Whitten Oval, Saturday, high noon: one of these football fans enjoyed their weekend, the other not so much.
“Barracking for the Bulldogs has always demanded a certain unique perspective,” says Roger Franklin in Sons of the ’Scray, an essay about place and identity, and a football club in Melbourne’s west. “A good clubman will look into a room packed with manure and know, just know, that there must be a lovely pony in there somewhere.”
Early Saturday morning I caught a train to the west. A Sudanese woman sat opposite – barefoot, hair braided – as we passed railway yards, grain silos at North Melbourne; the broad shoulders of cranes at the docks. We crossed the Maribyrnong, we left the city behind.
I was off to see a game at Whitten Oval – the first-round match between new stand-alone VFL teams Richmond and Footscray – and under bright skies it felt like a return to something cherished that’s long since gone. Football was back at the old Western Oval. The Tiges were playing. I had to be there.
Far left: Blue skies, big crowd: local Bulldogs fan Phil Jennings makes it to the ground
in a jumper his seamstress neighbour made for him.
Center left: On song: the Hyde Street Youth Band (since 1928) outside the traditional home of the Footscray Football Club.
Centre right: First steps: Richmond’s new VFL team entering the arena for the season’s first game.
Far right: Dog day afternoon: not all were bulldogs in the EJ Whitten Stand.
“There used to be a pub there,” said a man in red-white-and-blue, at the newly-developed West Footscray Station, with the excitement that comes before a game, and returning to a place redolent with fond memories. Talk is of past games, the length of quarters, goals kicked. “He was a big man,” says one. “He could run like the wind.”
A brass band greets barrackers at the stadium. A tour coach arrives, offloading Bulldog supporters. For away fans, it’s a gold coin entry donation. Gates are open for all to walk onto the ground. Food vans – gelato, pizza, smoked Kransky sausages – are parked in a pocket. A crowd gathers, dressed in colours of identity, pleased to be here. It feels as festive as a school fete.
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If I could ignore the game between these two clubs on Saturday afternoon – indoors and televised – I would. But in good times and bad, til death do us part. Consolations must be found in loss, to give it meaning. We hit the front with three-and-a-bit to go. Jack lifted our spirits. Our souls soared. Then in a heartbeat, all was lost and for now the season looks long and filled with shadows.
Brandon Ellis panicked at the death, clutching at falling knives. There is gallows humour in being a Richmond supporter. We have our unique perspective also.
A last-gasp misplaced tackle on Dan Giansiracusa – the game’s oldest player, its wiliest, and now its match-winner – did not of itself lose the game. If only Troy Chaplin hadn’t turned-over the ball in the game’s third minute. If only Bob Murphy didn’t shimmy around our Reece on the wing in the second quarter. If only Ryan Griffen didn’t beat us in a two-on-one in the goal square. If only Dave Astbury’s errant handball to Chris Newman in the last 20 seconds of the first half found its target. If only Trent kicked straighter. If only their prodigal teenager, Jack Macrae, had been opposed when marking clear in front. If only the ball wasn’t cleared from our forward 50 so easily and swept down the other end so effortlessly. If only Shaun Grigg didn’t kick inside to Nathan Gordon, and if only our debutante had stood firmer in the tackle. If only Bachar hit one of our targets on the last play of the third quarter. If only the third quarter ran longer. If only we could have the last quarter all over again, especially the last three minutes.
It was death by a thousand cuts, none of which makes defeat easier.
But watching a replay late Saturday night, it was the welfare of Nick Vlaustin that concerned me more than the loss. On returning home from Footscray on Saturday afternoon, the game was underway and our gun teenager had been subbed-out as a result of a head knock in a marking contest in the first quarter. The telecast showed a replay. It looked brutal.
What I didn’t know until late Saturday night is that Vlaustin stayed on the field after the knock. A club has a duty-of-care to its players; it failed in its obligations.
