Towards the end of August in 1915 the Sydney Sun reported that a staggering 33 per cent of the players from the Sydney Metropolitan British Football Association had enlisted to fight ‘Kaiser Bill’ and his forces. One such player was Percy Lazonby who played with both Balmain’s Kia Ora and then the Balmain club prior to the war.
Percy’s drive to defend King and Country no doubt derived from the fact that he was a). born on Tees-side just a few miles from Middlesbrough’s ground in England’s north-east and that b). his brother Albert had been killed in action only 4 months earlier on April 25 at the Gallipoli landing. His eldest brother John survived the war as did our man Perc.
Percy arrived in Sydney as a 14-year-old in 1907, the youngest son of six brothers and the second youngest child of eight. Taking an apprenticeship as a tailor which, by the time he enlisted, had become his trade, Lazonby was aboard the Osterly headed for Europe nine weeks after signing up. The AIF 3rd Battalion to which he was assigned were involved in most of the bloodiest battles of the war including the Somme, Passchendaele, Polygon Wood, Pozieres, Ypres and Bullecourt so to know that infantryman Private Percy Lazonby survived is a miracle, to know that he returned to again play the game he loved is astonishing given how many who returned never played again.
On returning from action in May of 1919 Perc moved to the all conquering Balmain-Fernleigh side playing alongside such notables as first Socceroos George Cartwright & Alan Fisher and the man who would drive football in Australia for decades, Syd Storey. In 1921 he moved clubs to Annandale, no doubt prompted by a change of address as the district system dictated.
Marrying in 1925 as a 32-year-old, Percy and his wife Marjorie moved west to Parramatta where he changed trades, moving from the fine skills of a tailor, to become a butcher. An interesting change indeed. Marriage and the move brought an end to Percy’s footballing days.
Percy outlived his wife by two years, dying in 1956 at his home in the Sydney suburb of Enfield.