50 years ago and counting: Australian football in 1963
Popular thought would have it that fifty years ago Australian football was very different, in almost every respect, to the modern brand-centred industry created and maintained by today’s AFL. My research into the subject, however, has convinced me otherwise. Genuine love of football, as a sport, was as rare in 1963 as it is in 2013.
Most so-called football barrackers fifty years ago tended to bestow their devotion not on the game itself, but on an individual club. Only when seen through the blurred lenses of such parochial obsession did football have any meaning, and even then it tended to focus entirely on a particular league or competition. Thus one of the contributors to the 2003 publication Footy In The Sixties felt able, with perfect seriousness, to describe his family’s moving back to Melbourne after spending several years in Perth and Adelaide as a “return to football”. The inhabitants of Western Australia and South Australia might be admitted to have played a game that was superficially similar to football, but it went without saying that only the VFL produced the genuine article. Such myopia has long disturbed and frustrated me. It persists to this day in the shape of thousands of supposed aficionados of the code of Australian football who prefer to use the wholly inaccurate designation “AFL” when referring to it. Football is, and always has been, much bigger than any single league or competition, something I think I knew almost as clearly and instinctively as a six year old growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide in 1963 as I do today.
Below is an extract from my latest book, which is a testament to that fact, depicting the Australian football landscape of fifty years ago in a way in which it was seldom if ever depicted at the time – as something rich, diverse and varied, which transcended state boundaries and individual club loyalties. It was my awareness of that richness and diversity which first drew me to the game, and which half a century later continues to inform, mould and sustain my passion.
Western Australia
In 1963, Western Australia were Australian state champions, having triumphed two years earlier at the Brisbane carnival. Since then, however, their interstate record had been uninspiring, with their performances in 1963 reaching an all-time nadir. All three of the state's matches for the season were played in Perth and resulted in a highly ignominious 9.10 (64) to 6.13 (49) reversal against Tasmania followed by back to back narrow defeats against the VFL. The Tasmanian match was played in highly inclement weather conditions, which almost certainly suited the visitors, but the margin and style of their victory were nevertheless surprising. When the two teams had previously confronted one another at the Brisbane carnival the Sandgropers had romped home by 111 points. Tasmania's triumph in Perth was only that state's third such success in nine matches between the states.
Despite the interstate setbacks, domestic football in Western Australia was flourishing, with the elusive million spectator barrier for the season growing ever closer. In 1963 a total of 908,153 patrons attended matches¹, making the game almost as popular on a per capita basis as it was in Melbourne.
Since 1961, Swan Districts under the astute coaching of Haydn Bunton junior had provided the Western Australian National Football League with its undisputed benchmark. The Swans’ game was based heavily on maintaining possession at all costs, and their pronounced reliance on handball set them aside from most of Western Australia's other clubs, and recalled the great South Fremantle teams of the late 1940s and early 1950s. However, the team was also tough, well-drilled and boasted an exceptional work ethic.
During the three seasons prior to Bunton's appointment as the club's senior coach the Swans had finished second from last once and slumped to the wooden spoon twice. By contrast, their record in their first three seasons under Bunton brought a 68% success rate and the club's first three senior grade premierships. The fact that Bunton was key to this renaissance was further attested to by his winning a hat-trick of club fairest and best awards in 1961-2-3, and he was also a major contributor to each of the Swans' grand final triumphs. Bunton was also an expert tactician, and had the knack which all good coaches seem to have of being able to prime his charges to be at their peak when it mattered most - in September.
The 1963 season afforded arguably the most noteworthy example of the club's three successes, as Swans' form during the minor round was mixed, and they only managed to qualify for the finals in fourth place with a 13-8 record. Once there, however, they reigned supreme, with a 15.11 (101) to 7.11 (53) first semi-final demolition of East Perth being followed by a hard fought 10 point triumph over Perth in the final. This meant that, for the second season running, Swan Districts and East Fremantle ended up playing off for the premiership. In 1962 Swans had held off a determined Old Easts combination by 18 points after kicking straighter and keeping their nerve when the pressure was on. A year later, victory was slightly more comfortably achieved, 17.10 (112) to 13.12 (90), but it was to be Swans' last premiership victory for almost two decades.
