Other relevant books by Matt Zurbo

I Love Footy (Windy Hollow Books)

Echo PublishingA division of Bonnier Publishing Australia 534 Church Street, RichmondVictoria 3121 Australiawww.echopublishing.com.au

Copyright © Matt Zurbo, 2016All rights reserved. Echo Publishing thank you for buying an autho-rised edition of this book. In doing so, you are supporting writers and enabling Echo Publishing to publish more books and foster new talent. Thank you for complying with copyright laws by not using any part of this book without our prior written permission, including reproducing, storing in a retrieval system, transmitting in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or distributing.

First published 2016Edited by Rob BathPage design and typesetting by Shaun JuryCover design by Josh Durham, Design by CommitteeFront cover illustration by Jamie Cooper, JCAP AustraliaThe cover image features a 20 × 15 cm pencil and ink wash sketch of Gavin Wanganeen. The artist depicted him on the burst in the midst of a powerful electric storm on a cold winter night. It was created as part of a visual concept proposal put together for his retirement.

Typeset in Sabon and Kievit

Printed in Australia at Griffin Press.Only wood grown from sustainable regrowth forests is used in the manufacture of paper found in this book.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available on request.

@echo_publishing @echo_publishing facebook.com/echopublishingAU

This book is dedicated to . . . Pete Featherstone

Otway Districts FNCLilydale FCThe Bats FC

Robbie Flower, Tom Hafeyand anyone who ever pulled on a boot.

Publisher’s NoteThe vast majority of the content of this book comprises direct-speech quotations from taped conversations with 170 interviewees, recorded in hundreds of sessions at various locations over several years – and transcribed by 11 different people using various devices and programs. You will find visual variety in the printed record of speech as no attempt has been made to correct bad grammar or improve sentence construction, or clean up salty language. We play it as it lays.

Contents

Two footballers talking . . . 1

1 After the bloodbath 3Billy Williams 3

2 First kick 11Toy soldiers 18

3 Beginnings 19The final word on beginnings . . . 25

4 Recruiting 26Ten days in jail 35

5 First game 37

6 Small Towns 45Russell ‘Hooker’ Renfrey 45

7 Training 55

8 1900s–40s 5940s Grand Finals 65Players on players 40s 68Jack Dyer 6940s – The moments 70

9 The 1950s 7450s Grand Finals 9450s – The moments 100Players on players 50s 106John Coleman 107

10 Injuries 111

11 Violence 117Neville Bruns on Leigh Matthews 127

12 Supporters 131Kevin Murray – Keeping in touch 138

13 The 1960s 140One game – Denis Hughson 140Gentleman champion – Ken Fraser 142Vietnam – Keith Gent 150The fringe player – Owen Madigan 15460s Clubs 16260s Grand Finals 183Players on players 60s 194Players on Norm Smith 19760s – The moments 198Len Smith’s notes 204Graham Cornes on Vietnam 205Rivalries 60s 206Norm and Len Smith 208

14 The 1970s 20970s Grand Finals 236Players on players 70s 252Graeme Richmond – Powerbroker, 60s–80s 257Keith Greig – North Melbourne dual Brownlow winner 259Brent Crosswell – Tiger 260Vinnie Catoggio on Brian Douge 261Dennis Munari on Slug Jordon 262Vinnie Catoggio on David Parkin 26370s – The moments 263Percy and Gags 270The Windy Hill brawl 271Rivalries 70s 272Knights versus Vander Haar 274

15 Grounds 276

16 Indigenous affairs 281

17 Interstate Footy 286

18 Religion 292The Holy Grail 293

19 The club soldier 295Ian Patton 295

20 The crowd favourite 308Robbie Flower 308

21 The defender 318Mark Yeates 318

22 The game changer 332Silvio Foschini 332

23 The legend 339Ron Barassi 339

24 The 1980s 35180s Grand Finals 388Players on players 80s 398Doug Hawkins 402Kevin Sheedy 403Stewart Loewe on Warren Jones 405Lazar Vidovic on Tony Liberatore 40680s – The moments 40780s Pagan’s Under 19s 413Ken Hunter on depression 415The Battle of Britain 416Rivalries 80s 417

25 The 1990s 419Essendon 90s 429Fitzroy 90s 43290s Grand Finals 460Players on players 90s 472Mick Martyn on Tony Liberatore 479Wayne Schimmelbusch on Wayne Carey 479Coach on coaches – Stan Alves, St Kilda 48090s – The moments 481Steroids 486Rivalries 487Western Derbies 488

