‘Up there Cazaly!’
South Melbourne and Victoria, 1921
After 99 games with St Kilda, Roy Cazaly crossed Albert Park to make a fresh start with South Melbourne. Writing about this turbulent period almost two decades later, Cazaly was keen to stress that he bore no grudges against his former club:
Whatever has been said about that trouble let me add that I left St Kilda with sad feelings. There were no hard words between the club administrators and myself. Many good and trusted friends were left behind.
×
Right ▼
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious why Cazaly would want to join South Melbourne after leaving St Kilda. He had grown up in the district, gone to a local school and played junior football and cricket alongside many future South Melbourne players before and during the war. Cazaly and South seem such a natural fit that a more obvious question might be why he hadn’t gone there years earlier. It is tempting to assume that Cazaly’s sense of loyalty kept him at the club which had given him his start, and that he stayed until he couldn’t stand the infighting any longer.
The actual story, however, is far less romantic. Some years later, Cazaly revealed that he had asked for a transfer from St Kilda seven times in eight years, not to South Melbourne but to Carlton, the team he had followed as a boy. St Kilda refused each request, and when it finally agreed to release him South Melbourne claimed him because he lived within their recruiting zone.
Cazaly was hamstrung by a wartime change to the VFL’s transfer policy. Prior to 1914, the rules governing the movement of players between clubs were relatively straightforward and transfers were usually granted provided both clubs agreed. During the war, however, the League introduced a new scheme in which each club was allotted a specific recruiting zone within metropolitan Melbourne.
The change annoyed those clubs already recruiting from beyond their immediate area and angered players who claimed it restricted their right to free movement. The temperamental Billy Schmidt had attacked the new scheme at St Kilda’s 1918 annual meeting, complaining their officials had not consulted the players and the club had now lost access to its strong traditional recruiting areas of South Melbourne and Port Melbourne. The scheme would later provide headaches for the League as it debated how to redraw the recruiting zones after it admitted new teams. In the meantime, Cazaly’s residency in South Melbourne tied him to that club and prevented him from joining Carlton.
×
Left ▼
Talks to facilitate Cazaly’s transfer to South began prior to the 1921 season. On 17 March the club’s general committee agreed that the matter of “Cazaley [sic] of St Kilda be left in the hands of [player delegate] Mr Seedsman. Turning their attention to the season ahead, the committee decided that 2000 members’ tickets would be printed, training would start on 29 March and practice matches would begin four days later, provided the cricket season had ended and the ground was available. Twenty-five-year-old Artie Wood was chosen as playing coach, defeating former premiership captain Jim Caldwell in a secret ballot of the committee.
Cazaly’s transfer was formally approved by the VFL’s Permit and Umpire Committee and he was registered as a South Melbourne player with the League on 3 May. Two days later, the match committee selected him for his first game and he was allocated the number 1 jersey. That night in the gymnasium the players chose Carl Willis as their captain, with Wood as his deputy.
Cazaly’s first game wearing the red and white was, ironically, against his former club. It was his 100th League game and he played well, despite having suffered a bad reaction to an influenza vaccination earlier in the week. Cazaly kicked the winning goal just minutes before the final bell and South Melbourne won by a point.
Hopes were high that the team would recapture the form that had seen it win the premiership in 1918. As it transpired, South Melbourne had an inconsistent season but Cazaly was regularly named among its best players. He played so well in one come-from-behind victory against Geelong that a group of supporters awarded him a prize as their most effective player. Off the field, he threw himself into club matters, just as he had at St Kilda, and the players elected him to fill a casual vacancy on the club’s committee.
Cazaly’s high marking had been noted from his first game at St Kilda, but this feature of his game was beginning to attract more attention in the sporting press. Against his old team, The Age’s ‘Pivot’ (Fred Ricketts) reported that “one mark by Cazaly right over Eicke’s head, who had also leapt high, was particularly brilliant.” The Herald’s ‘Kickero’ (Tom Kelynack) praised his “beautiful” high marking against Essendon, The Argus’ ‘Observer’ (Donald MacDonald) enthused that he took many “very fine” marks against opponents taller than himself, and The Australasian’s ‘J.W.’ (former VFA player and Carlton coach John Worrall) noted that “Cazaly marked amazingly” during a game against Collingwood.
Cazaly’s aerial feats were gaining notice during a golden era for high-flyers. Despite being the most distinctive characteristic of the modern game, marking—and especially high marking—was not a key feature of Australian football during its formative years. The game’s early laws allowed for a mark and resulting free kick but kicking was not a large part of general play, which largely consisted of congested packs (or “scrimmages”) interspersed with downfield rushes by individual players. An early football guide assessed the running, charging and dodging finesse of prominent players but only singled out a handful for their kicking or marking skills.