Having incurred a head injury in amateur football – playing centre-half-forward for Sydney University, head over the ball, bang, cleaned up by a malicious opponent, six weeks on the sidelines for me – I know about concussion. I know of the sensation of losing consciousness. I know of the shock. I know of the nausea. I know of the recurring headaches. I know how it knocks you about.
I know also that one knock to the head causes swelling in the brain, a physiological response to protect the organ. And I know that a subsequent knock – while the brain is trying to cushion itself from further harm – can cause irreparable injury. That is, a second blow can cause permanent brain damage.
Watching the replay well after the game had gone and the result known, every time Nick Vlaustin went near the ball my heart was in my mouth. What was he doing out there? He shouldn’t have been on the field. He shouldn’t have been in harm’s way. The AFL has a contingency for such a scenario. Our club’s medical and coaching staff should have known of the dangers.
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I had gone to the old Western Oval for reasons of nostalgia. I had gone also to support Richmond’s fledgling VFL team, to watch a game of footy in the suburbs, and to meet on the terraces with two men – John and Craig – each of whom write blogs about football and its place in Melbourne culture that in these past two seasons I’ve come admire and enjoy. Both live and work in the west. Both are Tigers.
At season’s beginning I again found myself at theholybootsfootballemporium.com and lost in one of John’s blog posts. It was his musing on Punt Road Oval, filled with his inquiry and archival photos and personal anecdotes, and family snaps of him as a child with Barry Rawlings. At the end of the post is the reason why his stories about football seem so much richer than all the white noise offered by much of the corporate football media industry. It is a photograph of a brick. He souvenired it when the Cricketer’s Stand at Punt Road was demolished. It is a memento of place and identity and shared history, and I think it’s wonderful.
Then last week I found myself immersed in a two-part history of football at the Western Oval, compiled by Craig on his popular The Footy Maths Institute (see footymaths.blogspot.com.au). As these things do, it lead to a 37-minute Youtube clip of the last quarter of a 1978 game between Footscray and St Kilda in which the home team kicked 12 goals to tally-up a then record score of 33. 15. (213), to St Kilda’s 16. 10. (106). Commentated by Geoff Leek and Peter Booth, it’s compelling archival footage.
Then as is my way, I was diverted by a Youtube clip of Peter Landy on Channel 7’s Big League, crossing to Scot Palmer for his ‘Palmer’s Punchlines’ segment. It was from the early 80s, and had Herald and Weekly Times sub-editors in the background wearing cardigans and pouring the kettle for a cuppa. Here was pre-digital football, before all the big money and the preoccupation with marketing and spin, and it seemed honest and raw and real.
Far left: Three (football/blogger) amigos: (L-to-R) Craig from The Footy Maths Institute,
Kenny from Considerthesauce.net and John from the Holy Boot Football Emporium.
Center left: Red, white and blue: how seating at the football once was (splinters included).
Centre right: Ed Barlow, ex-Swan and Bulldog and Scotch Old Boy, kicked the first goal for Richmond’s new VFL team.
Far right: Bill Andrew: “I tried to barrack for Collingwood, but it didn’t stick.”
Old wooden seats at Whitten Oval, painted blue and red with white numbers, speak of this bygone era. Canary Island date palms at the ground’s Barkly Street end add to the day’s aura of festivity.
I start the game on a bitumen terrace down the railway end, and our Ed Barlow kicks the game’s first goal, and the weekend begins nicely. Barlow played 26 games with the Sydney Swans, then eight with the Western Bulldogs, and was recruited to Tigerland from Old Scotch last year. He’s a 26-year-old tall utility, and wearing the team’s yellow strip with a black sash, he looks a footballer.
Footscray kick the next two goals, then we kick two, and a man walking along the terrace hands me a sticker. It reads: “We are Footscray – fly the flag”. I ask whether he’s from the supporter lobby group, Footscray Not Western Bulldogs, and he says no. His name is Bill Andrew and he was born in Hobart, where he lives still and runs a café at Salamanca Place. “I tried to barrack for Collingwood, but it didn’t stick,” he says of his football allegiance. “I guess I went for the underdogs.”
