With the close of the Great War the Church of Christ in Fremantle decided to form a sporting club with the aim of getting the young men of the district back to a normal way of life as soon as possible.The Pastor of the church, the Reverend W.R.Hibbert, was the man principally responsible for the early organisation and under his guidance a football team,a cross-country running team and a cricket team all came into being.

Mr Hibbert spent some time deciding on name for the club as he was seeking a name that would suggest a tenacity of purpose and would encourage all club members to always give of their best. After the club had been competing for twelve months under the banner of The Church of Christ Sporting Club Mr Hibbert settled on the name SPARTAN in honour of the Greek tribe of history and legend whose people had performed superhuman feats of endurance and toughness that have never been equalled.

The cricket team began playing in December 1918 and although they played on a regular basis it was in a rather loose collection of clubs playing with theThe Fremantle Matting Association which was run by the Military Garrison in Fremantle.They first entered an organised competition in November1919. Cricket, like most sports, took some time to get re-established following the horrors of the war but for the 1919-20 season there were three competitions active in the Fremantle area.These were the F&DMCA mentioned earlier, The Fremantle Matting Association and The Fremantle Churches Association with the Spartan club naturally affiliating with the latter.

Once the club was up and running the Reverend Hibbert withdrew from the club's committee being replaced as President by Mr S.Thomson JP, the Mayor of East Fremantle.The Captain of the Club was Reg Prince whose brother Victor was the secretary. Mr Hibbert was also the Founding President of the Churches Association with a Mr K.Wright as the secretary.

This association began with seven sides and in its initial season the club finished in fourth position. The results of this historic season were given a reasonable coverage in The Fremantle Times although very few individual scores received any publicity. The game results were as follows;

The club's first recorded win
1.+ Spartans defeated Scots Church
2. Spartans 91 defeated Wesley Centrals. 54 & 33
The first lose.
3.+ Spartans lost to High St East .
4. Spartans 92 & 41 defeated East Freo Methodists 86
5. Spartans 100 defeated St Johns Church 92
6. Spartans 68 & 4 for 40 defeated High St East 46 & 38
7. Spartans 7 decl 145 defeated Scots Church 40 & 41

At this stage the coverage ceased for reasons as yet unknown to resume with round 11.
11. Spartans defeated Wesley on a forfeit.
12. Spartans 43 & 63 lost to East Fremantle Athletic 110
13. Spartans 126 defeated St Johns Church 46 & 8 for 66
14. Spartans 27 defeated High st East 26 & 6 for 79
15. Spartans defeated Wesley on a forfeit
16. Spartans 108 & 8 for 61 defeated St Pauls Church 78
17. Spartans 46 & 43 lost to Scots Church 109
18. Spartans + defeated St Johns Church .

Games marked with a + only had results and not game scores published in the Times. With the team list published in the Times prior to the last game was the following priceless invitation from the Spartan Club:- " The final meeting of Spartans and St Johns takes place on Saturday when the members of both clubs are inviting their lady friends to a social afternoon. Will all lady supporters and friends please accept this as an invitation."

The ladder at the end of the qualifying round read as follows:-

Spartan's initial side was published as R.Jones ( Capt), E.Fry, E.Leach, P.Pallott, C.Saggers, R.Hilford, R.Prince, N.Pattison, J.Whittome, J.Bancroft and J.Groves. Emergencies were named these being A.Chute, E.Saggers and W.Meyers.
As can be seen by some of the scores the conditions for batsmen were not the best. Generally the wickets were coir matting strips pegged down on a rolled grass base. Until the wicket settled down with people batting and bowling on it for a while life for the batsmen early in the day must have been a very dangerous situation indeed. The F&DMCA who played on similar pitches published their averages at the end of the season and these reflect the dominance of ball over bat :-

Results of the 1920-21 season are fairly fragmented as the Spartan secretary only put the club's scores in the paper when they won! As they only won six of their eighteen games they didn't receive much publicity but the team for their first game (which was against St Pauls Beaconsfield ) was published as :- Prince ( Capt), Hilford, Whittome, Saggers, Briddick, Meyer, Bancroft, Pattison, Hicks, Gibson and Groves.

The following season, 1921-22, saw the club improve its playing standards considerably, so much so that they reached the Grand Final only to lose to the Brightons Cricket Club.

Spartans and Brighton met in the Grand final again but this time Spartans were the victors.....by one run! The highlight of the game was a hat-trick taken by the wicket-keeper Eddie Saggers to finish Brightons second innings.Brightons only needed three runs to win so Saggers was relieved of his pads to bowl the last over. His three wickets for one run snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in a most spectacular fashion. Reg Prince the captain was still boasting about his clever piece of " strategy " at the club re-union held in 1974! T.Constantine with 344 runs and W.Meyer with 69 wickets were the leading players.

The side in batting order: J.Whittome, E.Saggers, J.Brooke, T.Constantine, C.Jarvis J.Groves, R.Pepworth, W.Meyer, R.Prince, R.Kirk,B .Brooke

1923-24 resulted in a third placing with their most impressive performance coming when they dismissed Scots for 6.... six! Bill Meyer and Bub Jarvis taking the wickets. Incidentally the Spartan Football Club finished tenth out of ten teams in the Suburban Football League.

Then for various reasons the club transferred to the Senior Matting Association for the season 1924-25 season where they finished third out of six teams with their worst performance being against South Fremantle when they could only muster 23 and 20 in reply to South's 8 for 76.

At this time Fremantle was serviced by a most interesting and outspoken newspaper known as The Fremantle Advertiser, a news sheet that didn't seem to care what it said or who it might upset.An extract dated 22nd August, 1925 went as follows:-

Subsequently the club was offered training facilities at Richmond Raceway in East Fremantle.

A highlight of the 1926-27 season was a hat trick taken by the East Fremantle football legend Bub Jarvis.Bub's brother Aub took 9 for 11 and 4 for 49 in the semi-final against St Peters but to no avail as St Peters won the game.

1927-28 and 1928-29 saw the standards of the Churches decline as it became more a competition for junior players and so on October 17th, 1929 Spartans joined The Fremantle and Districts Mercantile Cricket Association.