Parramatta-born Richard Fairweather was one of the rising stars of Australian football. Just 21 when he enlisted near the end of the 1915 football season, he had played left-half for the powerful Granville club. Despite being in training at the military camp at Liverpool he managed to get leave to play in several matches before his overseas posting.
In 1916, Fairweather, along with several of his ex-Granville team mates, played a match in Egypt, representing Australia against a local college team. In August 1916 he was reported as being killed in action. Almost miraculously word later filtered through that he was still alive and was a POW at a camp in Germany. Fairweather was repatriated to England after the armistice and arrived home in Australia in early 1919.
He got back into football as soon as he could, once again playing left half for Granville’s first team. In 1921 while he was travelling on a train with his elbow resting on the window ledge, a swinging door from a passing train struck him, fracturing his arm in multiple places. It put him out of football for a year but after an operation that saw a section of sheep’s bone grafted to his arm, he returned to the football field. In 1922 he experienced the greatest moment of his football career, playing in the Granville team that won the Gardiner Cup final.