Now he’s in Melbourne for the weekend for the footy, and to hand out his stickers. “We’ve lost our identity when we lost our name,” he says. “We’ve extended our nickname but it’s made no difference with membership. There was a mystique about Footscray.”
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The Richmond Football Club, I’ve come to realise, is burdened by its history. Reading about Footscray last week – about its abattoirs and glue-factories, and how the Great Depression scoured the west of its jobs and hope – there is a truism that when you’ve got little, you’ve got not much to lose. When the Tricolours – the Bulldogs name was not officially adopted until 1938 – beat Essendon in a special game played on 4 October 1924, pitting the premiers of the VFA and VFL against each other for a first time, it heralded the arrival of Footscray, North Melbourne and Hawthorn into a new 12-team league.
A family heirloom: The Tricolours’ 1924 Victorian Football Champions pennant, behind glass at Whitten Oval.
After that historic game, a local newspaper said “no Footscray player would ever again need to buy shoes, as they were carried everywhere shoulder high.”
Visiting Whitten Oval on Saturday, I see this famous pennant in a hallway. In the 90 years since, the club has won only one piece of silverware; the 1954 Grand Final, when a team comprising a market gardener, plumbers, a couple of carpenters, storemen and a butcher, were twice as good as Melbourne. They won 15. 12 (102), to 7. 9. (51).
Those with the heaviest pockets build the highest fences. They fear outsiders. They guard jealously what they have.
Like all Tiger supporters from my generation, I’ve known of glory days. I was a child at the 1980 and 1982 grand finals. I was raised on a diet of Francis Bourke and Kevin Bartlett and Michael Roach. I was aware of a greater legacy, of names like Royce Hart and Jack Dyer, and of golden years that filled my club’s trophy cabinet with premierships. There was a culture of hard-nosed success. Failure wasn’t considered.
But these past 30 years have offered a counter narrative, and it’s shaken belief and confidence for most supporters. We have had something – or we’ve heard the stories of when we had something – and now it’s long gone, and truly none of us can tell if ever we’ll get it back.
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Trent Cotchin on Saturday afternoon was like Atlas, the primordial Titan who in Greek mythology held up the celestial sphere. He has the weight of our club on his shoulders. Already, he looks stooped. I worry it’s a burden too great. He was at the bottom of packs, he kept running and contesting, he who kept willing the play. For how much longer can he do this, if few others are to follow?
All things being equal – as they are in the controlled environment of Etihad Stadium – on Saturday afternoon there were some rays of light.
Halfway through the second quarter, the Channel 7 broadcast displayed a graphic that looked like a box of donuts. Jack’s stats; a column of zeros. Nothing could be more damning – and humiliating – for a professional footballer. His first touch came with 40 seconds to go in the half. It looked to be a handball, although none could really be sure.
To Jack’s credit, and our blessed relief, he turned the game’s course in the second half. A goal assist to Tyrone, a fearless leap for a one-handed mark, and he was in the contest and up on confidence. Gordon’s deftly crumbed running goal soon after had the blood pumping. Football is a game played in the head, but it’s a game also of the heart. What is football without passion? When Jack shows that desire, it can lift a stadium. It can carry our hearts. It almost won us the game.
Steve Morris was, again, fearless in the clinches. Orren Stephenson battled manfully in the ruck, breaking even with his All-Australian counterpart (and again showing how far a big heart can carry you). Dylan Grimes was elegant in defence, with his sweetly-timed fist. Ben Griffiths has proved the season’s revelation. We all knew he could kick a country mile, and had a graceful leap, and now he’s put the two together. His belief is back. He’s been our most consistent focal point up forward. His long-range goal in the last quarter was a beauty.
