The 1905 WAFA season in review
The Western Australian football season came to a close last Sunday, when the premiers of the coastal districts (West Perth) defeated the premiers of the goldfields (Railways) at Kalgoorlie by 8 goals 10 behinds to 3 goals 12 behinds, and carried off the premiership of the State.
So far as the coast is concerned the season has been a remarkably successful one—the most, successful ever experienced here. Seven teams—a record number—competed for the honours and public interest in the games was keen from start to finish. It was more keen at the conclusion, in fact, than it was at the end of any previous season in the history of Western Australian football. It may well be asked: What brought out this highly satisfactory, state of affairs? The answer is: clean, scientific football, four evenly balanced, well-trained teams, good club management, fairly reliable umpiring, and improved government on the part of the controlling Association.
The governing body gave an excellent account of itself in two directions. Firstly it organised the State schools as the Young Australia League, and, secondly, it appointed Mr. J.J. Simons to the position of secretary. The first matter was certain to be a success, for the schools were only waiting for some association to take them in hand. The second proved to be an unqualified success from the very outset, for the new secretary left no stone unturned to further the interests of Australian football in every legitimate way. Some previous secretaries of the Association were commendably attentive to the work and as reliable as could be wished for, but Mr. Simons was both and more. He was full of energy and enthusiasm, and had ability and force of character at the back of all. Simons is hardly likely to develop swelled head as a result of success, and so long as he avoids this disease he should prove a very useful man in his present position. He will leave for Melbourne today to represent Western Australia at the interstate Football Congress, and the experience he will gain there should do much to further improve the management of football in this State.
For the organisation of the Young Australia League, too much praise cannot be bestowed on the Association generally, and on Mr. Wale in particular. In the past the Association neglected all but senior players, oblivious of the fact that a recruiting around was necessary in order to keep the senior teams up to their proper strength. Even now a gap exists between the schoolboys and the seniors, and the problem of how to deal efficiently with this has yet to be solved. However, for one season the foundation of the Young Australia League is an excellent piece of work, the results of which should last for a long time.
For football generally the League is an admirable institution, and to the boys themselves it must be wonderfully encouraging. At one stroke the lads have been transferred from the worst sand patches imaginable to the finest playing grounds the country can boast of, and they are always under the control of skilled senior players, who act as central umpires. Before the start of the big senior matches every Saturday during the latter half of the season the boys played on the grounds that the seniors were afterwards to play on, and following on this they watched the performances of the champion footballers of the coast, and learned points which they practised later on.
Such instruction and encouragement as these never came in the way of the boys connected with any game before, and it is certain that no sport other than Australian football will have the opportunity of offering these advantages in the near future.
Another creditable piece of work performed by the Association was the appointment of an appeal board to deal with all charges against players for infringement of the rules of football. Certainly there were not many breaches for the board to adjudicate upon during the season but those that did come forward were disposed of promptly and apparently without the slightest consideration for clubs or persons. A few of the players will have cause to remember the appeal board at the beginning of next season, for these players have some offences still to atone for.
Altogether, however, the play throughout the season was fairly free from those disgraceful blemishes that tend so greatly to mar any game. Excitement ran high at several big engagements, but for the most part the players devoted their attention to defeating each other according to the rules of legitimate sport, and exhibitions of anything approaching horse play were exceedingly rare. The influence exercised by the appeal board may work for even greater good, until the offenders become so few and the offences so light and infrequent that the board's work will be hardly worth mentioning.
A word with regard to the umpiring. The best umpires in the world will almost assuredly come in for condemnation from some persons, and it is, therefore, not always fair to judge the umpire from the remarks of some of his critics. The umpires' this season were roundly censured at times; and it must be said that on numerous occasions they deserved much of the blame that was cast upon them. Many men were tried, but not one of them gave consistent satisfaction. Some of them umpired so well at the outset that they were praised on all sides. This praise killed them stone dead. Censure they could have withstood perhaps, but praise was too much for them. Of all the central umpires this writer gives the palm to Fred Lemon. Lemon was never a howling success. Also he was never a howling failure. Many disliked him because he didn't see everything. "Mark" thinks that he didn't see as much as he ought to have seen, but he certainly averaged things better than any of the others.
Wildy started out well and collapsed suddenly. Then at the tail end of the season Condon came into evidence as the best umpire that had been seen on the coast for a long time. He gave a meritorious exhibition of umpiring in the Norths v. Easts match at Perth, and if the season had closed then, as it would have done had the Norths won, Condon's situation would have been made. On the following Saturday at Fremantle Condon showed signs of falling off, and in the last match of the season he lost quite a host of admirers through his lamentable abandonment of nearly all control of the game in the last quarter. There is talk of the crack australian umpire, Crapp, coming to Western Australia next year, and the advent of such a man may do a great deal of good. This writer firmly believes that swelling of the head has been responsible for ten times as many failures among umpires as all other complaints put together.
Of the seven teams that battled for the pride of place only four—West Perth, East Fremantle, North Fremantle, and South Fremantle—were capable of putting up a scientific, well-sustained fight throughout a whole game. Perth was usually good for a quarter or so, but Subiaco and Midland Junction were deplorably weak all the time.
The Wests, who gained the premiership after a very exciting finish, started out remarkably well, and as the season progressed, they looked as if there was nothing to stop them from staying in front all the time. They had the best system of all the teams, and they had the best captain, Plunkett. They lost Plunkett through an accident in one of their matches against South Fremantle, and straightaway they dropped their bundles, so much so in fact, that the hitherto despised Easts walked over them to a lively tune. The Wests went off very considerably, while the Norths, Easts and Souths kept on improving, the latter notwithstanding a heavy loss through injuries to Otto Kelly. Ernie Kelly, and Bromley.