26 The Hard Man 490Andy Goodwin 490

27 Broken bones 502Matt Febey 502

28 The rubber man 511Gavin Wanganeen 511

29 Family 518Michael O’Loughlin 523

30 Philosophies 524

31 Media 533KROCK 536

32 That bit extra 538Damian Monkhorst – Maybe not Plugger 542

33 Pay 543

34 The 2000s 5462000s Grand Finals 576Players on players 00s 5932000s – The moments 597Bali 602Rivalries 00s 604Showdowns 604

35 The 2010s 60610s Grand Finals 628Players on players 10s 63210s – The moments 634Peptides 638

36 Premierships 640

37 Work and family 643Mark Ricciuto 643

38 The mature recruit 651Dean Towers 651

39 Ablett – Senior versus Junior 658

40 The Brownlow 660Tommy Hafey on the medal 663

41 Umpires 664

42 International football 666

43 Retiring 670Scott Cummings – Shot bodies 673

44 The modern game 675

45 A nation’s game 678Allen Aylett 678

46 What footy means 688The question: 688The answers: 688

They played footy . . . 692Key 692

Acknowledgements 704

1

Two footballers talking . . . There I was, standing in Melbourne’s suburbs, on the porch of dual North premiership back pocket, Ross Henshaw, six pack in hand. Next thing I knew, I was in Adelaide, having lunch with Mark bloody Ricciuto! Getting ripping drunk with Mark Yeates; visiting Francis Bourke and Ken Fraser; hanging out at a Perth café with Shaun McManus, standing in front of the great Noel McMahen, Ken Hands and John Kennedy Senior. Eating lunch with Vinnie Catoggio, talking forever with Simon Black . . .

All up, about 171 players. My pitch was simple, because it was true, always:

I’m a bush worker from North-east Tassie who writes at times and is currently playing his thirty-third season of senior footy. I’m sick to death of reading the history of the VFL and AFL according to historians, journalists, spin doctors, ghostwriters. I want to compile a book that’s entirely, one-hundred per cent in the words of the players and coaches that were actually out there – one to four players from each generation of each club, from the 1940s to now – getting not only great personal stories but a sense of a club’s culture. And of the game: what’s changed, what’s stayed the same.

A history drenched in the mud and blood of footy. The glory and the heartache. Its honesty. The stories. No notes, no agendas; just two footballers talking, often for hours.

Then it was as simple as working my arse off in the bush, to pay for three years of trekking across the country to meet all these blokes; to convince the famous ones to tell me something real; to convince the not-so-famous they had every damn bloody right to be in a book alongside Roos and Sheedy and Skilton and Barassi.

I’ve spent most of my nearly 600 games so far as a backman with, I guess, a backman’s mentality. A book full of Brownlow winners and 300-gamers would be boring. They’re a huge

CHAMPIONS ALL

2

part of footy’s story, but only a part. I wanted a book about football. All of it. Aussie Rules at its top level. The legends, but also the rugged back-pockets, the blokes cut down by injury, careers cut short by Vietnam, the silk, the grunt, the gentlemen, the thugs, the cult figures, the supporters, the families, the grounds, their smells, the anger. The top teams, the wooden spooners. Life stories. The book is about people.

Often two players would have totally different opinions of the same event, coach or fellow player. Neither would be wrong. The view of some players by their fellow players is not always what’s thrust on us by the media. The stuff many books miss, but makes history real – the unsung heroes and hilarious backroom tales – were everywhere. Listening to and trading stories as any bloke would tell them . . . to me that’s history. That’s footy.

The main thing I had to say to each of these strangers, a few I’m lucky enough to now call mates, was: ‘I’m doing this book out of love and respect for the game’.

Now it’s done I’m happy to go back to bush work, the odd farm job and to keep playing bush footy until the body finally packs up. Which hopefully will be never.

VFL/AFL footy is a thing of dreams, broken dreams, adventure, pain, incredible sacrifice. Anyone who’s played even one game at that level is a champion.