It concerns me that again we relied on the brawn of Matt Thomas for much of our grunt work. It was good having Jacko back, but it was Thomas who mostly put his hand up and head over the ball. Last year he won the Magarey Medal in the SANFL, was delisted by Port Adelaide, and until a few months ago was on our rookie list. Good luck to him. But what does it say about our list that these past three games we’ve so much depended on his strong-willed body work?
It concerned me also that when Brandon Ellis was dumped unnecessarily hard over the boundary line by Jake Stringer midway through the second quarter, no Richmond player remonstrated. Here was an opportunity for gamesmanship. The Bulldogs led 47 to 22, had a run-on, and here was a Doggy showing his muscle. Ellis had a right to be aggrieved with a tackle that continued once the ball was out of play. It was a chance to square them up, show we’re not to be bullied, and support one of our youngest players. More importantly, it was a chance to halt momentum.
Push and shove and wrestle, and let Jake Stringer know about it. In the umpire’s mind, perhaps we had the high moral ground. Did his tackle go too far? Here was a perfect excuse to try and out a pause on play. Instead, the game continued, they kicked another two unanswered goals; it was a match-winning lead.
Where was Jake King when we needed an enforcer? His arms shadowed in fresh tattoos, he looks a shadow of his former self.
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Banner headline: young dogs proud of their identity.
After quarter-time it was one-way traffic at the Western Oval. Guttural chants of “Foots-cray” rang around the EJ Whitten Stand. Their players were too big and too strong and too fast. We fumbled. Dropped marks in the forward half, and at times looked second-rate. It could be a long season for this new venture.
“Hit a target, then belt someone, ya peanut,” yelled a spectator to Brad Helbig, after his turnover in the forward pocket. Jake Batchelor got reported. The team lost by nearly 20 goals.
I made my way to the players’ bench to read the body language near the final siren. We were outplayed all day. We got smashed. “Finish this off boys,” called an assistant coach. There seemed a lot of strutting, a lot of false bravado.
After the game a middle-aged woman joined me at the fence and I asked if she was the mother of a player. Turns out she was an acquaintance of Aaron Davey – out injured – who she knew through friends who had spent time in the Kimberley. She was a Dees supporter. I asked her appraisal of the game. “If this is what the seconds are like,” she said, “you can only hope the firsts don’t get injured.”
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Walking down the railway ramp, I strike a conversation with a seventy-something Bulldogs supporter decked out in her club colours. She’s off to the game. I wish her good luck, but not too much luck. We agree her team needs the win more than mine. “West Coast, first round, thirty degree heat, we didn’t stand a chance,” she says. “They handpick it, the AFL. We don’t put bums on seats.”
Richmond Football Club had an operating budget of $44.8 million last season, the Western Bulldogs ran on $34 million. Our club has more than twice as many members. Nearly six months ago, we beat them by 60 points under the roof. On Saturday afternoon, we lost by two points.
Chained off: Tiger fans kept at a distance from players they’ve come to support.
In all my time visiting Punt Road these past two seasons, never have I felt as welcome as I was at Whitten Oval on Saturday morning. Partly, it’s because of the design of the stadiums. Whitten Oval’s redevelopment invites people into an open foyer, from which they can freely access the playing arena, a large reception area, a bar, a shop, and numerous other facilities. It invites curiosity. It feels open to all.
At Punt Road, the most obvious entry-point is into the Superstore. There’s a mouse-hole entrance – manned usually by security – to the social rooms. And there’s a separate entrance to the club offices. It feels like the architecture of exclusion. There is no space where visitors feel as though they can freely walk-in and assemble.
At three-quarter time in the VFL, our boys getting a roasting in the fierce sun, the pack gathered around the Footscray huddle. Tiger supporters had dwindled. Well-meaning Richmond staff cordoned off the players with a yellow chain. Footscray had no such encumbrance.
For better or worse, on Sunday morning, it was this barrier – real and imagined – that for me came to epitomise the difference between these two clubs. Theirs was deliberately open to its community, to its faithful, where those who came could mingle and feel a sense of inclusion. They could smell the sweat of their players, and listen to the rousing voice of the coach. They could be a part of something, and participate in a great football ritual.
