It is said that for each of the 120,000 railway sleepers laid from the Thailand-Burma railway line, a life was laid to rest.

On ANZAC Day 2009, a group of Australian men travelled to Kanchanaburi, this time not as enemies, but as rivals. They participated not in hatred but in respect.

The Vietnam Swans were offered the privilege of playing the Thailand Tigers Australian Football Club in the annual ANZAC Day game in Kanchanaburi.

They remembered those who lost their lives in World War I and the many who were held in Prisoner of War camps in Thailand and forced to work on the Thai-Burma railway line in 1942. Many of them were old enough to fight for their country but ten years shy of being able to play Asian football.

For the players of the Vietnam Swans it was a footy trip beyond belief, a tour to remember for the rest of their lives.

In the early hours of the morning on April 25, the Swans travelled to Hellfire Pass, the railway line which saw the deaths of over 100,000 people. Following a dawn service, the Swans travelled to a wreath-laying ceremony at Kanchanaburi war memorial. Here they heard firsthand accounts from ex-POWs of the torturous conditions endured by those on the line.

It was now time for the match.

With three ex-POWs watching on, it was an extraordinary moment for those that played in the game. The 91-point victory to the Thailand Tigers was irrelevant as everyone played their hearts out in memory of the fallen.

There was also an individual honour for the person judged best on ground, the “Chicken” Smallhorn Trophy. The history of the prestigious award dates back to 1942, when Wilfred ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn, the 1933 VFL Brownlow Medallist, spent three years as a POW in Changi. He worked for ten months on the Burma railway line and by the end of the war weighed just 19 kilograms.

In late 1942, ‘Chick’ and a few POWs convinced the Japanese to play a season of Aussie Rules. A five-team competition soon followed, as did a Victoria v Rest of the World match which, due to poor health, Chick could only umpire.
Patrick Stringer, son of a POW who had worked on the line, reflected on the hardship faced by those who fought in the war.

“I tried to remind people that the men on the line were like our footy team, there were teenagers and blokes in their forties,” he said.

“I reminded them that the only thing those men had was each other. I suggested that we look around and imagine that nearly half of us would die in the next 12 months, we die slowly and in pain with only our mates to comfort us.”