Barney Wood

Percival Barnes Wood (22 December 1901 – 9 June 1941), known as "Barney", was an Australian sportsman who played both first-class cricket and Australian rules football. He was killed in action while serving with the Second AIF.

Barney Wood
Personal information
Full name Percival Barnes Wood
Date of birth (1901-12-22)22 December 1901
Place of birth Wellington, New Zealand
Date of death 9 June 1941(1941-06-09) (aged 39)
Place of death Litani River, Mandatory Lebanon
Original team(s) Old Melburnians (MAFA)
Height 179 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight 81 kg (179 lb)
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1928 Melbourne (VFL) 05 (0)
1928–1929 Perth (WAFL) 20
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1929.
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Family

One of four children, and the son of Robert Ellis Wood (1866–1944),[1] and Nellie Elizabeth Wood (1872–1943), née Heywood,[2] Percival Barnes Wood was born in Wellington, New Zealand on 22 December 1901.[3]

Education

Educated at Melbourne Grammar School from 1911 to 1920, he was a prefect in 1919 and 1920, was the school's boxing champion on 1920, and played in the school's First XVIII from 1917 to 1920.[4]

Football

Old Melburnians (MAFA)

He played for Old Melburnians Football Club for several years.[5]

In 1925, he played in the centre, and was one of the best on the ground, for a combined Metropolitan Amateur Football Association (MAFA) team against a combined South Australian Amateur Football League (SAAFL) team at the M.C.G. on 8 June 1925.[6][7]

Although he had been selected in the 1926 MAFA team to play against South Australia, in Adelaide,[8] Wood surrendered his position in the team as he was unable to leave Melbourne for the trip to Adelaide.[9]

Melbourne (VFL)

Wood was recruited to the Melbourne Football Club from Old Melburnians in 1928;[10] he appeared in five senior games.

Perth (WAFA)

He moved to Western Australia in 1928 for business reasons,[11] where he played 20 matches for the Perth Football Club in 1929.[12][13][14]

Cricket

Well-regarded as a schoolboy cricketer,[15] he played cricket for the Melbourne Cricket Club from 1921/1922 until 1928/1929.[4]

He toured New Zealand with a Melbourne Cricket Club team in 1927; and, in a match against Taranaki, he top-scored with 75 runs. The score included eight sixes, five of which were hit in successive scoring shots.[4]

At the age of 31, on 19 March 1932 he made his first-class cricket debut in a match for Western Australia against the touring South African national cricket team at the WACA Ground. He was dismissed for six in the first innings by Cyril Vincent and for two in the second by Denys Morkel.[16]

In February 1932, when batting for the West Perth Cricket Club, he scored 132 runs.[17]

Boxing

He fought for the Amateur Welterweight championship of Victoria on 21 July 1923.[18] He lost the bout to a controversial decision.[19]

Motor sport

Wood was also the joint holder of several Transcontinental Motoring records, established with Dr. Alan MacKay, in 1927, in an Essex Super Six.[20][21]

Military service

He enlisted in the RAAF in 1939, and transferred to the Army in 1940.[4] Wood was a Sergeant in the 2/16th Battalion of the Second AIF. He was killed in action, on 9 June 1941, during the Battle of the Litani River.[22]

     From what I heard, he went out in the way you would expect of him – in the very van where things were hottest, and in front of his men he got what he was apparently destined for. No one could ever question his courage. I only wish I had half as much myself.
     He was, I gather, wounded, and was being treated by the first-aid men, when a mortar came along and completely wiped out the whole party. He would know nothing about it. He met the finest fate a man can meet – a quick and painless death in the face of the enemy. We all know that this is the way he would have chosen it.[23]

Legacy
  • Golfers in the annual Anzac Day event at the Royal Perth Golf Club play for the Barney Wood Memorial Trophy, named in Wood's honour in 1941. Wood had been elected the Club's captain in 1935; and the cup had originally been presented to Wood, himself, at the end of his term as club captain.[24][25][26]

See also

Footnotes
  1. Obituary: Mr Robert Ellis Wood, The Argus, (Thursday, 16 November 1944), p.11.
  2. Mrs. N.E. Wood, The Dandenong Journal, (Wednesday, 1 September 1943), p.6.
  3. Births: Wood, The (Wellington, N.Z.) Evening Post, (23 December 1901), p.6.
  4. Batchelder (1995), p.23.
  5. Amateurs, The Age, (Monday, 4 May 1925), p.5.
  6. Interstate Amateur Football, The (Adelaide Register, (Friday, 5 June 1925), p.6.
  7. Interstate Amateur Game, The Argus, (Tuesday, 9 June 1925), p.7.
  8. Inter-State Amateur Match, The Age, (Wednesday, 19 May 1926), p.14.
  9. Football: Coming Interstate Match, The Age, (Monday, 24 May 1926), p.10.
  10. Football Permits, The Age, (Thursday, 19 April 1928), p.5.
  11. Pertinent Paragraphs, The (Perth) Mirror, (Saturday, 28 March 1931), p.5.
  12. New Man for Perth, The (Perth) Daily News, (Friday, 31 May 1929), p.9.
  13. "Popular Sportsman". Perth Gazette. Perth, WA: National Library of Australia. 24 June 1941. p. 6. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  14. "Players Killed in the Line of Duty (PDF)". West Australian Football Commission.
  15. Old Melburnians, The Argus, (Monday, 12 December 1927), p.15.
  16. "Western Australia v South Africans 1931/32". CricketArchive.
  17. W. Perth v. N.E. Fremantle: Brilliant Century by Wood, The (Perth) Sunday Times, (Sunday, 7 February 1932), p.3; Barney Wood a Century: Bright Hand in Perth, The Sporting Globe, (Wednesday, 10 February 1932), p.9.
  18. Welter Final, The (Melbourne) Herald, (Friday, 20 July 1923), p.2.
  19. Victorian Titles Sought: Decision Questioned, The Weekly Times, (Saturday, 28 July 1923), p.72; Boxing, The Australasian, (Saturday, 28 July 1923), p.25; Boxing and Wrestling, The Age, (Monday, 23 July 1923), p.7.
  20. Motor Record, The (Adelaide) Advertiser, (Monday, 12 July 1926), p.19.
  21. Motoring, The (Yorketown) Pioneer, (Friday, 9 December 1927), p.4; Overland Record, The Newcastle Sun, (Tuesday, 6 December 1927), p.2.
  22. Berwick Man Killed in Action, The Dandenong Journal, (Wednesday, 25 June 1941)< p.8.
  23. Quoted, by Main & Allen (2002), p.355, from a letter, written from Palestine by Wood's brother-in-law, Colonel William Wanliss Irvine (TX2034) — he'd married Wood's sister Dora – published in the Melbourne Grammar School journal, The Melburnian on 26 August 1941.
  24. Snap-Shots, The Western Mail, (Thursday, 28 May 1936), p.19.
  25. P. B. Wood Trophy at Royal Perth Golf, The (Perth) Sunday Times, (Sunday, 12 October 1941), p.10.
  26. McCrery (2017), p.59.

References
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