Our mentality was to put a chain between the players and us fans. We had come to barrack. What we encountered was a fence of fear.
Prove me wrong, Richmond. Rebut this criticism. I love my team and would do almost anything to see it succeed and play regular finals football. I want our players to reach their full potential. Turn my appraisal against me – and Collingwood – this Friday night. And if you do, your feet will never touch the ground. I’ll be the first in line to lift and carry you through the streets of Richmond, high on our shoulders.
Tiger tiger burning bright
Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com
Twitter: @dugaldjellie
EJ: the spirit of Teddy, flying outside Whitten Oval after his old Footscray had the better of us Tigers.
Dugald,
I, too, will carry the team through the streets of Richmond if they beat Collingwood. As long as I haven’t had to endure yet more heart attack moments. At this rate I’ll be aged 185 by the end of the season.
At least Friday night’s game is back the MCG, Etihad is so impersonal.
Lovely, as always, to hear from you James. You could write the history of football in melbourne. I love hearing those names, those stories. I think I can picture that supporter with her brolly. Isn’t that what the women from the Pelaco Factory on Richmond Hill would do through the pickets at Punt Road to anyone they disagreed with?
That’s what I’ve been told.
Trust you are in rude health. I am sure Dusty is considering your proposal.
TTBB
Skippy, wouldn’t it be wonderful, if we were to ever win a flag again, for all us Richmond fans to gather outside the MCG and carry the players and Dimma under the spring elms to Yarra Park all the way back to Punt Road?
Imagine the scenes. Pure euphoria. I don’t think I’d sleep for days (you might find me curled up in a forward pocket at Punt Road on about the Thursday).
we can dream, we can hope, we can pray for good tidings this Friday night.
I want next week’s post to be headlined: WE WIN!
TTBB
I used to spend a LOT of time in Bill’s Retro cafe in the 90s. I do not know how how he’s surviving when it seems every letterbox and rubbish bin has turned into an adorable coffee nook.
Chris, next time I’m in Old Hobart Town I’m straight to his retro cafe for a lime spider.
I like his conviction, I think I like is coffee. (yours is beaut also)
TTBB
Any cat, especially a big cat will never wear the title UNDERDOG.
When we think of ourselves as TIGERS we are living the glory years of old, still, again…whatever.
When we think of ourselves as A FOOTBALL TEAM we re-enter the present.
32 years without a granny says we are the underdogs.
2014 shows a list of great players under a really good and tough coach with an enormous supporter base. That’s how you win a premiership. Get beyond the bloody label Richmond.
From now on you are simply RICHMOND FOOTBALL TEAM.
NO STARS. NO PRIDE. JUST CONFIDENT FOOTBALLERS LOVING THEIR GAME AND LEAVING THE PAST BEHIND.
FIGHT AND FIGHT AND WIN, STARTING WITH ROUND 4 THIS WEEKEND.
Richd’mond you are OUR SPIRITUAL LEADER! and long may it last.
I am roused yet again in reading your words. Could you please get access to the change rooms before the game. You are both the voice of reason and carrier of our passion. Is that an oxymoron? Or is it a tautology?
My thoughts are full of clangers.
I am beginning to think you need your own column on TTBB.
Please keep up the narrative and long may it never dim,
Please shout from the terraces!
C’mon Tigers let’s MAKE SOME NOISE!
TTBB
Whilst I admire your passion, I’d pit your 32 years without a granny to our 53, and 60 without a flag.
To the author: I loved this article, wonderful writing and fantastic to see how the day was enjoyed (and not) by the other side. I was there on Saturday and this is the best summation of the spirit of the day I’ve read so far. I especially loved that you felt welcome and included, although being ‘the enemy’. When next you’re out west, look for a big bloke wearing red, white and blue and a black Akubra and I’ll buy you a beer to carry that feeling on.