×
Right ▼
Players during this era usually marked the ball on their chest with their feet firmly planted on the ground. The rules did not specifically protect those attempting a mark and a bid by several clubs in 1874 to outlaw pushing from behind while a player was marking was defeated. South Melbourne’s champion Peter Burns later recalled that opponents could shove a marking player in the back without fear of penalty:
Think of the golden opportunities presented! There was the opposition high mark just settling under the dropping ball when you gave him all you carried right plumb in the small of the back. The busters were indescribable.
Leaping into the air for a mark under such circumstances was considered foolhardy and was strongly discouraged. In 1876, football writer Thomas Power warned players that, “Jumping for marks is dangerous. I pray you avoid it.”-
Despite the risks, more players began springing into the air to meet the ball earlier and gain an advantage over their opponent. The high-marking trend continued during the 1880s as football manufacturing improved, general play became more open and players began to kick further and with greater accuracy. One of the most daring footballers during this era was Essendon’s Charlie ‘Commotion’ Pearson, who regularly thrilled spectators with his high leaps and fingertip marks. The Australasian later said of him that “no better high mark ever lived.”
By 1891, the laws of the game were finally providing greater protection for high-flyers. Rule 17 now specifically outlawed pushing a player “when a player is in the air going for a mark” or “Slinging, deliberately Charging, or Throwing a player” after he had taken one.
×
Left ▼
Growing public interest in the exploits of individual footballers was aided from the turn of the 20th century by the publication of player heights, weights and occupations, diagrams showing players in their field positions and photographs of players in action. Collingwood’s champion full-forward Walter ‘Dick’ Lee was the most celebrated aerialist either side of World War I; an image of him taking a spectacular mark against Carlton in 1914 is one of football’s earliest and best known action photos. Lee became one of the game’s biggest stars and delirious Collingwood supporters would greet his leaps with cries of “Dick! Dick! Dickeee!”:
That final “Dick-e-e-e!” was a scream of triumph or the fluttering pulse of disappointment as his fingers wrenched the ball from those other groping hands, or as he crashed without it …
By the 1920s crowds were loudly urging their favourite players to leap for high marks, with cries of “Clover!” for Carlton’s centre half-forward Horrie Clover and “Freakie! Freakie! Freakie!” for Fitzroy’s full-forward Jim Freake. Now the most admired feature of the game, marking was regularly referred to in match reports and its best exponents were held in awe by spectators.
Cazaly was not a tall man, standing just 5 feet 10½ inches, but he was blessed with a phenomenal leap. According to later reports, he could consistently jump 22 inches straight up without bending his knees. Cazaly had practised marking as a youth by stringing a ball up in the old stable behind his house and leaping at it from different angles. Sometimes he would use a specially greased ball to simulate wet and slippery match conditions. When he met the ball, he would wrap his large hands around it and bring it safely to earth.
×
Right ▼
But Cazaly knew that successful marking depended on more than a natural spring and a sure grip. He perfected his jump by observing the flight of the ball closely, carefully judging his leap and controlling his breathing. Cazaly had been taught what he called “the art of breathing” by his father when he was learning to row, and he later claimed it helped him gain extra height when marking. He had a five-inch chest expansion—from 41 to 46 inches—and he estimated that the extra deep breath he took just before he jumped enabled him to gain additional height. Split-second timing was also crucial, and many observers remarked on his tendency to “hover” or “float” in the air just before the ball arrived. After one South Melbourne game against Essendon the Record noted that:
His marking was one of the features of the game. At times he seemed to hang in the air before getting the ball.
Cazaly later advised younger players that vision, timing and control of the body in the air were all essential components of a successful mark:
Never take your eyes off the ball as you run through your preliminary. Then, in a stride, jump, throwing the chest at the ball and with your legs trailing, even if slightly bent under you. The hands should not seek the ball until the body has been thrown into the air and is floating ready for the action of the hands and arms. This is all important, for if you try to raise the hands too soon they are apt to come in contact with another player.
×
Left ▼
By combining each of these elements, Cazaly was able to consistently mark over much taller opponents. “I admit I’ve climbed on other fellows’ backs to get higher, and toppled right over,” he once said. “But I used to watch the flight of the ball perhaps more than the other fellow did, and perfect timing, that deep breath and a natural spring used to get me above him.”
