▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ About This Book ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ This book began life after John Hyde attended a function Currency that launched 1963 Cats in Command, the story of Geelong’s 1963 premiership win by Bruce Kennedy and To preserve the atmosphere of the time and retain the Bruce Coe. He mentioned it to Russell Renfrey and it was integrity of quoted sources, money amounts are presented agreed that a similar volume about the 1951-52 premier- in imperial currency units in this book. Australia used the ship era should be written. The invitation was readily Imperial (British) system of pound, shillings and pence embraced. (The demands of a Doctoral thesis however until February 1966. meant that Bruce Coe had to retire from the project.) The pound sign (£) is used throughout. One pound The authors chose to develop the book free of external (£1) = Two dollars. Shillings (20 per pound) are written editorial control. Much of the material researched is new 1/-, 2/-, and so on. One shilling = Ten cents. Pence (12 per to readers of other VFL/AFL and Geelong history shilling) are used together with higher denominations publications. when writing money amounts. For instance two pounds In addition to archived and recent interviews with twelve shillings and six pence is written £2/12/6. This surviving premiership players, the main sources are converts to $5.25. Pennies are mentioned occasionally and contemporary newspaper reports and illustrations, penny values appear in illustrations as ‘6d’. The penny enhanced by access to the cuttings faithfully collected by coin is shown actual size below. Bill Gowty and pasted into his Scrapbook. The process of As a guide to the equivalent value of money at the obtaining material was made easier by on-line access to time, the adult male basic (minimum) weekly wage for sources. During the writing, the State Library of Victoria Victoria in April 1951 was £8/17/6 ($17.75). The basic progressively placed The Football Record on line and this adult female wage was set at 75 percent of the male wage. was utilised strongly in our work. At that time, VFL player match payments were raised to The book is in two parts. The early narrative traces the £5 ($10.00). Adult admission to the football was 2/- (20 resuscitation of the club following the time it was out of cents) in 1951. the VFL in the Second World War. This period has received negligible attention from historians. Coverage of the premiership seasons is quite detailed in places and is in part a celebration of success and the innovative style the team played. Some of the coverage of the 1951 and 1952 seasons is designed to take the reader into the Australian world of the time. Contemporary news items are glimpsed in the side-bars that accompany Weights and measures the 1951 and 1952 stories. These are selected to give a feel for the issues and an appreciation of These measures are retained in the main text to help life 60 years ago. They were not necessarily headlines, the reader stay in 1951 and 1952 but they have been though some were. There is repetition of some issues converted to metric where they appear. because those didn’t go away. The linear distance, miles, is used a number of times and not converted. 1 mile = 1.6km. There are also side-bars with other football news not necessarily concerning Geelong War or the VFL. The text refers to two wars. World War One 1914- 1918, and World War Two 1939-1945 We have chosen to include statistical items – club records broken and set, club milestones and so on, because the authors thrive on them. Many of these were not acknowledged at the time. Readers can gloss over them without losing the thread of the story if they wish. Contents Foreword by Frank Costa, OAM 5 Introduction: Country Team in a Metropolitan 7 Competition 1940s: Journey to Oblivion and Back 11 Kardinia Park History 16 Reg Hickey 43 Field Positions 52 The First Ruck Rover 54 The Opponents 55 1951 The Jubilee Premiership 61 What Did Matches Look Like? 119 Football and the Media 121 Recruitment, Transfers and Payments 130 1952 Back to Back 135 The Geelong Flier Goes Flying 148 The National Round 156 Why was Geelong So Successful? 