Andrew William Farnsworth (14 January 1887 – 30 October 1966) was an Australian pioneer

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

footballer who played in the 1910s whose club career was played in Sydney with Newtown. He represented at state level for both

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

and

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, and at the national level for Australia and

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologi ...

. He is the brother of fellow New South Wales and Australian representative, and Newtown player Viv Farnsworth.

Rugby Union career

Farnsworth's

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

career was played with the Newtown club and he was invited to join the new rebel code from the outset to play against Albert Baskerville's All Golds when they arrived in Sydney in 1907. Farnsworth stayed true to rugby union and remained an amateur till 1909.

Rugby League career

In NSWRFL season 1910, he joined the

ranks and commenced playing with the Newtown club. During the

1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand The 1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand was the first international tour of the Great Britain national rugby league team, "The Lions". They played the second ever Ashes series against Australia, and their first as the visit ...

, Bill Farnsworth and his brother, Viv, made their international debut against the British Lions. With Newtown Farnsworth also won the premiership that year. The following year the Farnsworth brothers were selected for the 'Australasian' Kangaroo tour of Britain in 1911–1912. They were the first set of brothers to play representative rugby league for Australia. Their brother Roy also played at Newtown. Farnsworth also played in Brisbane for Toombul and Kurilpa, gaining selection for

in 1912. With his brother Viv, he headed to England and the end of 1912 and joined the

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham ...

club ( Heritage № 142). He was still in England at the out-break of

the Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and enlisted for active duty. He continued playing for Oldham 'til 1920. Farnsworth returned to the Newtown club as coach for part of the

1924 NSWRFL season The 1924 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the seventeenth season of Sydney’s top-level rugby league club competition, Australia’s first. Nine teams from across the city contested during the season which culminated in Balm ...

Cricket career

Farnsworth also played in two first-class

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

matches: one in 1908-09 for

and one in 1919 for

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

. He became the first player to represent

at Rugby, Rugby League and Cricket.Alan Whiticker, www.rugbyleagueproject.org

Accolades

Bill Farnsworth was the great-uncle of the

Parramatta Eels The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League. The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, and their ...

ex player and CEO

Denis Fitzgerald Denis William Fitzgerald, AM, (born 14 November 1949) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s for Parramatta, New South Wales and Australia, and a former chief executive officer of the Parramatta Eel ...

. His youngest brother Roy Farnsworth also played for Newtown. In 2008, the centenary year of rugby league in Australia, Farnsworth was named as five-eighth of the

Newtown Jets The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSW Cup competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season. The Jets' home ground ...

18-man team of the century.

References

Sources