Sixteen years ago today Anzac Day football came to the SCG for the first time.

It was Friday, Apri 25, 2003 as the Sydney Swans, coached for the 15^th time by Paul Roos and captained for the fifth time by Stuart Maxfield, hosted Melbourne on the day when Australia stops to remember the thousands of people who have given their lives for the country.

The Swans had played 10 times previously on Anzac Day but never at the SCG.

And now, with 13 Anzac Day games in the history books, the Round 5, 2003 encounter remains the only time the SCG has hosted football on this very special day.

The AFL, having established the now traditional Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day fixture in 1995, scheduled an evening game at the SCG to make it a football double feature. It started at 6:15pm and drew a crowd of 24,286.

It was a memorable day for all concerned with the club, but none more so than James Meiklejohn.

The 18-year-old ruckman - originally from Tuggeranong in Canberra, as well as the ACT/NSW Rams - made his AFL debut. He wore jumper number 43.

It was the jumper which 251-game Swan Mark Browning had worn in his first four years and 77 games with the club, and which Dale Lewis and Scott Direen had also introduced themselves to the AFL. And it was the jumper, too, in which current Swans Dane Rampe and Lewis Melican would play their first AFL games.

Meiklejohn would play only six games for the club before captaining the Port Adelaide Magpies in the SANFL but will forever hold special his debut.

It was also a special day for Rowan Warfe, who had played his first three years and 26 games in the AFL with Fitzroy before moving to Sydney when he was overlooked in the Fitzroy-Brisbane Bears merger that formed the Brisbane Lions in 1997.

Warfe played his 74^th game for the Swans and his 100^th AFL game.

It was 12^th-placed Sydney, with a 1-3 start to the season, against 11^th-placed Melbourne at 2-2.

Melbourne, a semi-finalist in 2002, led by 20 points at three-quarter time at 10.6 to 7.4. But the Swans, almost as if drawing on the spirit of those who had fallen, produced a stunning seven-goal final term to all but double their score and win 17.7 (109) to 13.7 (85).

Adam Goodes was judged best afield with 18 disposals and a goal and collected three Brownlow Medal votes, while Jude Bolton (24 disposals, one goal) and Melbourne’s Travis Johnstone (21 touches) also fired.

Daryn Cresswell (26 possessions) and Bolton (24) led the Swans' possession count, while Michael O’Loughlin, Adam Schneider and Nick Davis each kicked three goals. David Neitz bagged six goals for the Demons.

It was the start of a four-game winning streak for the emerging Swans, who would finish the home-and-away season fourth on the ladder at 14-8 and beat minor premier Port Adelaide in the qualifying final before falling to eventual premier Brisbane in the preliminary final.

History tells us Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the campaign in 1915 that led to major casualties for Australian and New Zealand troops during World War 1.

Australian and New Zealand soldiers had formed part of an Allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies.

The objective was to capture Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which was an ally of Germany during the way.

Landing at Gallipoli on April 25, they met fierce resistance and what had been intended to be bold, quick strike to knock the Ottomans out of the war became a stalemate that lasted eight months.

At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties.

According to official reports, the allied death toll exceeded 56,000, including 8709 Australians and 2721 New Zealanders.

News of the tragic losses had a profound effect on Australians and New Zealanders at home, and April 25 quickly became the day on which they remembered those who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

For a long time the question of what to do with football and Anzac Day was not an issue because the competition started after April 25.

Not until 1937 did the league regularly begin earlier, and not until 1953 did Anzac Day fall on a Saturday, which at the time was the day all football was played.

In 1953 and 1959, when Anzac Day fell on a Saturday, the league scheduled an all-teams bye.

For the first time in 1960, football celebrated the occasion with two games on Monday, April 25, when Fitzroy beat Carlton at Brunswick Street Oval and Melbourne beat St Kilda at Junction Oval.

In 1961 the Swans played their first Anzac Day game against Richmond at Punt Road, winning 12.17 (89) to 6.9 (45). Coach Bill Faul, a 117-game half-back flanker from 1932-1938 and a Swans Team of the Century member, debuted 19-year-old John Carlile, and 21-year-old Barry Hannon and Neil Lewthwaite, in a side in which a 22-year-old Bob Skilton played his 82^nd game.