200 Aftermath: 204 Appendices Premiership Player Profiles by Bruce Coe 208 Records and Statistics 213 Schoolboy Memories by Ross Williams 217 How I Became a Geelong Supporter by the 219 Authors Sources and Acknowledgements 220 Index of Geelong Players and Officials 222 Notes 223 36 Classic Cats ▬▬▬▬ Football 1946: Foundation Stones Laid for Success ▬▬▬▬▬ Geelong’s business community increasingly supported the 12.15-87. Geelong produced a sensational burst at the club, though in today’s terms it was modest. Business was outset, piling on seven goals before the Dons registered a still finding its feet following the war and before that, the score. The Football Record wrote: 1930s depression. Local government also helped put the club on a firm What a gasp went up from the crowds on all footing. The city councils of Geelong and Newtown and metropolitan grounds when the ‘Record’ Chilwell helped develop Kardinia Park to improve its boards posted the quarter time scores from facilities and increase its capacity. Without the councils’ Geelong! The locals had rattled up 8-6 to 1- positive support, the club would have struggled to gain 1! Many wouldn't believe the accuracy of the momentum. figures. They reckoned it must be the other Attendances were to improve later in the decade due way round. to increasing success on the field and because more of the work force were being granted a five-day week. A free This was a glimpse of what was to come. For a quarter of Saturday meant increased leisure time to attend football football, the team showed what was possible. The Cats matches. People could arrive at the ground well in time maintained control to record an extraordinary upset, and for the main match, rather than make haste and get to the this was by far their most significant success since ground after the start. The five-day working week for resuming in the VFL. some workers was introduced from 1948. Geelong’s membership rose to 4,000, well behind Carlton’s record 9,000, but a substantial improvement on immediate pre-war levels. Behind the improvement lay a sound support staff. Ivo Gibson was chosen to manage the Victorian State team to play South Australia in both Melbourne and Adelaide. Geelong’s veteran head trainer Ernie Davey and ambulance officer Jim Doyle were selected to perform the same duties for the State side. Geelong appointed its third coach in three seasons, 1930s great and member of the 1937 premiership team, Tommy Quinn, who stayed for three years. Match reports for his period of coaching point to the style he aimed for, pace and play-on tactics. This season the club recruited the first of the players who would bring home the premiership pennant in five years time. Newcomers included key forward Fred Flanagan, utility/follower Russell Renfrey, defender and later ruckman Tom Morrow, and half-back flanker Norm Scott. All were quality people and quality footballers. This quartet formed a small but strong core around which an effective team could be built. All were extremely durable players who played over 100 games at a time when playing 50 games was an admirable milestone. Geelong’s talent scouting was more successful than at other League clubs. It is possible that Melbourne clubs either didn’t pay as much attention to rural Victoria or didn’t have as good a network of scouts to identify possible recruits. There is strong anecdotal evidence that country players were more attracted to try their luck at the VFL’s only country club rather than face the challenges associated with living in metropolitan Melbourne. The first half of the season was more or less business as usual. The club won its Round 2 match against Hawthorn, Geelong’s third successive home victory against the Hawks. However, the team suffered a run of Fred Flanagan in his 7th game battles Collingwood’s decisive defeats, leaving it sitting just off the bottom of legendary fullback, Jack Regan in his 194th game. the ladder on 1-8 after Round 9, with the future looking bleak. Out of the blue, the Cats at home stunned second- By Round 13 Geelong was holding up the ladder, having placed and eventual premier, Essendon, 18.18-126 to not won again. Then they upset ninth-placed Fitzroy in a knife-edge encounter. But further heavy away defeats to Oblivion and Back – 37 St Kilda and Collingwood by in excess of 70 points desperate to avoid another last place finish they may have suggested that the side was only capable of winning at faced a dilemma by handing the double chance to their old home, and even then, not regularly. An article in The enemy, Collingwood, should the Cats upset the Bulldogs. Football Record urged Cats supporters to withhold Geelong made life hard for Footscray in the first half, criticism and allow the side to develop over two or three the teams separated by just three points at the long years. interval. The Cats continued to attack in the third term and Entering the final round, Geelong was still in pole only inaccuracy (4.7 to 3.0) stopped them taking a match- position for the wooden spoon, trailing Hawthorn on winning lead into the final term. But that didn’t matter as percentage narrowly, with St Kilda a game ahead of both they pulled away in the final term to triumph by 43 points, in 10th spot.