EVERY
PLAYER
HAS A STORY
Anyone involved in football
has their own story.’
MALCOLM BLIGHT
One hundred and seventy one of the game’s greatest players
and coaches, characters, cult heroes, clubmen and battlers... each
telling his life story, the stories of their teams, teammates and times.
From the 1940s to now – a warts-and-all book, giving an inside
look into the blood and guts and inner workings of footy through
stories big and small, and the determination and courage it
takes to be involved.
MATT ZURBO is a forest worker and writer, who has
played over 600 games of footy, in mountains, coasts and
cities across three states. He has spent three years tracking
down and sharing stories with the legends of the game.
Visit our website
www.echopublishing.com.au
Champions_FULLCOVER_2.indd 1
‘Great idea – 171 players and their stories!
History often looks different from
the inside.’ L E O B A R RY
MATT
ZURBO
INCLUDES: RICCIUTO, ROOS, SIMON
BLACK, PETRIE, DEMPSTER, OTTENS,
WANGANEEN, SIMON MADDEN, TONY
SHAW, DOUGIE HAWKINS, MARTIN PIKE,
KEN HUNTER, BLIGHT, BARASSI, FRANCIS
BOURKE, KEVIN MURRAY, THROROLD
MERRETT, SKILTON, WADE, BARRY BREEN,
KEN FRASER, THE LATE ROBBIE FLOWER
AND TOMMY HAFEY, WORSFOLD, DON
SCOTT, JOHN KENNEDY SR, KEN HANDS,
MCMAHEN, SHEEDY, ZANOTTI, KINK,
ROBBIE MCGHIE, CATOGGIO, GROVER,
MCMANUS, BYRON PICKETT, MATT
SPANGHER, GLEN JAKOVICH, PHIL DAVIS...
CHAMPIONS
ALL A HISTORY
OF AFL/VFL
FOOTBALL IN
THE PLAYER’S
OWN WORDS
Funny, harsh, heartbreaking, inspiring… the highs, lows,
controversies, famous victories and narrow losses, grand finals
and hard-fought games on forgotten, muddy ovals… this is the
history of football as seen, not by spin doctors or journalists,
but entirely in the words of those who were out there playing.
CHAMPIONS
ALL A HISTORY
OF AFL/VFL
FOOTBALL
IN THE
PLAYERS’
OWN
WORDS
SPORT
MATT
ZURBO
29/06/2016 4:48 PM
Other relevant books by Matt Zurbo
I Love Footy (Windy Hollow Books)
Echo Publishing
A division of Bonnier Publishing Australia
534 Church Street, Richmond
Victoria 3121 Australia
www.echopublishing.com.au
Copyright © Matt Zurbo, 2016
All rights reserved. Echo Publishing thank you for buying an authorised 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 2016
Edited by Rob Bath
Page design and typesetting by Shaun Jury
Cover design by Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Front cover illustration by Jamie Cooper, JCAP Australia
The 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 FNC
Lilydale FC
The Bats FC
Robbie Flower, Tom Hafey
and anyone who ever pulled on a boot.
Publisher’s Note
The 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
1After the bloodbath
Billy Williams
3
3
2 First kick
Toy soldiers
11
18
3Beginnings
The final word on beginnings . . . 19
25
4 Recruiting
Ten days in jail
26
35
5First game
37
6 Small Towns
Russell ‘Hooker’ Renfrey
45
45
7Training
55
8 1900s–40s
40s Grand Finals
Players on players 40s
Jack Dyer
40s – The moments
59
65
68
69
70
9 The 1950s
50s Grand Finals
50s – The moments
Players on players 50s
John Coleman
74
94
100
106
107
10 Injuries111
11 Violence117
Neville Bruns on Leigh Matthews
127
12 Supporters131
Kevin Murray – Keeping in touch138
13 The 1960s140
One game – Denis Hughson
140
Gentleman champion – Ken Fraser
142
Vietnam – Keith Gent
150
The fringe player – Owen Madigan
154
60s Clubs
162
60s Grand Finals
183
Players on players 60s
194
Players on Norm Smith
197
60s – The moments
198
Len Smith’s notes
204
Graham Cornes on Vietnam
205
Rivalries 60s
206
Norm and Len Smith
208
14 The 1970s209
70s Grand Finals
236
Players on players 70s
252
Graeme Richmond – Powerbroker, 60s–80s
257
Keith Greig – North Melbourne dual Brownlow winner 259
Brent Crosswell – Tiger
260
Vinnie Catoggio on Brian Douge
261
Dennis Munari on Slug Jordon
262
Vinnie Catoggio on David Parkin
263
70s – The moments
263
Percy and Gags
270
The Windy Hill brawl
271
Rivalries 70s
272
Knights versus Vander Haar
274
15 Grounds276
16 Indigenous affairs281
17 Interstate Footy286
18 Religion292
The Holy Grail293
19 The club soldier295
Ian Patton
295
20 The crowd favourite308
Robbie Flower
308
21 The defender318
Mark Yeates
318
22 The game changer332
Silvio Foschini
332
23 The legend339
Ron Barassi
339
24 The 1980s351
80s Grand Finals
388
Players on players 80s
398
Doug Hawkins
402
Kevin Sheedy
403
Stewart Loewe on Warren Jones
405
Lazar Vidovic on Tony Liberatore
406
80s – The moments
407
80s Pagan’s Under 19s
413
Ken Hunter on depression
415
The Battle of Britain
416
Rivalries 80s
417
25 The 1990s419
Essendon 90s
429
Fitzroy 90s
432
90s Grand Finals
460
Players on players 90s
472
Mick Martyn on Tony Liberatore
479
Wayne Schimmelbusch on Wayne Carey
479
Coach on coaches – Stan Alves, St Kilda
480
90s – The moments
481
Steroids486
Rivalries487
Western Derbies
488
26 The Hard Man490
Andy Goodwin
490
27 Broken bones502
Matt Febey
502
28 The rubber man511
Gavin Wanganeen
511
29 Family518
Michael O’Loughlin523
30 Philosophies524
31 Media533
KROCK536
32 That bit extra538
Damian Monkhorst – Maybe not Plugger
542
33 Pay543
34 The 2000s546
2000s Grand Finals
576
Players on players 00s
593
2000s – The moments
597
Bali602
Rivalries 00s
604
Showdowns604
35 The 2010s606
10s Grand Finals
628
Players on players 10s
632
10s – The moments
634
Peptides638
36 Premierships640
37 Work and family643
Mark Ricciuto
643
38 The mature recruit651
Dean Towers
651
39 Ablett – Senior versus Junior658
40 The Brownlow660
Tommy Hafey on the medal
663
41 Umpires664
42 International football666
43 Retiring670
Scott Cummings – Shot bodies
673
44 The modern game675
45 A nation’s game678
Allen Aylett
678
46 What footy means688
The question:
688
The answers:
688
They played footy . . . 692
Key692
Acknowledgements704
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, onehundred 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
1
CHAMPIONS ALL
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
2
1
After the bloodbath
Billy Williams
I 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
3
CHAMPIONS ALL
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
4
After the bloodbath
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
5
CHAMPIONS ALL
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
6
After the bloodbath
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.
7
CHAMPIONS ALL
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,
8
After the bloodbath
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.
9
CHAMPIONS ALL
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.
10