Cazaly’s aerial techniques also gave him an advantage in ruck contests. His following skills, first developed in junior football and sharpened alongside Vic Cumberland and Jack James at St Kilda, were further honed at South Melbourne. A profile penned by The Herald’s ‘Leander’ (Charlie Gardiner) mid-way through the 1921 season provides insight into his skills, strength and stamina:
He is not a big man for a follower, measuring only 5ft. 10 1/2in. in height and weighing 12 stone, but he brings a keen intelligence to bear on all his play. This is apparent by the manner in which he hits out in the pack. He invariably finds his rover, but should the rover not be in his place Cazaly does not hit out and take a chance. He tries to take the ball himself and break through, rather than risk the other side gaining advantage … One of the reasons why Cazaly has been an important factor in the South team is his ability to follow throughout the whole game, if necessary. He has actually done so without showing any signs of tiring. He states that he is never affected in the wind, and he attributes his staying powers to the fact that he does not carry any surplus flesh.
Cazaly had the right combination of skills to be a great follower, but he also knew from his years at St Kilda that an effective ruck depended on three players able to work closely together. Richmond premiership captain, coach and follower Percy Bentley understood that successful ruck play required a combination of skill, strategy and good communication. He later explained that:
×
Right ▼
The ruck is the driving force of the football team. Perfect understanding must be developed between the two followers. Remember the cardinal rule for the ruckman is to make the place men, and the smaller men of the side, play around him. In this he is both a battleship and a supply ship. Know where the rover is and try to give him the ball ahead of him so that he can break away towards the goal. That type of understanding brings fast, odd man exchanges that are the soul of good teamwork.
All of the individual and team skills that Bentley advocated came together in South Melbourne’s ruck trio of Cazaly, Manfred ‘Fred’ Fleiter and Mark Tandy. Fleiter was born in Carlton in 1897, the son of a German-born father and a Tasmanian mother, and grew up in Albert Park. His older brother Emil had played football with Cazaly at school. Fred gained the nickname ‘Skeeter’ as a junior footballer because he had thin legs like a mosquito, and it stuck with him throughout his career. As a youth, he was also a talented cricketer and a champion swimmer with the South Melbourne Open Sea Bathing Club. Cazaly was also a member, and the pair had performed as ‘grotesque lifesavers’ in a comedy routine during the official opening of the bathing season in December 1917.
Fleiter’s solid football form with South Melbourne Districts soon brought him to the attention of South Melbourne, but his senior debut was delayed when he fractured an arm during a pre-season practice match in 1919. He recovered in time to play three games that year and every match of the following two. A newspaper profile described him as a “tall, hefty shepherd” who stood six feet tall in his socks and weighed 12 stone 10 lbs.
×
Left ▼
Occasionally he plays at half-back, but he follows for the greater part of the game and likes it better than watching from a place. He is fast for his size, and his bodily strength is backed by a ready intelligence and a clear perception of where his duty lies to his team when the game is on. Fleiter, like the “shepherds” of other teams, knows his work and is quite unconcerned about what people outside the fence think. ‘My idea of football is that a man must do his best for his side no matter where he is placed. I am in the team to play my hardest, and I am prepared to do it.’
“Fleiter was a great fellow to work with,” Cazaly later recalled.
He made every sacrifice for me. He took hard knocks [and] he fought his way through formidable packs so that I could get a clear run at the ball. ‘Skeet’ was a great footballer. Something more than the shepherder in the accepted sense of the term. Skeet had football brains.
Mark ‘Napper’ Tandy had played on the wing when he first joined South Melbourne from Yarraville in 1911, and played a key role in their narrow premiership win over Collingwood in 1918. He was quick, cunning and easily spotted on the field due to his mop of sandy hair. Tandy worked at the Metropolitan Gas Works in West Melbourne. He kept fit and trained hard, although one contemporary profile euphemistically noted “he is no faddist, and enjoys the average luxuries an Australian man indulges in.” A renowned joker both on and off the field, he was famous for performing his “sword dance” at club social outings.
Cazaly later said that ‘Napper’ Tandy was the best rover he ever saw. He gave him his nickname because of his tendency to “go to sleep” on the field:
He was the most complacent rover I ever rucked to. I would stir the soul out of him if we were being beaten … He would just shake his head, smile, and say, ‘Well, you’re boss,’ or ‘Have it your own way.’
×
Right ▼
Cazaly and Fleiter first played in the ruck together against Melbourne in round 4 of the 1921 season, and Tandy joined them as rover the next week. Over time, the trio developed a close understanding of their roles and a sixth sense of one another’s whereabouts on the field. “We practised night after night,” Cazaly later recalled.
We had to work for it. Finally we were so accustomed to each other that it was like mind-reading. We were a true ruck team in every sense.