Good on you Ryan!
Your boys look good this year – long may they prosper! MUST get a win against Carlton this week, it would be sweet justice. A club financed in large part by a pokies baron, versus a club that actively embraces its local community. I know where my heart lies.
And you are right; I’ve no idea what it must be like not knowing a grand final or premiership in my lifetime.
Having said that, imagine being a Hawthorn supporter.
Go Doggies! Go Tiges!
TTBB
Hey Dugald
Love the piece and the site but go easy on the Tiges admin. While you’re right in that Punt Road feels like a business these days (I read the other day that the club has just under 200 staff ), it’s a reflection of where we’ve been, that being one of the last suburban minded clubs in the national comp.
Perhaps Benny is desperate to corporatise (?) us so we once and for all throw the horrible 80s/90s/mid 2000’s into the green wheely bin of history, the one that’s marked non-recyclable.
Footscray is another club, and perhpas sees it’s goal of being the community club. More likeable I know, but still.
Now that we’re more professionally minded off field, surely it’s only a matter of time before the players get it as well. When will we know?
Once we see them not celebrating like drunk bananas when hitting the lead against a side like Footscray, but rather just getting on with winning the game, like a supposed top 6 side would. Until then, chances are we’ll all be joining our friend The Patient, who’s looking to book himself back into a quiet room real soon.
Then again, what the hell would I know?
Keep going Dugald. Loving the writing.
Eat Em Alive
Tone
Thanks Tone, any relation to Frank?
yes, I was a bit vexed writing this week’s report, but in the end it came clearly (albeit again taking too many words). I do not see it as criticism, but judging by subdued feedback from Tiger fans this week, maybe they do. I am trying to be honest and fair and true. The club emits a lot of spin. This has no interest for me. I am not a press release.
I always try not to critcise the players (unlike all those anonymous posts on fan forums – which have their place as a diversion). Could I do better? Most certainly not. Are they trying their hardest? We take that as a given.
Certainly, we’ve had two disappointing losses and a narrow win, but I could not question the commitment of the players. I see courage everywhere when I watch the games, and that is mostly all we can ask.
My comments on the mentality of my club is simply an opinion. It’s actually less than that, it’s an idea. I’m just trying to articulate how us Richmond fans feel (of course, or course, all of us think about this differently), and trying to make sense of this.
For now, I’m not really interested in being an advocate for change, and I am in no position to. I could name 20 things off the top of my head where i think the club could do better (and only one of those relates to the football department, and my answer would only be a supposition), but I’ve got no standing to do so. I am but a barracker. All I can do is tell the truth, and tell it how I see it.
Conversely, I’ve always been happy to sing the praises of the players and what the club is doing right. I’ve gone along to the Family Day and a few of the Before the Pounce events, and they are to be commended.
Maybe I’m a football leftie. I like the idea of community. I like the idea of people making a difference. I like the idea of crowd. It is in the crowd that I want to be.
Thanks for the feedback, appreciated,
TTBB
G’day Dugald,
Thanks for the intriguing words and the great photographs. I was at the WO on Saturday for many of the same reasons as yourself (although I’m a Footscray fan, not a Tiger). I went partly to support the VFL team, but probably for more self indulgent, nostalgic reasons.
For me the day was about a lot more than a return to football at the Whitten Oval. It was the drive up Barkly Street, seeing “Footscray” written on a live scoreboard, viewing the 1954 premiership cup, being on the turf that so many Bulldog’s heroes have run out on , etc. etc.
Having watched a pre season practice match versus Carlton earlier in the year, there was also a sense of longing about being at the home of my beloved Bulldogs (in juxtaposition to Parkville). The vast stadium/infrastructure of Princes Park, the amount of supporters (and assumably members) and 16 premiership cups on prominent display were awesome (in the true sense of the word) and somewhat envy inducing.