The trio played 15 games in total for the Swans and none beyond 1961, but will forever be a part of club history as the first three Anzac Day debutants.

Of the Swans’ first Anzac Day side only Skilton (237 games), John Heriot (153), Brian McGowan (118), Hugh McLaughlin (116) and Ken McCormack (108) had played 100 games for the club, but nobody went on to play for another club.

In 1963 South Melbourne lost to Richmond on Anzac Day Thursday by 23 points under second-year coach Noel McMahen. Fred Rees played his only senior game and Bob Strachan the first of seven, as Swans Team of the Century champion John Rantall and 119-gamer Paul Harrison played their second games.

In 1964 a full round of six matches was played on a Saturday Anzac Day. South kicked 8.0 to 4.0 in the final quarter to beat Fitzroy by 23 points at Brunswick Street. Skilton kicked six goals and Max Papley, grandfather of Tom Papley playing the second of his 56 games for the club, kicked an equal career-best five goals. Ted Collings played his only game.

In 1970 there was another full round of Saturday games on Anzac Day. South beat Footscray by 17 points at Waverley under coach Norm Smith in Skilton’s 201^st game.

In 1977, when statistics were kept for a Swans Anzac Day game for the first time, David McLeish topped the count with 24 disposals in a 27-point Monday loss to Geelong at Waverley. David Young, later to play 44 games for the Swans and 18 for Collingwood including the 1980 Grand Final, made his debut under coach Ian Stewart.

In 1979 the Swans lost by 94 points to Hawthorn in a Wednesday Anzac Day game at Waverley. At the time the Hawthorn score of 29.15 (189) was the highest the club had conceded as Michael Moncrieff kicked nine goals and ex-Swan Norm Goss kicked five.

Jon Hummel, recruited from Richmond and later to play for Collingwood, made the first of 14 appearances for the Swans and had a career-best 26 possessions to better McLeish’s record. In his fourth game for the Swans Brownlow Medallist Len Thompson kicked four goals, an equal personal best in his 20 games for the club.

In 1981 Team of the Century ruckman Barry Round had a day out as South Melbourne beat Footscray by 62 points in a Saturday Anzac Day game at Lake Oval. In his 241^st game Round had 34 disposals to better the Hummel record and kicked four goals. Eighteen-year-old Anthony Daniher, later to play 115 games for the Swans and 118 games for Essendon, made his debut.

In 1987 the Swans beat Richmond by 20 points at the MCG under coach Tom Hafey as five games were played on a Saturday Anzac Day. Warwick Capper kicked seven goals, a club record on Anzac Day, and Barry Mitchell four goals. Greg Williams had 31 disposals.

After the now traditional Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day game in 1995 finished in a draw it wasn’t until 1999 that the Swans featured again on the country’s special day.

It was a Sunday and they lost by 81 points to Adelaide at Football Park under Rodney Eade. Captain Paul Kelly had 33 disposals and kicked three goals, Daniel McPherson played his 50^th game, and 19-year-old Nic Fosdike, later to play 164 games for the club including the 2005 premiership, made his debut with Simon Feast (14 games).

Since the first Anzac Day game at the SCG in 2003 the Swans have played three more Anzac Day games away from home.

In 2009 they played Fremantle at Subiaco in one of four Saturday Anzac Day games. It was Brett Kirk’s 200^th game for the club and sadly they lost by 21 points under coach Roos. Bolton (28) and Kirk (27) led the possession count and Goodes kicked three goals. It was also Craig Bolton’s 150^th game for the club.

In 2013, in a landmark day for the code, the first match for premiership points was played overseas. It was a Thursday Anzac Day and after the traditional Collingwood-Essendon afternoon game at the MCG, the Swans faced St Kilda in Wellington, New Zealand, which was beamed back into Australia.

The Swans won 11.13 (79) to 9.9 (63) in the first of three games played in Wellington in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Dan Hannebery had 30 possessions, McVeigh played his 199^th game, Rampe played his third game and Ted Richards picked up the first of only two three-vote Brownlow Medal rankings in red and white.

And in 2015, when five games were played on a Saturday Anzac Day, Sydney lost by 14 points to Fremantle at Subiaco. Hannebery had 31 possessions in Isaac Heeney’s fourth AFL game.