THE "OLD" DAYS

[Growl]

I couldn't think where else to post this article.

It contains mention of Richmond players - ok, from long ago - and of a vastly different childhood and growing-up time than most PREnders would have experienced.

Just thought it might be of interest to the few to whom tradition and history still mean something.

I can recall Tommy's columns and his footy commentary on the radio.

Footy Week writers have a wealth of experience. But, none have as much football, or sporting, experience than TOM LAHIFF, better known as ‘The Turk’. Here he recalls some of the things that make a sporting career one of the best things in life. Read on as . . .​

“The Turk” Tells​

I can understand how St Kilda supporters felt when the Saints won their first flag. It took me back to my first memories of football . . . back to 1922.
I was a boy attending St Ignatius School, Richmond, and the Tigers had just won their first League flag. [actually 1920/1921]
The players shine in my memory — Bernie Herbert, Clarrie Hall, Hughie James, Max Hislop, Jimmy Smith, Reg Hede, Frank Harley, Vic Thorp, George Bayliss, Snowy McIntosh. And they were coached by the late Danny Minogue.
Cries of “Eat-‘Em-Alive” everywhere . . . that was the order of the day.
How I wanted to grow up and be a Tiger. At this time I sat next to a boy at school who wanted to be a Magpie, his father had played with Collingwood.
We both made our mark as League players but neither as a Tiger or Magpie.
My school-mate was the one and only Laurie Nash and he excelled at any ball game. We both played with the school team and later with the Richmond Boy’s Club formed by Mr. C.C. Mullens. It is still in action and has had a wonderful record with the players it has produced.
Laurie is regarded by many as the greatest footballer of all time and he also played cricket for Australia.
Me? I was not in his class but I was fortunate to play 340 senior football games with Port Melbourne – who I coached for eight years – Essendon, South Melbourne and Hawthorn, who I also coached.

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Tommy Lahiff as a schoolboy footballer and as a Port Melbourne player​

My cricket took me to 10 seasons with St Kilda District plus a few games with Victoria’s Second XI.
I am certain anyone reading this will find it hard to believe that Laurie Nash was a Richmond boy and that Tommy “The Turk” Lahiff was not a native of Port Melbourne.
After leaving school Laurie’s father Bob Nash who was in the police force left Victoria to take over a hotel in Tasmania. Later Laurie returned to Victoria to play for South Melbourne.
My people moved to St Kilda so Richmond lost two young players who may have been “Tigers”.
How I remember those school days. Games played with a paper football, an old cover
stuffed with paper or a cover with three or four patches on it.
Coats for goal posts, caps for point posts. What a difference now — every boy seems to
have a football. In those days if you owned a football you were captain and had to get plenty
of kicks or else you would take your ball home and finish the game.
Gee, it was hard to get on a League ground. Not like today when third and fourth 18 boys are training and playing on them.
I had just started work at Dunlops in Montague and had to go into town twice a day. I used to take a paper footy and kick it between every post between Montague and Melbourne. I feel certain that if the present day players had practised kicking with a paper football they would be better kicks.
At this stage I had just made 1,000 runs and taken 100 wickets with the Richmond Boys and was prepared to give football away for cricket. I was lucky enough to make the First XI at St Kilda and make a century only to be dropped the next week because I was too young and lacked experience. How times have changed.
Anyhow, football could not come quick enough and I transferred my first love to this great Australian game.
What a change in football since 1920.
I have mentioned the Richmond line-up. Essendon had the “mosquito fleet”. Tich Sharten, Jack Garden, Jimmy Sullivan, Rawley Watt, Vince Irwin, Greg Stockdale, Charlie Hardy, backed up by Syd Barker, Tom Fitzmaurice, George Rawle.
How times change! Every one of those players were champions but today they would be too small. The forwards were very small, Jimmy Freake, *smile* Lee, Greg Stockdale.
I think I am a very lucky man to have seen all those players and more, such as *smile* Lee, Larry Laeton, Bill Twomey, Lofty Hughes, Roy Cazaly, Mark Tandy, Harrie Clover, Bert Baremed, Jimmy Freake, Percy Parratt, Len Wigcraft. You mention them, I have seen them just as a lot of “old timers” have also.
Players had to serve a long time in junior football and it was tough.
No time to get dressed after the game. Just jump into the horse-van and get pelted with bluestone. Then you wait for the return game on your own ground so you could collect everyone you could to return the barrage.
The pattern of play until 1928 was based on position and kicking. The players could run as fast as at present but they did not move the ball as quickly.
But every player could pass the ball, and if you could show your team-mate your chest he would hit it.

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A footy team from St. Ignatius - 1920s. ​

 

[Growl]

Laurie Nash talking about “the good old days”

During this period Jack Dyer, a young player from my old school, started with the Tigers.

“Checker” Hughes was coaching Richmond and, believe it or not, he had Fritz Heifner to protect Dyer and did Jack learn fast!

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Fritz Heifner, Jack Dyer's 'minder'​

He became “Captain Blood” and protected everyone who wore a Richmond guernsey.

South [Melbourne] had 18 champions but were beaten by Collingwood and Richmond in final games.