Matt Zurbo

3

1

After the bloodbath

Billy WilliamsI grew up in Newport, which was a wharfie suburb back then, during the War, and before that the Depression. There was no Westgate bridge. My father steered the punt across the Yarra, floating cars to and from work, mostly in industrial Port Melbourne. He did that for forty years. We called it a ferry, even though it was pretty much a float on a cable, he had to have a sea captain’s license. The middle of the river, where all the tanker ships came in, was considered international waters.

My father never liked football. He banned me from playing. But I loved it, almost from when I was in nappies. Football, football, football. I used to sneak over the back fence and train and play for Spotswood without him knowing. Then sneak back over again. He never watched a game throughout my career, which was a pity.

Growing up, I was very good mates with Billy Hutchison, the Essendon rover. He was a great player. Brownlows, premierships, the works. We went to school together in Williamstown, and hung out and got into trouble and had fun. Then, when I went to Spotswood to play junior footy, there was Charlie Sutton! The western suburbs were just great like that. Full of talent.

Charlie Sutton should have played for South, but the year he was ready for league football his family ‘conveniently’ moved to Yarraville! Footscray’s area.

I had a run around with Carlton when I was a kid, but didn’t like it. They were clicky. They all seemed to go against the new boys. I was still zoned to South. After that I had no problems with South when they said they wouldn’t let me go. I went down to the Lakeside Oval. And that’s where it started.

The first time I ran out on the training track with all those legends, Laurie Nash, Jim Cleary, Herbie Matthews, Jack

CHAMPIONS ALL

4

Graham – he was known as Gentleman Jim – Oh, it was marvellous! There were lots of good kids. I felt pretty lucky to get my shot. A lot of the players were fit due to most of them working hard, physical labour for 45 hours a week. It helped their football.

When you stripped down to train and ran out onto that ground, the South men were that good with one another. They were terrific people. I’d go to put on my training socks and they’d replaced them with socks with holes in them! (laughs) They’d all laugh, and I would too. As a kid, that stuff meant they were acknowledging me.

They couldn’t do that with my jock straps. They already had holes in them!

There were twelve suburban grounds back then, but I loved playing at Lakeside Oval. It was a beautiful ground. The lake, the grandstand.

Big Jack Graham was playing his last year when I arrived. He was a good knock ruckman and great mark. Strong. He wouldn’t clear a path for me, he’d get it himself! Bull Adams was the coach. He had played for Melbourne. He was a hard man, oh, shit yeah! He only told a boy once. If the boy didn’t do it, he was out.

One day, in the rooms at training, I asked Laurie Nash who he thought the greatest footballer was. He said, ‘I see him every day when I’m having a shave.’ (laughs)

I had barracked for Carlton as a kid. I’d go to watch them. All the players worked Saturday mornings. They’d catch the tram to the football with their kit bag. All us boys would rush up and say, ‘Mr Deacon! Can I take your kit bag?’, ‘Mr Savage!’ ‘Mr Mooring!’ We’d compete to be the one who carried it in for them.

We’d take it as far as the rooms, and the players, they got to know our names after a while. They’d scruff our hair and say, ‘Thank you Harry’, or ‘Thanks Leon’. My favourite player was Bob Chitty. Every week I’d run up and grab his kit bag and proudly walk beside Bob, get to the rooms and hand it to him. ‘Thanks little Billy.’

Off he’d go and play the game, and flatten someone. My

After the bloodbAth

5

first year in league football I was 19, we made the Grand Final and Bob knocked me out in the first quarter.

It was a very wet and muddy day. Bob Chitty came in with the elbow and that was it. That was the start of the violence. The Bloodbath, they called it. It was very sad.

Each team only had 19 back then, and we were already down a player. I had to stay in the forward pocket. I had no idea where I was. Then, soon, the same thing happened to poor Ron Clegg, Bob again, and he was put in the other forward pocket.

We were actually favourites. Big favourites. But we were bigger and slower than them. Clegg and I were the youngest. Our pace was important. We were both out of the game by half time and the scores will show, Carlton ran over us.

We had our own tough man. Jack ‘Basher’ Williams. He flattened Chitty. He evened up. But it was too late. The damage was done.

The reason, I think, the fights broke out in the crowd was it was just after World War II. The MCG still had American soldiers camping there so the game was played at Princes Park. All the South supporters, including a lot of ex-servicemen, had put a lot of money on us, and all the bookies were from Carlton. When Ron and I went down our supporters thought there might have been something between Carlton and the bookies. Whether there was or not, who knows? As the game slipped away, the fights around the ground were as bad as they were on the oval.