Following the VFL game, I headed to Docklands to witness a proud display from the Scraggers. Not just pride in the victory, but pride for me that I still have my team to follow. The events of the day summed up for me a 20 year journey from Footscray to modern day commercial football.
Good luck to Richmond – you’re a lot closer to a flag than the Scray’s and a lot healthier financially than you were in 1990. The dogs however still have the same income today from our major sponsor as what we had that same year! (ICI)
Cheers
Lach, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and reconcile yourself that premierships aren’t everything. Although it’s easy for me, at least I have 1980 to hang my hat on. I think your current team has an outstanding coach and good crop of youngsters. It’s a shame you have three players on the list who are all about 31 years old, because they’re all superb footballers, and will be missed. You finished off last year strongly, no reason you can’t go far.
Leaving the ground on Saturday I thought of a book by E. L Doctrow called ‘The March’ about the US Civil War, and how it was the vanquished, the South, that got tell all the stories and write the history.
It is a bit the same in football. Footscray can lay claim to the history (as can Richmond these past 30 years with our failings). If you haven’t already read the blog by Bulldog Tragician. I came across it after I had written my account. His is better, truer. he talks about the Olympic Tyre factory, and a football mural on the corner of St Monica’s on Dynon Road. I need to catch another train to the west to see it.
No need to be jealous about Carlton. Their football team is inept, they have no fight, no pride judging on their last showing. Enjoy the season, and until we meet again..
TTBB
Love the article. As a Bulldogs member living the past 15 years in France and the UK, my sense of devotion to the doggies and what they mean to me gets stronger as each year passes. Thankfully I’ll finally be moving home this year and I am really excited at the prospect of bring my young family to the Whitten Oval to watch football the way I used to see it in the 90s when I was living in Melbourne. I have been back to the docklands stadium whenever home and really do not like watching matches there, especially when the roof is closed, Can’t wait to watch some VFL games at the Western Ovals and listen to the coaches talks between quarters etc. PS: I agree that it takes a certain unique perspective to passionately support a team that has only one piece of silverware in the past 60 years. It makes those small victories all the more sweeter and I would not swap it for the kind of faux success that the Manchester Citys and Chelseas of the world have achieved with deep pockets.
Paul, appreciate your long distance correspondence and rest assured the Western Oval – the custodian of so many shared memories – is in good hands. And maybe also is your football team. Think your VFL team might be playing ours in the last round, at Punt Road Oval. Only hope we put up a more spirited fight, and that our hospitality was as good as what the Footscray people laid on.
No need to miss melbourne today – beautifully glum and overcast and everything’s dripping.
TTBB
Though I was born and raised in Bentleigh I knew Footscray quite well as I served my apprenticeship at Maribyrnong and had to detrain at Footscray and tram it out to the Ordnance factory (where I was fortunate enough to met Fred Swift).
Memories of Footscray: Saw Teddy Whitten play his first VFL game – Punt Road, round #1, 1951. Don “Mopsy” Fraser was his opponent that day. Teddy offered to shake his hand, Mopsy walloped him as a welcome to “footy”. TW kicked a goal that day.
Dick Clay, first VFL game – MCG, round #2, 1966 – he played as CHF. Guess who was minding him . . . Teddy Whitten. Clay didn’t add to the scoreboard but got a good write-up.
My one remaining memory of Being at the WO was half-time and the players trooping off. An elderly woman by the gate starting beating on Des Rowe (a lovely fellow) with her umbrella.
I think poor Des was more bemused than actually injured.
Ah, there’s no accounting for the wrath of supporters.
What a great story of a time past, thank you so much.
Dugald, lovely words. Your blog have just been favourited, if that ls even a word. Christ if they are using ‘medal’ as a verb then surely it’s open slather.
It sounds as if the Bullies have got things right in regards to community involvement but I wouldn’t be too harsh on your Tigers. You’ll get there. Even if you go backwards this year and don’t make the finals I implore the Tigers to hold fast and stick with Hardwick. You don’t need to start again.