Australian Football

Ray Walker - From Braybrook to the Bulldogs to Burnie and back

I was always destined to play for the Braybrook Football Club – Ray Walker, June 2014

This year (2014) saw the Braybrook Football/Sporting Club celebrate the 140^th anniversary of its formation. A charter member of the original Footscray District Junior Football League in 1931, the ‘Brook has played a major role in fostering the careers of some of the finest football talent produced in Melbourne’s inner Western suburbs. A roll call of those who have graduated from the clubs Pennell Reserve headquarters include legends of the great Australian game such as EJ Whitten, Doug Hawkins, George Bisset, Wally Donald and Brian Wilson.

In June the club welcomed players, officials and supporters both past and present to a celebratory function, a rousing get-together when tales – some tall, mostly true, were exchanged. Charged with the responsibility of delivering the keynote speech was former junior  Ray Walker.

Player, coach, selector, commentator – Ray Walker’s football life has been lived to the full. And just as it did for the cavalcade of stars listed above, his journey took flight on the corner of Burke & Cranwell Streets Braybrook.

Walker joined the Braybrook Football Club in 1956, a year that would see him gain selection in the Victorian Under 16 team for the Australian Schoolboys football carnival in Launceston. It was a sign of things to come. Within three years he’d made the short journey to the Western Oval where he found himself rubbing shoulders with local heroes such as EJ Whitten and John Schultz. After a four game audition in the reserves the Bulldog selection committee felt confident enough to pick the local lad for a late August debut against finals-bound Collingwood. If the prospect of facing a Magpie outfit that included legends like Merrett, Weideman and Gabelich led to any pre-game nerves for the young man, it didn’t hamper his performance. “It was a huge thrill to be selected at age 17 playing in the back pocket against a Collingwood legend in Thorold Merrett. Another opponent, Errol Hutchesson, was also making his debut that afternoon”

Walker managed to not only survive this baptism of fire, but thrive in the cauldron of VFL football, with one local scribe in particular impressed with the first up effort.

New lad's fine debut – The Footscray Mail August 27, 1959

“On the last line of defence 17 year old Walker, playing his first senior game, emerged as one of Footscray’s best players. He’s tough and courageous, can mark well and when cornered he showed intelligence in disposing of the ball. He certainly looks like the player to fill a post that has been weak since Wally Donald retired.”

×

Left ▼

+

Comparisons with Wally Donald, who a half century later would be named in the Footscray Team of the Century (naturally in the back pocket) would’ve been quite an honour for the first gamer, more so considering Walker was following the same “Pennell Reserve to Western Oval” path that Donald trod a decade earlier. Having negotiated the huge leap from suburban football to the premier competition in the land, he returned to play in Braybrook’s successful Under 18 Premiership team, the ‘Brook defeating West Footscray in the finale at the Western Oval.

Picking up from where he’d left off, Walker established himself as a permanent fixture in the senior side in 1960 playing in every one of the Dogs' 18 encounters. Whilst Footscray struggled to a 6-win/12-loss record, his fine defensive work was rewarded with selection in the state side to play Tasmania on the Island State. “It was a tremendous honour to represent the Big V. Tassie, who were brilliantly led by Stuart Spencer a winner of two best and fairest awards for Melbourne in its halcyon days, eventually won the game by seven points. We had some outstanding names of that era in the side that day such as Bruce Comben, who was Captain and Coach, Ken Fraser, Murray Weideman, Hugh Mitchell and Billy Goggin."

A nasty eye injury sustained prior to the commencement of the 1961 season proper threw Walker’s preparation into chaos and delayed his season debut until the Round 8 visit to the Western Oval of John Kennedy’s Hawthorn. In his absence fellow Hyde Street Central alumni Charlie Evans made the back pocket position his own and when Walker eventually fought his way back into the “ones” for the Queen’s Birthday Monday clash it would be in the unfamiliar position of a back flank. In a titanic struggle late goals to Keith Beamish and Jack Slattery pushed the home side across the finish line the final margin twelve points. In addition to procuring four precious premiership points the match would be remembered for the senior debut of Merv Hobbs and a successful return to “the ones” for Walker who was named amongst the Bullies best players. He’d play the next nine games in the senior side but sadly was omitted just as the club set out on its first finals foray in five years. “My form had suffered badly due to the serious eye injury suffered during the practice match resulting in haemorrhaging behind the right eye for two months and lack of fitness and form saw me miss the finals series.

