John Wardlaw played for North Arm after the war, part of a cohort of war veterans, including his brother Robert, who helped establish soccer in the Sunshine Coast region in the early 1920s. He was born in Wishaw, Scotland and emigrated to Australia at age 13 in 1911. He subsequently grew up in Coorparoo, Brisbane, though whether he played soccer at the time is obscured by the fact that youth football was not covered in the newspapers of the time.
Wardlaw enlisted in March 1917, aged 19. He left for Europe mid-year and undertook training in England until the new year. In January 1918, Wardlaw arrived in France with the 41st Battalion, though was soon transferred to the 5th Division Signals Company as a Sapper, and later a Driver. He remained attached to his unit in France until after armistice, finally marching out to return to Australia in May 1919.
After the war, Wardlaw was living in North Arm by 1919, where he became a butcher. He joined the local soccer team, which dominated the early years of the North Coast Football Association competition which commenced in 1921. The same year he was selected for the North Coast representative side to play their Brisbane equivalents.
Wardlaw was in his early 20s at the time, though many of his fellow players in the game were “middle-aged players”, according to the Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser on 2 September. He would continue to play locally until 1923 when he left the immediate region.
Wardlaw married Alice Sanderson in 1922. The couple and their expanding family moved to Gympie, Tairo and a family-owned farm in Moree in New South Wales before returning to North Arm in the 1930s. He re-enlisted for the second war in 1940, undertaking home service in Caloundra, Grovely, Redbank, Hughenden, Goondiwindi and finally Ascot in Brisbane until 1945.
Late in life, Wardlaw and Alice moved to Maryborough to be near one of their children. Alice passed away in 1969, and Wardlaw a decade later.
This short biography includes material from a much longer biography of Wardlaw written by his granddaughter Sue Smith, which is published on the Virtual War Memorial Australia, in addition to Trove and his military record held by the National Archives of Australia.