JOE Watson was a hero in the Port Adelaide district well before he eagerly traded his black-and-white football uniform for a khaki tunic in 1914. A year earlier, the citizens of Port Adelaide had struck a gold medal to recognise his part as a young, energetic half-forward in the Port Adelaide team that had beaten VFL premier Fitzroy for the Champions of Australia title.

A league player at 17, Watson was their local hero - a cult hero in the making.  In just four seasons, across three years (1911-1914), Watson left an extraordinary mark at the Port Adelaide Football Club. Then he became a national hero.

As a labourer at Cheltenham, Watson was as blue collar as the Port Adelaide image demanded. He certainly made a quick impression as a footballer in league circles.

Watson was called for his league debut on July 8, 1911 at Hindmarsh Oval to replace future captain Alex McFarlane. The reviews were lavish with one scribe declaring "Watson is a young chap who apparently knows the game up to the hill and the writer cannot call to mind more than a handful of juniors who played so coolly and effectively as did Watson in his initial senior game ... 

"... and if the Port club can draw on their reserve talent for such fine players as Watson, it would do no harm to give a few of the regulars a well-deserved spell," added one critic.

After his second match - against South Adelaide at Alberton on July 15, 1911 - the judges were declaring that the teenager was "a player with a cool head; he is teaching some of the older players a lesson in that respect". He was further praised as promising to be a second "Harold Oliver", the biggest star of South Australian football of this pre-war era. Today, the commentary would suggest Watson was a hybrid mix of Connor Rozee and Sam Powell-Pepper at Port Adelaide.

A gunshot in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 that sent the world to a devastating war changed that destiny.

The match reviews of the day also praised Watson as a team player who "is adept to shepherding .... (we) expect to see Joe put up some brilliant games before the season is over". Sadly, the 1911 season ended with Watson injured (severely sprained ankle) two minutes into the premiership play-off with West Adelaide. A training accident the week before had cost Watson his place in the line-up that beat North Adelaide in the semi-finals. It was a flat finish to a remarkable debut season to Watson, who averted the second-year blues by leaving Adelaide soon after to continue his football in Broken Hill.

One of 14 children, Joe Watson had truly taken after his father (Joseph) Marshall Watson who "was bred hardy" and often seen walking from Queenstown to Largs to start work at 6am as a builder before he kept the books for a local timber yard. He was constantly looking for adventure afar.

There was no time to present a second gold medal in 1914 after Joe Watson had become one of the "Invincibles" while Port Adelaide reigned as the unbeaten SA football premiers and Champions of Australia again, this time with victory against Carlton at Adelaide Oval on October 3. Just 17 days later - with his 21st birthday caught between so much change in his life - Watson was on the HMAT Ascanius destined for Egypt and the battlefields of Europe.

Watson was among the first to enlist for a war that was reshaping European borders and empires while drawing young Australians to battle to defend their British king. He had signed up on September 11, eight days before Port Adelaide tormented North Adelaide while conceding just one goal in the 1914 SA Football League grand final decided by a then record 79 points. He spent almost 40 days in training at the Morphettville army camp before trading the backdrop of the Adelaide Hills with the pyramids outside Cairo.

Watson - like so many of his generation - had repeatedly shown his eagerness for adventure, travel and change. During the summer of 1913-14 he had tried to take his football allegiances to another portside club, East Fremantle, that had been impressed with Watson's goalkicking prowess during Port Adelaide's in-season trip to Western Australia in 1913.

But the power brokers at Alberton well remembered the loss at Port Adelaide when Watson had previously "escaped" for new adventures after his league debut season of 1911. He was away in 1912, playing football with the West Broken Hill Football Club - and Port Adelaide slipped from premier to runner-up ... and was left to wonder the difference Watson would have made in the grand final loss to West Adelaide after failing to score during the second term.

Not wanting to be bitten twice, Port Adelaide steadfastly refused to offer a transfer to the Western Australians. Watson knew he had to return home if he wanted to play football. He boarded the steamer Indarra returning to Cheltenham on April 15, 1914 - and was in a club practice match, an "internal" at Alberton Oval, three days later.

It was the start of a grand football year for Watson: He won his second league premiership - and, before he had 50 senior games to his record (that stopped at 36 matches with Port Adelaide), he was called to State duty with the South Australian team sent to Sydney to defend its Australasian crown at the national carnival in Sydney in August. In the "final" against Victoria at the SCG, Watson - who kicked two of South Australia's five goals - earned praise for his "hard work" as a forward. It was true to his family tradition, as had been long established by his grandfather Joseph, a building contractor.