Both player and team hoped to improve on the disappointments of 1961 but Walker struggled early making just three appearances in the opening half of the ‘62 season. When Footscray copped a twelve goal hammering at home at the hands of Geelong in early July the axe was swung, and he was back in favour remaining an ever-present in Whitten’s first choice squad over the last two months of the campaign. The Bulldogs would take four of their final seven contests and complete finishing their commitments in fifth place; another September would be spent fantasising what might have been.

The Round 13 home clash with Fitzroy provided Walker with an individual highlight.

“The family were Fitzroy fans and Owen Abrahams was a favourite player of mine. He was my direct opponent that day, I managed to get on to one when we were kicking toward the Geelong Road end, it kept going.” Ironically that  major would be his one and only goal in senior football. His effort in breaking his duck was made all the more impressive when you consider goals were at a premium that afternoon, the Roys entering the final term with just one six-pointer to show for 90 minutes of toil.

And so to 1963 which proved to be a memorable season from both an individual and team perspective. Appearing in 17 of a possible 18 home and away games, Walker struck a rich vein of form that resulted in a return to the state team for Victoria’s clashes with Western Australia in Perth and South Australia at the Adelaide Oval, the latter best remembered for the infamous John Peck-Brian Sawley incident.

When asked what was the reason behind an emphatic return to his best form the response was instantaneous. “I did an intense pre-season under the watchful eye of athletics coach Fergie Speakman. Speakman trained four Stawell Gift winners during an illustrious career that spanned more than half a century. One of his winners, Barry McLeod, was a local from Braybrook.” The hard work paid off, with Walker enjoying a magnificent season in which he was named amongst the team’s best on eight occasions. At seasons end Walker would be awarded Footscray’s best and fairest award and be the club's highest vote-getter in the Brownlow Medal.

The individual success dovetailed with the clubs first senior title (of sorts) in nine seasons when the ‘Scray took out the Night Premiership against Richmond. The original incarnation of the Night Football series was played out after the completion of the home and away series amongst the eight teams that failed to make the top four. All matches were played under lights at the Lakeside Oval, South Melbourne. A narrow six-point victory over North Melbourne in their opening match of the series preceded a clinical seven goal thumping of Carlton (11.7-73 to 4.6-30) in the semi-final. Melbourne Age journalist Greg Hobbs praised Walker in his match review the next morning:

“Footscray had a reliable player in back pocket Ray Walker. He marked coolly and his relieving kicks often landed the ball over the centreline”- The Age September 27, 1963.

Trailing Richmond by eight points at three quarter time in the competition’s finale, it appeared Footscray would have to wait at least another twelve months to grab some silverware for the barren trophy cabinet. However three majors early in the in the final term gave them a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, the Doggies a goal to the good (10.9-69 to 9.9-63) when time expired. The efforts of a trio of Braybrook Boys went a long way to ensuring the Red, White and Blue saluted on that early October evening - Walker and E J Whitten featuring amongst the best players and Wee Georgie Bisset (one goal). A fourth ‘Brooker, ruckman Ivan Marsh, was desperately unlucky not to be named in the final twenty and was amongst four emergencies for the decider.

A groin injury sustained during the 1964 practice match program interrupted the reigning club champions’ plans for what would be his seventh season in Red, White and Blue. The pre-season travails, when compounded with an ever increasing work load on the family owned piggery, resulted in Walker’s form suffering. He would make 12 senior appearances for the Doggies in 1964, and after three matches at the start of the 1965 campaign, the time had come for Walker to move on. “I was working long hours on the farm and this had an adverse effect on my ability to perform on the training track and on match day. I saw an advertisement for the coaching position of the Burnie Football Club in the Sporting Globe. I applied and by the end of June I had the job. Burnie had been forced into re-advertising the coaching position when their first choice for the job, Geelong star Alistair Lord, was denied a clearance by the Cats and couldn’t accept the initial appointment.”

