an efficient soldier”. Ormrod had served in a British Territorial unit in Lancashire and was still keen to do his bit. He went to Melbourne and enlisted again, this time in the 23rd Battalion.
The Victorian unit was at Gallipoli for the last three months of the campaign, manning the difficult Lone Pine position. Evacuated to Egypt, Ormrod continued to add to his poor disciplinary record which had begun in Adelaide, and would continue in England and France. Offences for absent without leave, failure to attend muster and drunkenness resulted in detentions and docking of pay. In November 1916 he was wounded for the first time, accidentally shooting himself in the leg. He had to prove that he hadn’t done it deliberately.
Bob Ormrod found the time to marry Mary Hodgkinson in Blackburn (Lancs) in April 1917, before continuing his long list of offences against military discipline. In 1918 he suffered two more wounds at the front: in May he was gassed and in July received a shell fragment in the buttocks.
Back in Adelaide as a ‘returned man’ he was soon acknowledged as one of the best full backs in the state. North Adelaide won the first post war league title in 1919, and again in 1922. He was said to be “tough and solid” and a “fierce tackler”. Rewarded with a state team cap in 1923 against Tasmania he was one of four SA players who weren’t selected again after the 3-0 loss.
Bob Ormrod died in Adelaide in 1959.