The league, conscious that the game was fast expanding, was discussing plans for the future. Subiaco Oval was, strictly speaking, too small to accommodate the crowds of 40,000-plus which were now turning up for grand finals, with the level of congestion proving such that many of these would-be spectators were unable to witness any of the action. A similar situation existed in South Australia at the Adelaide Oval. In Perth, tentative plans to develop and extend Subiaco Oval were taking place in 1963, whilst at the same time there were also many who favoured the idea of following the SANFL's lead and expanding the league competition by the addition of two new clubs. In the end, however, it was agreed to maintain the status quo.
Football throughout the state was in the midst of a boom period and some of the country leagues, particularly in the wheatbelt and south-west, boasted clubs which were sufficiently wealthy to be able to compete with their league counterparts in the city for the services of leading players.²
Haydn Bunton junior's achievement in elevating Swan Districts virtually overnight from their widely acknowledged status as West Australian football's Cinderella club into one of the most powerful teams in the land was one of the most noteworthy coaching feats of the twentieth century. Prior to 1961, Swans had only qualified for the finals in open competition three times since they made their WANFL debut in 1934. The 1960 season marked the fifteenth time in succession that the club had failed to contest the finals, with third from bottom in 1953 and 1955 their best finishes during that period.
Bunton (left) was a motivational leader par excellence, at a time when the playing coach was gradually becoming less popular. However, the likes of Bunton and Bob Johnson in Western Australia, Neil Kerley in South Australia and Ted Whitten in Victoria were proving that if clubs selected players with the right qualities as coaches they could still make a success of the job.
Bunton's style was to lead from the front, and constantly to keep his players geed up and focussed by verbally challenging and exhorting them. He insisted that all of his players match him in energy and determination regardless of whether or not they were capable of emulating his skill levels. As a child, he had suffered from a chronic, debilitating illness, while just three years prior to his arrival at Bassendean he had had to have his right kneecap removed following a car accident in Tasmania. As a player, his ability to obtain possession of the ball under duress was arguably unequalled: in one match against South Fremantle during the 1962 season statisticians credited him with no fewer than 88 kicks, 55 of them in the first half. His handball statistics were not recorded, but given that Bunton was renowned at the time as one of the most prolific exponents of that particular art it is hard to imagine his not exceeding 100 total possessions for the match, an incredible and possibly unsurpassed, achievement.³
Swan Districts' grand final opponents East Fremantle were - and remain - far and away Western Australian football's most successful club. By 1963, Old Easts already had a total of 21 senior grade premierships to their credit, and only once - in 1898 - had they succumbed to the wooden spoon. They had also won an under-age premiership during world war two when the WANFL had operated an age-restricted competition. However, their form of late had, by their own high standards, been modest; they had consistently reached the finals - nothing new or different there - but not challenged seriously for premiership honours. Their most recent flag had been obtained in 1957 courtesy of a 16 point grand final defeat of East Perth.
In 1962 East Fremantle had appointed former Melbourne ruckman Bob Johnson⁴ as captain-coach and this generated the onset of a renaissance in Old Easts’ fortunes. Johnson, like Bunton was an inspirational on-field leader. Standing 6' 6' (198cm) he played mainly at full forward, typically stationing himself right at the goal front, and relying on his height, weight, strength, and experience to enable him to outmark his opponents. In his four seasons with the club he amassed tallies of 74, 65, 105 and 92 goals, besides leading his charges to the grand final every year, although only once - in 1965 - did they actually manage to capture the premiership.