Such a football resume before his 21st birthday leaves little doubt where Joe Watson might have stood in the Halls of Fame at Port Adelaide and South Australian football had the world not been caught in the waste of the "Great War".

Not in question is how Watson represented his family, his community and his football club once he was assigned service number 1098 with the Australian army. His military file reads as his football record: " ... tremendous bravery and leadership throughout the various battles he fought in ..."

And there was an attitude that made Watson as admirable to his commanders as he was to his team-mates at Port Adelaide. He was among the Anzacs of the 10th Battalion sent to Gallipoli on May 7, 1915. Two months later he was writing home with an enthusiasm that contrasted the reality of a dire and bloodied battleground.

"We had a bit of a go with the Turks about four days ago," wrote Watson soon after landing at Gallipoli. "And we gave them a severe drubbing and made them quiet for a while.

"We came out of the firing line today for 48 hours and the rest is all right. As for sleep, we get very little and I am sure I shall always be an early riser after this.

"Life here is not too bad. We get plenty of work and any amount of good food, which is the main thing."

The reports from the front lines had suggested otherwise. There were copies of the Adelaide papers being sent by Port Adelaide fans, in particular the well-known and devoted Sammy Lunn, to the troops. There also were stories of Watson seeing the worst of Gallipoli. Watson ultimately wrote to the (Sunday) Mail to say: "As for rumours that I have been wounded, take no notice of them. I am pleased to say that I am in the best of health and spirits and enjoying the fun immensely."

Truth was much different.

Watson was promoted from Private to Lance Corporal on September 21, 1915 while fighting in Gallipoli and to Corporal on November 3. After the order to evacuate Gallipoli was delivered on December 15, Watson stood with the last Anzacs until he embarked an evacuation ship on December 20. He returned to Egypt, disembarking at Alexandria on December 29, to find he was to be promoted again, now to Sergeant at the start of 1916. 

On March 27, 1916 the call to the battlefields of France had Watson on the BEF Alexandrina, destined for the Western Front - and a week later on his way to England to recover from the first of many bouts of pneumonia.

Watson was at the Battle of Pozieres in July 1916 earning high praise for his bravery in battle as detailed by senior officers in a letter of recommendation stating: "During the consolidation of trench games, Sergeant Watson displayed great courage and leadership although his platoon was reduced from 35 to nine. He stuck to his post and did everything possible to encourage the few men left to hang on until reinforcements arrived."

After leaving training on command at a base in England, Watson was promoted to Company Sergeant Major while in battle in France on October 17, 1916. 

A month earlier, Watson was writing to his mother at Albert Park of the near scrapes he was experiencing, such as on the night of September 27, 1916 when he was part of the 10th Battalion holding positions on Hill 60 in the Ypres Salient. From a dugout, Watson and his comrades were noted for fighting "their own private war with the Germans". They were firing rifle grenades into no man's land shattering the quiet of the night. The battalion's war diary records "we annoyed the Boche during the night with rifle grenades. He retaliated but did no damage."

Watson's account to his mother again made it seem a great adventure: "I happened to look up and saw an aerial torpedo coming down and I shouted out, but it was too late to jump out down so we just ducked our heads and it landed four yards either side of us with a terrible explosion. The only damage it did was a piece of splinter, which hit Sergeant Guthrie in the shoulder. We had just got over that when another came and we jumped down and got into the tunnel and it landed right into the hole, blew the rifles and grenades to pieces and we, being in the tunnel, escaped all injuries."

With winter setting in by December, Watson was again diagnosed with a severe case of pneumonia and put on a hospital ship, the St Andrews. Rather than be taken back to England, Watson attempted to escape to rejoin his unit in France. He did so on January 19, 1917 - after being caught and taken to hospital.

Watson's last battle was on May 8, 1917 when he was seriously wounded by the shell shot from an 18-pounder fired from a Howitzer during battle at Bullecourt, France. He died on May 12 with his citation on being awarded the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the 1914-15 Star Medal reading: "Throughout his service in the war, Joseph Charles Watson displayed leadership qualities, strong mateship and outstanding bravery in extremely tough circumstances. He displayed the qualities of a true ANZAC soldier."

The Watson family lost a second son, Private Spurgeon Watson, who died of wounds suffered while in action with the 16th Battallion, 4th Infantry Brigade at the Dardanelles in May 1915.

We shall remember them.