Australian Football

Old Scotch

The sport of Australian football traces its "official" origins back to a match between Scotch College and Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1858. Scotch College was established in 1851, when it went by the name of the Melbourne Academy. The establishment of the school was the brainchild of James Forbes, a Presbyterian minister who hailed originally from Aberdeenshire in Scotland, but who sadly died, aged thirty-eight, not long after the school was opened. From the beginning, the school was structured and administered according to strict Scottish Presbyterian principles which held that Church and School should be inextricably linked. This attitude permeated all aspects of school life, including sport. 

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century Old Boys Associations began to proliferate in Melbourne, with active participation in sport invariably featuring high on their agendas. Scotch Collegians was one such organisation, and in 1894 it entered a team in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association (MJFA), which had been formed just two years earlier, and which was the forerunner of today’s VAFA. The team fared badly, however, and after just two seasons it disbanded.

The years immediately following world war one saw the sport of football expanding rapidly at all levels. As far as the amateur game in Melbourne was concerned, the clearest evidence of this came with the rush of clubs to join the Metropolitan Amateur Football Association, as the MJFA had been renamed in 1912 as an explicit reaction to the sanctioning of player payments in the VFL. Old Scotch was one of half a dozen such new clubs to be admitted in 1921, its formation - or reformation, if you prefer - having been overseen by three former Scotch College students in George Staley, ‘Cocky’ Heatley, and A.E. Sandford. This time around, the club would be extremely well organised from the start, and on-field success would be swift to arrive. The club also quickly acquired a reputation for zeal in upholding the traditions and mores of amateurism, with its players for example openly acknowledging, and even applauding, instances of fine play by the opposition.

The first great Old Scotch side was captained by one of the club’s founders, ‘Cocky’ Heatley, a centreman who was said to combine considerable all round football ability with mastery in the art of ‘staging’ for free kicks. Under Heatley, Old Scotch went top in 1923 and 1924, with Alan Staley stamping himself as the MAFA’s best ruckman of the period, the McLorinan brothers marshalling a watertight defence, and the likes of Gordon Law, Harold Staley and Clive Fergie (ex-Fitzroy) giving the side unmatched strength through the middle.

After slipping to second in 1925 the side quickly resumed its supremacy with two more flags in 1926 and 1927. The 1925 season had witnessed the first ever amateur interstate match, with Victoria beating South Australia at the MCG. To Old Scotch had gone the honour of providing the first ever Victorian captain in Alan Staley - this in spite of the fact that Staley was neither captain nor vice-captain of his club.

During the late 1920s Old Scotch remained competitive, and indeed invariably finished in the top four, but this was a period of transition for the club, with several of the stars of the 1923-4 and 1926-7 premiership sides giving way to newcomers, who inevitably took a while to find their feet. Once they did so, however, Old Scotch was able to dominate the competition to a degree that no side had managed before. Premiers in 1931-2-3-4, the side was coached in the last three of those years by men with VFL pedigrees in Lou Bols (ex-Fitzroy), Gus Dobrigh (ex-Collingwood) and Vic Belcher (ex-South Melbourne). Skipper of all four flag-winning combinations was Gavin Paterson, one of a handful of players who had been with the club since the early 1920s. 

Arguably the most important player in the team, however, was full forward Bill Pearson, whom no amateur full back of the time could counter. During the course of a 140 game senior career with Old Scotch he amassed the incredible total of 1,023 goals, including A Section list-topping tallies of 126 in 1932, 220 in 1934, 138 in 1925, 121 in 1936 and 155 in 1937. While representing Victoria against South Australia at the inaugural AAFC Carnival in Adelaide in 1936 Pearson booted 11 of his state’s 18 goals, despite suffering from an injured leg, and Victoria squeezed home by 5 points. When, two years later, the VAFA deprived him of his amateur status because he had accepted travelling expenses while playing Sheffield Shield cricket for Victoria he promptly retired from football, despite being aged only twenty-four.

Neil Corke, Ben Barnett, Alex Guild and Gordon Law (another ‘survivor’ from the 1920s) were some of the many other fine players who helped make the Old Scotch sides of the first half of the 1930s among the most consistently successful and arguably finest in VAFA history.

In terms of measurable on-field success, Old Scotch was the pre-eminent VAFA team of the inter-war years, winning eight senior A Section premierships, coming second twice, and finishing in the top four sixteen times in nineteen seasons, including thirteen times in succession between 1923 and 1935.

Since world war two success has proved much harder to come by, and indeed three of the four senior grade premierships won during this phase have been in B Section. Nevertheless, the club remains a key player on the amateur football stage as is particularly evidenced by its feat in never having been relegated as low as C Section.

Despite its superlative record during the 1920s and 1930s Old Scotch did not produce a competition best and fairest award winner until 1950, when future VAFA president Manson Russell won the Woodrow Medal. An effervescently talented rover with an eye for goal, Russell played 251 games for Old Scotch and kicked in excess of 700 goals. He also represented Victoria 11 times and earned All Australian amateur selection.

Old Scotch’s second Woodrow Medallist was also a rover, and one who became well known beyond amateur circles. Ian Law, the 1959 Medal recipient, was a son of Gordon Law, whose 267 senior games stood as a VAFA record until surpassed by Colin Adamson of Hampton Rovers in 1961. The season after winning the Medal Ian Law transferred to Hawthorn and went on to enjoy a highly noteworthy VFL career which included three club best and fairest awards, interstate representation, and a near best afield performance in the 1961 grand final against Footscray, which the Hawks won.

Law’s departure coincided with a bleak time for Old Scotch which spent the first half of the 1960s in B Section. Mind you, its escape when it came could scarcely have been more conclusive as it trounced Caulfield Grammarians in the 1965 B Section grand final by 83 points. More convincing than the margin of victory, however, was old Scotch’s feat in restricting its opponent to just 4 goals in a match played in near perfect conditions.

Old Scotch’s next two premierships were also achieved in B Section, in 1970 (versus St Bernard’s Old Collegians) and 1977 (against Ivanhoe). The 1977 side was especially strong as it proved by going on to lift the A Section pennant the next year. In doing so, it had to beat a North Old Boys combination reckoned by some to be among the very finest in VAFA history, and this it did deservedly, if narrowly, 16.16 (112) to 16.11 (107). Demonstrating the vagaries of top level amateur football, as well as its intensely demanding nature, the 1979 season saw the side relegated back to B Section.

Since 1978 Old Scotch has contested two B Section/Premier B and two A Section grand finals, but lost them all. The club boasted a particularly strong senior side during the late 1990s but unfortunately this coincided with the emergence of a truly great Old Xaverians team that won every A Section flag from 1995 to 2000. In recent seasons Old Scotch has been consistently competitive without possessing that extra something necessary to transform it from contender to champion. In 2006, coached by erstwhile Collingwood and Claremont star Barry Price, the Cardinals, as they are nowadays known, won 12 of their 18 home and away matches to qualify for the A Section finals in fourth place, which was where they ultimately finished after losing the first semi final to University Blues. Most of the time since 2006 has seen the club competing in Premier B where, of late, they have been slowly but steadily improving. In 2016 they got as far as the preliminary final before losing to Beaumaris by 34 points. A year later they reached the grand final only to lose to Old Brighton by 36 points. Nevertheless, promotion had been achieved. The challenge of Premier Section in 2018 tested the players to their limits and, despite a brave struggle, they ended up succumbing to relegation.