“James ‘Barney’ Cowan was born in Victoria of Ulster Scots parents. When the family moved to Western Australia Barney developed into an excellent sportsman. He briefly played Australian Rules football for South Fremantle and then concentrated on soccer where he became an excellent full-back for Fremantle Rangers and then Caledonians. At the end of the 1915 season he joined the rest of the Caledonian club in their mass enlistment into the AIF during the First Wold War. Barney served with distinction and in 1917 his unit, the 48th Battalion attacked a heavily fortified German position in the second battle of Paschendale. Barney received severe wounds in the attack on 11th October 1917, and although he was shipped back to England, he died six weeks later in Birmingham Hospital. Barney Cowan was buried in the family plot in Balmoral Cemetery in Belfast, Northern Ireland.”
Excerpted from John Williamson’s Soccer Anzacs: The Story of the Caledonian Soccer Club.
Fremantle Caledonians, Fremantle Rangers
WA
James Cowan