Things in 1963 might well have been different had Johnson not sustained a broken jaw in the last minor round match of the season and been forced to miss the finals. In the event, he took the unusual, indeed arguably unprecedented, move of acting as his own runner - the legality of which quite a few observers questioned - but although he was able to steer his charges to a comfortable second semi-final defeat of minor premier Perth, Swan Districts in the grand final proved too strong and won with some comfort by 22 points.
In 1963, Perth was fast approaching the most auspicious phase in the club's history, but the final pieces of the jig-saw of success had still to be set in place. Chief among these pieces would be the appointment as coach of former East Perth stalwart Mal Atwell in 1966, and the emergence of rover Barry Cable as one of the finest and most influential players of the decade (and beyond). From Narrogin in the West Australian wheatbelt region, Cable made his league debut as an eighteen year old in 1962 and quickly emphasised his prowess by winning the first of an eventual three Sandover Medals just a couple of seasons later. Between 1966 and 1968 Perth won a hattrick of grand finals, stamping the side as one of the greatest in the history of West Australian football, and Barry Cable's contribution was unsurpassed as he won the Simpson Medal for best afield every time.
In 1963, however, such glittering success remained a pipedream. Not that the Redlegs were an incompetent team - far from it. During the minor round in particular they impressed and after topping the ladder heading into the finals they were many pundits' tip for the flag. However, although it may be something of a cliché to assert it, major round football is an altogether different ball game, and the Redlegs, who had not qualified for the finals since 1959 (when they had lost the first semi-final to Subiaco by 129 points), lacked experience. This was particularly evident in the second semi-final when they meekly succumbed to a more desperate and determined East Fremantle. The final clash with Swan Districts was a different matter entirely, however, and with a bit more ruthlessness and good fortune they might well have earned another tilt at Old Easts in "the big one". As it was, their sluggish start to the match cost them dear, but the longer it went on the more of a stranglehold they achieved. In the end though, despite managing 35 scoring shots to 23, they bowed out of finals contention to the tune of 8 points. A year later the Redlegs would endure a distressingly similar finals campaign losing the second semifinal badly to East Fremantle, and the final by a whisker against Claremont. However, the experience gained would arguably stand the side in good stead when it embarked on an era of dynastic proportions in 1966.
East Perth in 1963 were still coming to terms with the loss two years earlier of Graham "Polly" Farmer (left), who had been cleared to the VFL. Farmer was arguably the finest ruckman, if not indeed the finest footballer, in Australia at the time,⁵ and his absence needless to say left an enormous gap in the Royals ranks.
In 1961, Farmer's last season with the East Perth, the Royals had reached the grand final against Swan Districts, whom they had comfortably defeated a fortnight earlier in the second semi. However, the grand final proved to be a triumph for Swan Districts’ coach Haydn Bunton junior, whose masterful deployment of his ruckmen Fred Castledine (right) and Keith Slater effectively nullified "Polly" Farmer's influence and was, ultimately, the difference between the two teams:
"Fred (Castledine) had to come in and get hold - get his (Farmer's) left arm out of the way. Once he had that arm out of the way, that was it. Keith Slater was coming in on his right, and Castledine was getting in the way of that arm before he could get it up ........... We had rehearsed this."⁶
Without Farmer, the Royals failed to qualify for the finals altogether in 1962, but in 1963 there were signs of an impending renaissance. During the minor round they were the only team to overcome eventual premier Swan Districts in all three encounters, but when the two sides met once again in the first semi-final Haydn Bunton's charges were running on full throttle and romped home by eight goals.
This was a prelude to one of the worst season's in Royals club history up to that point as in 1964 they slumped to the wooden spoon prompting the departure, after eight predominantly successful seasons, of coach Jack Sheedy. Improvement under his replacement, ex-Fitzroy defender Kevin Murray, was gradual, but during the second half of the decade East Perth was a perennial grand finalist, without ever quite managing to "bring home the bacon". Jack Sheedy returned to the club as coach in 1969 but was unable to steer the Royals over the line against a supremely powerful West Perth combination on grand final day. Sheedy only spent a single season back at East Perth but it was a highly influential one and arguably sowed some of the seeds of the club's next senior grade premiership, in 1972.