Football writers began to write in glowing terms about South’s dominant ruck combination, even in games where the rest of the team were well beaten. After a loss against Collingwood, the Record noted that:
Cazaly, Fleiter and Tandy, South’s first ruckmen, were a fine trio. Cazaly all day was a prominent man. His marking was brilliant. He met the ball one-handed on occasions, and gathered it in for the mark with great skill. Tandy was one of the best on the ground.
Similarly, The Australasian’s John Worrall remarked after a loss to Essendon that “although South Melbourne were woefully handicapped in the ineffectiveness of their battery, their play in the outer field, and in the ruck, where Cazaly, Fleiter and Tandy were acting in concert, was of such a character that the match was a fine one to witness.”
×
Left ▼
The trio achieved a further measure of fame during 1921 when they were included in a series of cigarette swap cards issued by the Schuh Tobacco Company. They would continue as South’s first ruck combination until a knee injury to Fleiter part way through the 1922 season forced a change to the team’s line-up. While they would occasionally reunite later on they were at their most potent during this relatively brief period between early 1921 and mid-1922.
It was during the 1921 season that the ‘Up there Cazaly’ call was coined. The use of ‘Up there’ in football parlance was not new. It had been used in reference to other players before and—on at least one occasion—to an entire team. Now, however, the expression became synonymous with just one player: Cazaly. Fred Fleiter was the author of the phrase and in subsequent years Cazaly never tired of explaining how it originated:
We used to nominate who was going for the ball. With a kick coming from either end, Tandy would take the short ones, Fleiter the middle length ones, and I the long ones. When I was to go, Fleiter would yell, ‘Up there Cazaly’ and up I’d go. Then the crowd began to catch on to the system and they’d yell the same thing.
Exactly when crowds began to “catch on” and use the phrase is unknown. In all likelihood it was a South Melbourne supporter near the boundary line who heard Fleiter’s cry, repeated it, and was soon joined by others whenever the ball was in the air and heading towards Cazaly.
Cazaly’s and Tandy’s consistent form saw them both selected in the Victorian team for the fourth Australian National Football Carnival in Perth in August 1921. The triennial carnivals were designed to include teams from each state but high transport costs meant only Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia competed at the first post-war carnival. It was Cazaly’s first representative appearance for his state and Tandy’s fourth.
×
Right ▼
Victoria’s first match was against South Australia at Fremantle Oval, and resulted in an easy 35-point win by the Victorians. Cazaly, who kicked a goal and was among Victoria’s best, started at half-forward before moving to the ruck while Tandy played on a wing. The Victorians’ second game, against Western Australia at Subiaco four days later, was much more evenly matched and ended in a narrow loss to the home team by five points. The West Australians then defeated South Australia to win the round robin series.
South Melbourne’s committee must have asked Cazaly to scout for possible recruits during the carnival because their minutes record he’d “watched the play of Iron [sic] very closely and in his opinion the player named was too slow and would not be suitable for our team.” Cazaly was referring to Fred ‘Fat’ Ion, Western Australia’s bullocking ruckman. Ion was also known as the ‘Glaxo Baby’, after the well-nourished mascot of the Glaxo baby food company. He was six feet tall and weighed more than 16 stone but Cazaly’s assessment may have been harsh because a contemporary account described Ion as a “solidly built but nimble and very fast shepherding ruckman.” South had probably asked Cazaly to look for a follower to recruit. If so, Cazaly might have shrewdly downplayed Ion’s abilities, knowing a more effusive appraisal could jeopardise his mate Fred Fleiter’s future in the side.
×
Left ▼
South Melbourne finished the season in seventh position, with five wins, one draw and 10 losses. Cazaly had played every game and was the team’s leading goalscorer, with 19. Among the club prizes he was named ‘Best all round’ player, with Fleiter ‘Most improved’ and Tandy ‘Most consistent’. One South Melbourne official who had known Cazaly when he was with St Kilda later marvelled at his transformation “from novice to weight-for-age company” at his new club.
Cazaly coached South Warrnambool again during the 1921 finals and the team defeated Koroit for the district premiership. One of their stars was vice-captain Colin Watson, who had returned to his home town the previous year after the internal ructions at St Kilda. There is less ambiguity about Cazaly’s role this season than in 1919: a photo of the premiership side includes him standing in the middle of the back row.
At the end of the VFL season, The Herald newspaper held a readers’ poll to determine the competition’s best positional players. More than 14,000 people voted and when the entries were tallied Cazaly was declared the League’s best follower. His turnaround in fortunes from just a year earlier at St Kilda was complete.
This is an extract from Cazaly: The Legend by Robert Allen, published by the Slattery Media Group. You can purchase a copy of Cazaly by clicking here.
Comments
This article does not contain any comments.
Login to leave a comment.