Richmond were at the top of their fame. They played with a set backline in those days and now, 30 years later, they have started it again.

I am sure every player in that period will remember that Tiger backline. When you looked around to see where you could get a rest when you came off the ball all you had to do was take your pick from ‘Murderer’s Row’.

What a selection! Bolger – Sheahan – O’Neill – Baggott – Murdoch – McCormack..

I was sorry I wasn’t a back man or a wingman.

 

[Growl]

Football’s greatest kick dies
[article from The Age]​

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Dave McNamara [pictured setting one of his amazing place kick records], one of the legends of Australian Rules football died yesterday [August 15th, 1967]. He was 80. Mr. McNamara, who was also a well-known identity in racing circles, played with St Kilda and Association side Essendon “A” which disbanded in the 1920s.
He was also a great charity worker for hospitals, and held several life governorships.
Mr. McNamara is remembered most in football for his phenomenal place kicking, and is credited with a kick of 105 yards 1ft. at the St Kilda cricket ground in 1914.
He joined St Kilda soon after the turn of the century, after playing his early football with Benalla. In 1907, with McNamara dominating at centre half-forward, St Kilda reached the finals, but was beaten by Carlton in a semi-final.
That year he was regarded the best footballer in the VFL.
Mr McNamara became captain of St Kilda in 1908 before his 21st birthday, and that year was adjudged the best player in the first ANFC championships, played in Melbourne.
He stood at 6ft 3in and his magnificent kicking made him a top drawcard. He is credited with kicking the ball over 100 yards on three occasions.
In 1912 at Essendon he place-kicked a ball 102 yards – against the wind.
In 1909, with many other League players, he transferred to Essendon Association team, and led it to premierships 1911-12.
In 1912 he kicked 107 goals. [1st footballer to achieve the legendary ‘ton’]
By 1914 McNamara was back with St Kilda – the year earlier he stood out of football because of a clearance hold-up – and in his first game back at the club kicked six of the side’s eight goals.
He played more than 100 games with the Saints and in his football career kicked about 600 goals.
In 1914 he competed in a long kicking competition with the famous Dally Messenger in Sydney. McNamara won with a kick of 89 yards 2 feet. That place kick stands as the longest official competition kick in the record of our game. He was a life member of the St Kilda football club.
Mr McNamara was also a former president of the Victorian Racehorse Trainers’ Association. In the early days of pony racing he trained many winners at Richmond, Fitzroy and Ascot.
Mr McNamara is survived by his daughter, Miss Beryl McNamara of Caulfield.
The funeral is expected to take place tomorrow.

A size 12 boot and a 93-yd goal
By IAN McDONALD (Sporting Globe)​

On September 9th, 1923, hefty St Kilda centre half-forward Dave McNamara dug a two-inch mound on the St Kilda oval with the heel of his size-12 boot.
He carefully placed the ball on the ground, ran in, and sank his left foot into it. The amazed Geelong defenders stood staggered as the ball spiralled up and up and sailed through the goal.
Dave had a tail wind behind him and they didn’t measure the kick until after the match, which meant there could have been a margin for error, but that goal was kicked from 93 yards out!
And since that day, the 93-yd kick has been unofficially recognised as a world record. It had not been broken when Dave McNamara died this week at the age of 80.
McNamara was one of football’s immortals, and whenever long-kicking feats are discussed, his name is the first to spring to mind.
But football wasn’t the only sport in which Dave earned fame. His second love was racing. He became president of the Victorian Racehorse Trainers’ Association and in 11 years in the chair attended 237 consecutive committee meetings.
When 16, he was a bookmaker in his home town of Benalla. He used to run a book, race his own horses at country meetings, and play football at the weekends.
Even at that age he was big — more than 6 ft. tall and about 13½ stone and could look after himself in the hurly-burly of bush football.
He once said: “You could run a book on £5 in those days. Most of the money that changed hands was gold — sovereigns and half-sovereigns. Later, after a football career in which he played for 18 years, he returned to racing and owned and trained horses for every type event except trotting,
But it’s football and the place-kick for which Dave is remembered. The crowds used to pack into the grounds to see his long kicking and one of his biggest ambitions was to kick the ball 100 yards.
His nearest effort was an unofficial 97 yards and his 93 yards in 1923 has stood for so long that it’s a safe bet that it will never be bettered. Several years ago I chatted to Dave about the chances of kicking a football 100 yards.
He summed it up in a nutshell: “I tried for so long that I came to the conclusion that it’s so nearly impossible it doesn’t matter.”
His best effort in a match was 18 goals and that ball, and the one he sent soaring 93 yards, are on the mantle piece of his Caulfield home. The most goals he kicked in one season was 107 and four times between 1908 and 1923 he managed to better his own long-kicking records.
His longest official kick on record is 86 yd. 1ft. at Launceston in 1913.
When 21 he was appointed captain of St Kilda to be the youngest skipper in the League. He played 148 games with the Saints, and rose through the club from captain, coach, committee-man, vice-president to president.

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[McNamara has the distinction of kicking the second most points in a game - one goal thirteen points against Richmond in 1922.
Before retiring from football, he played as an amateur for Ormond, 1924-32]​