An off the field highlight in 1963 was the Royals' post-season trip to south-east Asia, making them the first WANFL club to embark on such an undertaking.
Despite the rapidly escalating loss of top players to the VFL the 1960s developed into one of the most exciting phases in West Australian football history. By no means all of the best players emigrated, and the WANFL competition was unpredictable and fiercely contested, arguably more so than any other major league in Australia. Five of the eight league clubs won flags, and Perth between 1966 and 1968 and West Perth in 1969 would not have looked out of their depth in the nation's premier competition, the VFL.
The 1963 Sandover Medal was won, to popular acclaim, by East Fremantle's Ray Sorrell, a player rated my many, including quite a number of Victorians, as the finest centreman in Australia at the time. Sorrell actually tied for the Medal with East Perth's Syd Jackson (left), but Jackson had been suspended during the year and hence was deemed ineligible. Sorrell and Jackson both reaped 20 votes, one more than Frank Pyke (Perth) and three ahead of Derek Chadwick of East Perth. An idea of how highly Sorrell was regarded can be discerned by the remarks made about him by champion Essendon and VFL champion Jack Clarke: "He was fast, strong, intelligent in both attack and defence and a powerful kick. I've played against him three times, and I’m sure I haven't beaten him once."
Leading goalkicker for the year was former Essendon star full forward Ron Evans (above right) of West Perth, with 97 goals, all booted during the minor round.
This is an edited extract of John Devaney's new book "50 Years and Counting: Australian Football in 1963". It is available for purchase via this link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/john-devaney/50-years-ago-and-counting-australian-football-in-1963/paperback/product-21259200.html
Footnotes
- This was more than twice as many spectators as had attended WANFL matches in 1953.
- Australian Rules Football, Associated Publishers, Adelaide, 1963, pp. 76-7.
- These stats were cited in Ross Elliott's Western Australia Football Register 1962, page 38. By contrast, Graeme Atkinson's and Michael Hanlon's 3AW Book of Footy Records, page 34, suggests that some statisticians claimed that Bunton had more than 100 kicks in this match. Bunton succinctly summarised his philosophy of coaching as follows: "Sheer football skill is still the hardest to beat (but) what do I look for first? What are catch-words you can remember in your ambition to play league football? COURAGE AND DETERMINATION. That's what you need before everything else. All the skill in the world won't help unless you have courage and dedication." (High Mark, edited by Jack Pollard, KG Publishing, Sydney, 1963, page 18.)
- Not to be confused with his ex-Melbourne team-mate Bob "Tassie" Johnson, so called because he hailed from The Apple Isle.
- There are some indeed who might assert that "Polly" Farmer was overall the greatest, most important and revolutionary footballer of all time.
- Polly Farmer: A Biography by Stephen Hawke, Fremantle Arts Press, Fremantle, 1994, page 140.
Comments
John Truslove 23 October 2013
On Bunton's game vs South Fremantle in 1962 - the late, great Geoff Christian wrote in the following Monday's West Australian:
"Record Crowd hails Bunton By Geoff Christian
For more than two hours on Saturday, the biggest crowd to ever gather at Bassendean Oval watched Swan Districts captain-coach Haydn Bunton give one of the finest displays in this state…
...Seldom has one player dominated a match so completely and his apparently inexhaustible stamina, coupled with a fierce determination to win the ball, enabled him to dictate the pattern of play…
…On Saturday he covered a tremendous amount of ground, ranging from deep into defence to deep into attack, and many spectators were wondering just when he would stop getting kicks.
No accurate record was kept of the number of kicks Bunton had but it must have been in excess of 50, and the average total in a game is 500 shared by 36 players.
A Statistician who has been keeping details of league games for ten years said yesterday that the previous record by an individual in a league match was the 46 to John Todd’s credit several seasons ago.
Some of the estimates of the number to Bunton’s credit range from the 50's to the fantastic."
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