A rusted bayonet recovered from the fields of France sticks out as unusual amongst decades' worth of priceless St Kilda memorabilia.
But it is perhaps one of the more pertinent treasures belonging to the St Kilda Heritage Museum, gifted to the club by the Mayor of Pozières in 2014 in recognition of two former Saints who never made it home.
The footballing careers of John (Jack) P. Walker and Jim Farnan didn't overlap.
Farnan played one senior game for the Saints in 1899, while Walker played four games over a decade later.
Farnan grew up in South Melbourne and was 40 years old when he enlisted in 1915; Walker, a Moorabbin boy, was just 22.
It's unlikely the pair ever actually met, but their joint sacrifice in the name of their country means their stories are now intertwined forever.
Members of the 8th and 46th Australian Infantry Battalions respectively, Sergeant Walker and Private Farnan's military service coincides when both Battalions were called up to join the fighting at Pozières.
One of the major combats in the infamous 1916 Battle of the Somme, it heralded the start of one of the deadliest single conflicts for Australian soldiers to date.
The Battle of Pozières took place at the small French village of the same name and the surrounding ridge, a place which has been described by renowned Australian historian Charles Bean as “more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth”.
And it was in this unimaginably brutal battle where Sergeant Jack Walker and Private James Farnan would lay down their lives for their country.
They were killed less than two weeks apart.
HONOUR ROLL: Saints to Soldiers
Walker’s final resting place is not known, and he is commemorated at Villers-Brettonneux, while Farnan is buried at the Pozières British Cemetery in France.
Their names are commemorated at the Australian War Memorial and RSEA Park in Moorabbin.
This Remembrance Day, we remember Jack, Jim and the other 23 Saints who gave up their lives so that we may continue to live ours freely, and we pay our respects to the 286 ex-St Kilda footballers who served in the two world wars.
St Kilda Football Club Honour Roll
Paul Bell (d. Balikpapan, 1945)
Arthur Caldwell (d. Malta, 1918)
Harry Comte (d. Tarakan Island, 1945)
Claude Crowl (d. Gallipoli, 1914)
Adam de Ross (d. France, 1917)
Bill Downie (d. Japan, 1943)
Jim Farnan (d. Pozières, 1916)
Bob Flegg (d. Feuersbrunn, 1944)
Horace Griffin (d. France, 1916)
Lou Holmes (d. Gallipoli, 1915)
Bill Hudson (d. New Guinea, 1945)
Stuart King (d. Coral Sea, 1943)
Otto Lowenstern (d. France, 1917)
Bill Madden (d. Bullecourt, 1917)
Paddy McGuinness (d. Le Treport, 1918)
Wallace Mills (d. Babinda, 1943)
Hector Mitchell (d. Singapore, 1917)
Bert O’Connell (d. Broodseinde Ridge, 1917)
Harold Parker (d. Lille, 1917)
Hugh Plowman (d. Fleurbaix, 1917)
Beres Reilly (d. Crete, 1943)
Albert Roberts (d. New Guinea, 1942)
Ralph Robertson (d. Aboukir, 1917)
John T. Shelton (d. Tobruk, 1941)
John P. Walker (d. Pozières, 1916)
