THE DECISION to play football during the coronavirus crisis might long be debated, but the AFL has still been considerably more cautious than its League predecessors were when they faced a profoundly deadlier pandemic.

The Spanish Influenza outbreak in the final stages of World War I a century ago produced the most lethal flu pandemic in world history, infecting 500 million people (almost a third of the global population at the time) and killing up to 100 million.

Australia suffered two million casualties (40 per cent of the population), including 15,000 deaths – and among the sick and the dead were League football identities.

To stem the spread of the dreaded disease, which reached Australia's shores in January 1919, authorities shut down schools, theatres, halls and other public buildings, and closed state borders. Amid the panic, face masks became commonplace. Sound familiar?

Little wonder, given previously healthy people in the prime of their lives could die within hours of experiencing their first symptoms.

The lucky ones who survived still became violently ill, enduring horrors such as chills, shivering fits, headaches, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhoea, along with regular flu-like symptoms, and didn't return to full health for several weeks. 

Irresponsible or community-minded?

The Spanish flu, also known as the pneumonic influenza and "the Spanish lady", had an unusual feature in that it struck down a disproportionately high percentage of people aged 20 to 40 – the bracket that made up most of the football fraternity.

Given Australians were also prohibited from holding meetings in groups of more than 20, it seems preposterous that the 1919 League season went ahead at all, let alone continued unabated.

The-then Victorian Football League (VFL) actually expanded during the influenza emergency. After being reduced to an all-time low of just four teams and 12 rounds at the war's horrific peak in 1916, the VFL returned to a full complement of nine teams and 18 rounds in 1919.

There weren't any crowd restrictions in place either, so most games attracted fans in their thousands – albeit in slightly reduced numbers due to the flu scourge, although the finals still drew an average crowd of 47,000 – a six-year high.

As far as we can tell, League officials didn't implement any measures to protect the football community – and by extension the broader community – in the fight against the Spanish flu. 

A desperately needed distraction 

However, the League hadn't broken any laws. In fact, it had been free to decide whether it would proceed with its season, given the health authorities in those less-enlightened times felt there was little risk of transmitting the virus at outdoor events.

Curiously, the dusty, leather-bound, minutes book detailing the 1919 meetings of League chiefs doesn't appear to contain a single reference to the influenza crisis.

The VFA (Victorian Football Association) also continued, but the Vics weren't alone in their determination that the show would go on, with their counterparts in South Australia and Western Australia also pushing on with their competitions. Meanwhile, Tasmania was forced to abandon football mid-season.

There was no hiding the fact there was a clear financial incentive for the VFL to play on (as had been the case during the war), but there was also a belief at League headquarters that the game served an important community service in that it boosted spirits by providing an entertaining distraction from life's hardships.

And spirits certainly needed a boost. 

Shirt-fronted by a killer disease

The Spanish Flu was believed to have been brought to Australia by soldiers returning from the Western Front in Europe.

Inevitably, football was hit hard. We identified eight League figures who died from the condition, and there were almost certainly more, while many other footy folk contracted it but survived to tell the tale.

The first football-related fatality was probably Sam Campbell, who'd played one game for Collingwood in 1910, enlisted for war service and had the grave misfortune of leaving Australian shores aboard a troop ship that would soon report that half her passengers were infected with the lethal flu.

Campbell, aged 27, fell ill and died on October 21, 1918 – just three weeks before the official end of the war.

On Anzac Day in 1919, just eight days before the start of the 1919 season, Carlton Football Club was devastated by the loss of its vice-president and League delegate, Frank Hyett. 

A 37-year-old father of three, Hyett was also the secretary of the Victorian Railways Union and had played football for VFA club Brunswick and cricket for Victoria. His popularity was exemplified by the fact 5000 people attended his funeral.

Hyett's most trusted friend, future Prime Minister John Curtin, was shattered, and would name a son John Francis Curtin in his honour.

Hyett's death, The Football Record lamented, would be "a severe loss" to the game. 

"Teams were hit hard" 

The game would lose others as the casualties mounted at an alarming rate, but there was never a question of whether a team or an entire club would be forced into isolation or quarantine. Clubs simply soldiered on, and when players recovered from illness they returned to the field.

According to Robert Allen, the author of 2017 book Cazaly: The Legend, St Kilda's champion Roy Cazaly contracted the Spanish flu early in the season and was sidelined for several games.

Prominent journalist Hugh Buggy – later inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame – would recall in The Argus that "teams were hit hard" by the infection, which "whittled the strength of most of them and caused sudden reversals of form".

No League player of the time died from the Spanish Flu, but they were rocked by news of the deaths of former players.

Billy 'Chock' Hammond – the younger brother of Carlton's five-time premiership star Charlie Hammond – played four games for Collingwood in 1911 and was 31 when he succumbed to the killer flu on February 16, 1919, in a special hospital established at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building.

Among those to express their grief in the newspapers was Magpie youngster Bill Twomey, who wrote: "A tribute of respect and esteem to the memory of my dear pal William (Chock) Hammond .... One of the best. Deeply regretted."

Other ex-players who lost their lives to the Spanish flu in 1919 included:

• Controversial ex-Carlton player Doug Fraser, who along with teammate Alex 'Bongo' Lang had been suspended for five years (still a record) in an infamous bribery scandal in 1910 and never played again at any level. A 32-year-old bachelor, Fraser was recovering from being crushed between two trucks when he caught the virus and died on February 24.

• South Melbourne's aggressive forward Dick Casey, who played 112 games and kicked 93 goals from 1905-12. The father of seven died on April 16, aged 37.
• Renowned athlete Simon Fraser, who'd played for Essendon in 1905-06 and University in 1909 before representing Australia in rowing at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. The 32-year-old father of two attended the Warrnambool races in May 1919 and died just two days later.

The Spanish Flu also fatefully changed the life path of a man who became one of the League's great figures.

Bert Chadwick, then 22, was working in Sydney and had just accepted a position with the railways in China when one of his younger sisters died from the flu in Melbourne.

Chadwick returned home to support his family and soon became a Demons champion who captain-coached them to the 1926 flag, served as club president during Melbourne's greatest period in the 1950s and '60s and was later knighted for services to Victoria.