That was Chitty’s last season. He would have died not knowing the bloke he flattened was the same kid that would always carry his kit bag for him. I would have liked to have mentioned it.

Half way through that year Carlton were seventh or eighth. Then they started winning a whole lot of games towards the end of the year. It came down to the last round. Carlton were just out of the four. South were trailing Footscray all day. Then I got a kick in the forward pocket and slotted the goal. We got up! Thanks to that, Carlton scraped into the four ahead of Footscray and got home ground advantage and beat us in

CHAMPIONS ALL

6

the Grand Final. It was my fault! (laughs) The Bloodbath was my fault!

When I was doing my apprenticeship nobody had cars. I used to ride on my pushbike from Newport to Sunshine and back every day. The roads were rough then, it was some distance.

I was a fitter and turner. I played for my Works. All the factories used to have teams. You couldn’t get a job unless you fronted for them. We’d play each other on Wednesdays, at Richmond, Spotty, Yarraville . . . And VLF on Saturdays. Those games were lots tougher that for South Melbourne. Some of them blokes didn’t care if they killed you! The umpires didn’t help much, either. The had themselves to look after. For three years I played two games a week. For my Works and South Melbourne.

It took until I was 26 to get a car. Going to the games on the trains or trams, if you were surrounded by your mob it was okay, a bit of fun. But if you were surrounded by the other lot it was endless banter.

I didn’t drink so we never really went to the functions. It was hard for Maude, raising two young kids, there was a long time she couldn’t come to the football.

I wasn’t a fighter, but I chatted a bit. I was cheeky. If the umpires were wrong, I’d tell ’em! Didn’t get as many votes as I should. (laughs)

I got to met Bob Pratt. He had a falling out with the club, but came back in ’46 for one more year. We played a few games together. He was everything any other forward was. He was past his best, but in his day, oh, he could leap! He’d kick 100–120 goals and 90 points. If he was straighter he would have got 200. Imagine if he’d never spent those years away from South Melbourne!

While playing for South I got a fish & chip shop in Port Melbourne. The two were sort of affiliated. Both dockside suburbs. We put a photo of me playing in the window. It did a roaring business. On Friday’s there’d be a queue to get into the place. Billy William’s Fish & Chip Shop! There were no drink-driving laws then. The truck drivers would stop in with

After the bloodbAth

7

their longnecks. Port was always tough. It all depended on how you got along. I never judged anybody, and had no problems.

There was a great rivalry between the Port Melbourne Football Club and Williamstown in those days. As big as anything in the VFL. We had all the painters and dockers, they had all the seaside workers. Their clashes were rugged!

Punt Road Oval was a nice oval to play on, but Richmond’s supporters were all mad. The supporters from every club were mad. It was marvellous! They’ll do anything for ya.

I was walking to Punt Road to have a game against Richmond, when a car pulls up. It’s Jack Dyer. He says, ‘Get in Bill, or you’ll be late for the footy!’ He won me on that. I never forgot it. I made sure I kept out of his way on the oval though. The big policeman, he’d knock anyone! (laughs)

I guess I was known for my stab kicks. I’d try and drill it into them. One day Freddy Goldsmith kept dropping them. I said, ‘That’s it for you Freddy!’ (laughs) Not long after that he went to fullback and won a Brownlow!

He was a Spotty Boy, like me, too. So was John Heriot. When you think of it, one little industrial suburb – yet it had three players in the Swans Team of the Century. That’s not including Billy Hutchison and Charlie Sutton. It was such a strong club.

There was a divide between Catholics and Protestants at South. Not as bad as it was before the war. Marge was Catholic and I wasn’t. That’s why we didn’t baptise out children, so they could grow up to be whatever they wanted in life. The religious thing happened in most footy clubs as far as I know, but it wasn’t an issue for me, I barely noticed because I steered well clear of it.

My teammate, Basher Williams, was the same. We used to say we were brothers because we had he same surname. ‘Big brother, little brother.’ He was twice my size. A huge man. Basher did boxing, he was a nasty bugger . . . Even at training, he said, ‘Billy, you get in my way out there and I’ll kill you!’. If the ball came between us, I’d step back and let him have it! (laughs) During games he was the one who always looked after me.