Towards the latter end of the season it looked as if the hopes of the Wests had vanished and had the Norths defeated the Easts in the final engagement between these two teams the Wests would not have been premiers. To the credit of the city team, however, it must be said that they pulled themselves together remarkably well for the big effort at the conclusion. Through dogged persistency they made a draw of what was to have been their last match against the Easts and in the play-off they won after a very long battle. Altogether during the season they played 18 matches, out of which they won 14, lost three and drew one. They were twice beaten by the Easts and once by the Norths. Their team was a remarkably good one all round, and they seldom had a weak spot in it. Their most conspicuous players were, however, Renfrey, Bant, Everett, Ford, O'Callaghan, Wyatt, Hendy, Shaw, Trevillian, Rowe, Plunkett, Jeffrey, McNamara, Lemon, and Bailey. Towards the end Champion and Bennett did good work and in the last two matches Brown and Kneale, two juniors, performed magnificently. Renfrey shares with Woods (North Fremantle) the honour of being the best back man in the Association.
The runners-up, East Fremantle, started the season almost right away with failure. They beat Midland Junction on the first day of the fixtures, and then went under to Norths, Souths, and Wests.
That run of misfortune seemed to pull the Easts together, and for a long time afterwards nothing but successes attended their efforts. They entrusted their forward work principally to Dolph Heindrichs and Sharpe, and these two men attended to it well up to the last two matches with the Wests, and then they were too safely watched to allow of their doing anything in the positions allotted to them. With different management they might have acquitted themselves more creditably in these engagements, but Tom Wilson apparently considered that because they had scored right forward before they must do so again and in spite of the evidence before him he kept them there and lost the premiership.
The Easts played, in all, 19 matches, and out of this number they won 13, lost five and drew one. Their most serviceable men were Dolph Heindrichs (the best all-round player on the coast), Wilson, Williamson, Scotty Doig, C. Doig, Sharpe (who ties with Harvey Kelly of South Fremantle with 50 goals, for the goalkicking record), Gilbert, Sweetman, Albert Heindrichs (developed into a clinking follower). Thomas Christy, Frank Tuohy, H. Doig, Palmer, and Lee.
‘Dolly’ Christy, in his twenty-two consecutive years of senior football, is the oldest player in Australia, and yet in nearly every contest has performed wonderfully well, and in tight corners he was always more than a match for the young and vigorous players, many of whom were in their mothers' arms when he first donned the Ballarat colours to take part in big football. How much longer Christy will keep going no one would care to predict. Seven or eight years ago it was said that he had lost his dash and that he must retire, and only a few weeks ago it was declared that he had just given the best performance of his long career.
The Norths, who started off well, did not improve at all. They were full of dash and crudeness at the outset, and they were just as full of both at the finish. Theirs is a strange mixture—several of the finest and cleanest players in the Association, several of the roughest (at times), plenty of weight, and then a long tail.
They had the finest player that the season produced in Jim Toohey, who came up from the junior ranks. This lad was a star at the start of a match, and he was a star at the finish. He shone out at the beginning of the season, and he kept on shining right to the end. He performed an immense amount of work for the Norths and he always performed it like a veteran. His marking was frequently wonderful, his kicking very reliable, his stamina, extraordinary, and his character of the highest.
Other men who did yeoman service for the Norths were Woods (a remarkably clean, safe, and consistent back man who constantly plays the ball and leaves his opponent alone), Craig, Goddard, Orr, Munro, Butler, Gibson (a veteran who is improving with age), Joe Copper, Ernie Cooper, Franks, Corkhill, and Rowlands. The Norths played 16 games, out of which they won 12 and lost 4.
The Souths finished almost at the bottom of the list in the 1904 season and they occupied a creditable fourth place at the end of the season under review. They secured Otto Kelly, Harvey Kelly, Ernie Kelly, Bromley, and Joe Mann from the Easts at the outset, and got good recruits from other quarters. Everything pointed to their being highly successful all along the line, and then, as they were moving splendidly, they received a severe blow through O. and E. Kelly and Bromley being laid out in one match and rendered unfit for play for several weeks afterwards. Such a piece of misfortune was hard to get over, but Souths didn't lose heart. They pegged away with wonderful grit, and on no occasion were they disgracefully beaten by their more fortunate opponents. Among their leading men, in addition to those mentioned, above were Hodge (best centre-man on the coast), Dunn, Mattison, Batee, Franklin, Coates, Scott, Fookes, Morrison, Wilson, Trimm, Jackson, and Goodenough. The Souths won eight matches, and last a similar number.
Of Perths, Midlands, and Subies, the less said the better. Those responsible for these clubs have much to answer for. They cannot be regarded as very great judges of footballers, for they constantly informed the public that they had exceedingly good men to fight for them, and then those good men used to be beaten out of sight. The crack teams made numerous alterations in their ranks, and made every effort to get good new blood in. The weaker teams—Perths, Midlands and Subies—played the same old failures nearly the whole time. Let us hope that next year they will mend their ways.
Footnotes
Title: The Australian game. A review of the season
Author: ‘Mark’
Publisher: Western Mail (Perth, WA: 1885-1954)
Date: Saturday, 21 October 1905, p.37 Article
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