×

Right ▼

Ray Walker gets a kick away against the VFA at the 1966 Hobart carnival.

×

The move to the Apple Isle would be a fruitful one for Ray Walker with a decade long stint on Australia’s southernmost state providing wonderful moments in all facets of his life. Ray and wife Beverley would celebrate the births of son Rohan and daughter Naomi, he’d commence a twenty year career with Ansett Airlines and lead Burnie to its sixth flag in nine years with a victory over Latrobe in the 1966 North West Football Union (NWFU) Grand Final. After four seasons in charge of the Tigers he would make the 20 kilometre trip south west to assume the Captain/Coach role of local NWFU rival Penguin, spending the ’69 & 70 seasons in charge of the Two Blues.

Retirement as a player at the end of his spell at Penguin didn’t mean his involvement with the game had come to an end, as Walker made a successful transition from player/coach to football analyst, working initially with Channel 9 Launceston prior to a move to the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1972. “I had the privilege of working with Don Closs at the ABC in Tasmania from 1972 to 1976. It was Don who liaised with Dick Mason, then head of Radio Sport at the ABC, to help me get a gig in Melbourne when I returned to the mainland in 1977. I covered VFL football on radio and television for ten years. It provided me an opportunity to work with great people such as Clarke Hansen, Graham Dawson, Tim Lane, Drew Morphett and Peter Booth, who I’ve kept in regular contact with.” In addition to his media duties he became a selector for the Victorian state team in 1981, a position he held for the next six years. With the VFL still a few years from morphing into the national competition it is today interstate clashes between Victoria, South Australia & Western Australia were amongst the most anticipated clashes during the first half of the "electrifying" eighties.

“It (the early 80’s) was an exciting era for State of Origin football. I had the pleasure of working alongside fellow selectors such as Ian Ridley, Ted Whitten and Len Thompson and to be an integral part of our great game with champions such as Healy, Ablett, Terry Daniher, Flower, Roos and Weightman who dominated during this period.”

Prior to the commencement of the 1987 VFL season, Board Director Jim Olliver asked Ray Walker if he would be interested in returning to Barkly Street as Footscray’s chairman of selectors. It was an offer too good to refuse. For the next three seasons Walker worked closely with a young man in Michael Malthouse who would become one of the most successful coaches in the modern era of Australian Rules football. Was Malthouse’s ascent to the top of the coaching elite a surprise? “No. From early in his coaching career Mick Malthouse had the ability to extract the absolute maximum out of his players. Fiercely competitive, his players played for him. I enjoyed the three seasons I worked with him.”

After completing his responsibilities with the Dogs, Walker returned to the ABC at the start of the 1990 season and enjoyed another three years covering the now Australian Football League for the National Broadcaster. Awarded life membership in 1975, his ties to the Bulldogs remain as strong as ever, attending games with his son Rohan. “Being a member of the Western Bulldogs/ Footscray Past Players Association as well as serving the club as a member of the selection committee of its Hall of Fame, has been a great way of maintaining an ongoing involvement of our Club which in spite of only winning one flag boasts a proud history stemming from its formation in the 1880s.” He was forthright when I asked him his opinion of the latest crisis to hit the club “The loss of skipper Ryan Griffen and coach Brendan McCartney highlights the importance of selecting the best on field leader and off field senior Coach and assistants. Good recruiting in the past couple of years should begin to bear fruit in the next 2-3 years”.

Returning to where the story started, on Saturday September 6, Braybrook outlasted Albanvale (12.15-87 to 12.13-85) to take out the WRFL Division 3 premiership. The victory was a fitting way for the club to mark its milestone anniversary. Hopefully the success that coach Michael Shepperbottom and his men tasted with the nail-biting win in the season finale can be used as a springboard for the ‘Brook to return to its rightful place amongst the heavyweights of the competition.

Appropriately I’ve left the final words to Ray Walker:

I personally owe a debt of gratitude to the Braybrook Football Club which was the vehicle that enabled me to enjoy a continuous involvement in our great game for almost 60 years.