CHAMPIONS ALL

8

Off the field, he was a thorough gentleman. We all swore like sailors, but if you did in front of a woman, he’d challenge you! I stayed friends with him right up until he died. Every team had a really tough player like Basher. Some had three or four.

I had concussion several times due to whacks behind the ball. Lou Richards wasn’t one of my favourites, and didn’t he know it! He got away with a lot. He was a dirty little footballer. Tapping ankles and stuff. Whacks in packs when you weren’t looking. He was always sucking up to the umpire, talking to them so they wouldn’t report him. He was a clever little boy.

Playing at Victoria Park, no-one seemed to beat them. They had all these brothers! (laughs) The Thomeys and Richards and Roses.

Bernie Smith from Geelong was always hard to play on. He won a Brownlow, and deserved it. He ended up being my teammate in state footy.

When I played for Victoria we would take the train and play in South Australia, then keep going to West Australia. They were one, two week trips. Sometimes I’d be wing, sometimes rover. I kept getting in the team, played about ten games, so mustn’t have been too bad. Bobby Rose, Bobby Davis, Ron Clegg, Billy Hutchison, Charlie Sutton, John Coleman, Allan Ruthven, Bernie Smith, there were some great names in those games.

I played against and with some of the greatest rovers ever. Ruthven was the best to me. From Fitzroy, the Gorillas. The Baron they called him. Baron Ruthven. South Australia beat us once. It wasn’t easy. The games were genuine.

You couldn’t afford to travel back then, not on a factory job and five pound a week match payment. Brisbane, West Australia, Tasmania, I was so lucky. Playing for Victoria let me see the country.

I stopped playing for South when I was 26–27. I wanted a bit of money out of football. I’d been there seven years, I had to think of my family. It’s just the way it was in those days. I went to Williamstown as a playing coach in a swap with a policeman called Billy Young. We stayed close to home, in the wharf suburbs. Williamstown was good, but my wife, Maude,

After the bloodbAth

9

got rheumatic fever. When she got out of hospital the doctors advised we move away from the sea.

Our family went to Pyramid Hill. Talk about the bush – the township would have only had 600 people. I was playing footy there, but there was no money, I was going to leave. The pub’s lease had come up, but nobody wanted it. So eight local farmers put in several hundred pounds each, a lot of money, and offered it as a loan, so I could buy the lease and stay. For the next thirty years I worked in hotels. That’s where I learned to drink! (laughs)

It was a great start in life, through football.I was lucky in my time at South. I was only there for seven

years, yet managed to win three best and fairests and two goal kicking awards as a rover. Up there with Bobby Pratt! (laughs)

When South went to Sydney we were all very much against it. Bill Collins led the Keep South at South movement. I pitched in however I could. Half the players wanted to go and half didn’t. Only social club members could vote. There would have only been three hundred. Two hundred or so would have been against it. When the vote came down, there were all these votes from people with Sydney addresses. The supporters had no say in it. Whether it was business interests, the league, or the club itself behind that, South moved to Sydney.

For the first four or five years they ignored their history. They even talked about changing their jumper to NSW colours, two blues. They would have lost everybody in Melbourne. Fortunately, they didn’t. And gradually started turning things around. Now, they’re just fantastic.

At the start of 2006 Sydney flew Freddy Goldsmith and I up to present the jumpers to the players at a big function. It was a great night.

Later that year the team made the Grand Final. Sydney were so good to us. They gave Maude and I complimentary seats and tickets to the after game function. We got to meet the players. The Sydney Swans have been just terrific! Hand written Christmas cards every year, even a get well letter for Maude when she was crook. They have fans for life with all my family.

CHAMPIONS ALL

10

Once they started recognising their history they started winning.

What sums up the South Melbourne supporters was when I got a pub, the Morning Star, long after I’d finished playing there, they would all still come in at least once a week. Smokey Clegg in the back room, playing his ukulele, Bobby Skilton’s dad – Bobby Senior, Laurie Nash, a handful of South officials.

When they announced the Swans Team of the Century the club flew us up to Sydney. I went to the toilet when it was announced! Everybody’s standing and clapping and I’m in the dunny. I found out when someone congratulated me in the toilets! (laughs)

They had a book with all our history, everybody was getting signatures. I looked around at Bobby’s table, and Bedford’s table. I had the biggest queue by a long way! Being the oldest, they all wanted to get my autograph before I carked it!

Me, little Billy Williams.