Afl 2008 Round 6

A DURABLE FULL FORWARD The career of Richmond’s Jack “Skinny” Titus spanned 18 seasons. Recruited from Burnley, he debuted in 1926 and retired in 1943. Lightly built at just 65kgs (10 stone) and 175 cm (5ft 9ins), he was initially played in defence where he struggled to hold his place. Then in 1928, following a knee injury, he was switched into attack and was almost immediately successful, settling in to become a champion full forward. Writing in the Sporting Globe some years later, Jack Dyer observed: “Titus relies on his judgment in beating opponents. His timing is perfect and his anticipation of the flight of the ball uncanny. He is as cunning as a fox and as fast as any man in the game over the first 10 yards.” Titus built a formidable record with the Tigers, playing 294 games (202 of those in succession) and kicking 970 goals, the sixth highest career total in League history. He played in two premiership teams, won two club best and fairest awards, headed Richmond’s goal kicking 11 times and was the first player from the club to kick 100 goals in a season. His total of 74 goals in finals has been bettered by only Gordon Coventry and Jason Dunstall. Jack Titus was selected at full forward in Richmond’s team of the century. THE “VICTORIAN GAME” IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA The first recorded football match in Western Australia took place on Friday September 19, 1868, on the Bishop’s Collegiate School (later Hale School) grounds. It was played between members of the 14th Foot (Buckinghamshire) Regiment and a team of locals, but it is not known which rules were followed. It would not be until 1877, with the arrival in the Swan River Colony of rugby-playing St John St George Ord (private secretary and aide-de-camp to the new Governor), that football would begin to become organised. Ord imported footballs at his own expense for use on the Collegiate School grounds. The school’s headmaster, Richard Davies, also had connections to rugby through his own education, and a club was formed at the school in 1879. Davies’ replacement, Thomas Beuttler, who had attended Rugby School and was a keen player, took over in 1881. By 1882, five clubs had been formed in Perth and Fremantle. Four of those – Perth, Rovers, Fremantle and the short- lived Fearnoughts – chose to play rugby, but a fifth, ironically called Unions, opted for the Victorian rules, which they considered superior. A report in the West Australian at the time indicates that sentiment was divided over which code should be adopted, one correspondent supporting Unions’ decision because “the ‘bouncing rules’ are those universally adopted in the other colonies. The mere fact of our having several Rugby men out here, who know how to play the Rugby game, is no excuse for our clubs adhering to the rules which govern that game.” (Running with the ball while bouncing it had been allowed under the Victorian rules since 1866.) A visitor to Perth at the time, journalist Richard Twopeny agreed with that observation. Although educated at Marlborough College where rugby was played, in 1883 he wrote in his Town Life in Australia: “The Victorian game is by far the most scientific, the most amusing both to players and onlookers, and altogether the best. There is much more ‘style’ about the play.” Until March 30, 1883 the Unions club was alone in following the Victorian rules, but a significant breakthrough came on that date when a second such club, Swans, was formed. In April, the Perth club decided to experiment with the Australian code by playing a series of matches, the aim being to allow the public to make a judgment. The possibility of success for the Australian game was no doubt aided by the fact that the rugby players in the colony were not adhering closely to that code’s rules about holding on to the ball, the West Australian commenting: “As played now in Perth, [rugby] football resolves itself into one continuous round of close scrummages, which are neither edifying to spectators nor exciting.” By 1884 momentum was clearly with the Australian code, both Fremantle and Rovers making the switch. In May of that year it was decided that the colony’s five clubs would follow one code, and the Western Australian Football Association (the forerunner of the WAFL) was established. The West Australian commented at the time: “It is quite apparent that the popularity, interest and success of the game in the colony depended upon some such arrangement being come to. Without such an institution it would be impossible to make satisfactory arrangements for a succession of interesting matches.” This week is National Volunteers Week and we honour the MCC Library Volunteers for all their work in the Library. The researching and drafting of MCC Library Match Day Fact Sheets for AFL, cricket, rugby league and soccer is probably their highest profile work seen by our clients, but they undertake so much more for us, ranging from behind the scenes re-shelving to front-of-house exhibitions. Thank you! One of the last action photos of Richmond as a VFA club. It appeared in Melbourne Punch on July 27, 1907. Richmond players are wearing dark knickerbockers. .

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