A conversation with Charlie Sutton
The much-loved captain-coach of Footscray’s only premiership side in 1954, Charlie Sutton is the Bulldogs’ spiritual father. A pocket battleship who bulked up working in quarries, Sutton led with a fierce attack on the ball and was described by teammate Jack Collins as, pound-for-pound, the toughest player of the day. He was so respected that he was captain-coach of Victoria two years before becoming a footballing immortal. The Bulldogs’ best and fairest is named in his honour.
There aren’t any handouts – you’ve got to do it yourself. I signed with Footscray in 1941, when I was 17 and playing with the Spotswood under-18s. Our season finished a bit before the League finished, so I went for a run with Footscray to get a head start on the following year. I trained with them for two or three weeks and enjoyed it immensely. Norm Ware was coach and he took me aside and said: “You’ve got a future in front of you, son. We’ll help you as much as we can, but how far you go will be up to you”. It doesn’t matter what sport you’re playing, that advice rings true with every one of them. You have to take it upon yourself.
Three-and-a-half years in the army was good preparation for coaching. (Sutton enlisted after playing eight games in his debut season.) I was in the transport unit from 1942-45. It was great for instilling discipline. If they told you to jump, you had to say: “How high?” – otherwise they punished you for it. That held me in good stead for football – both playing and coaching; whether giving or receiving orders. If the coach told us to do something, we respected him. We thought: ‘If that’s what he wants, we’ll try to do it’. It’s about everyone pulling in the same direction for a common goal.
You can’t sit back and enjoy the good life if you want to play League football. When I was posted to the backblocks at Bandiana (in north-eastern Victoria), I got into a great routine. At 5-6am, while everyone else was sleeping, I’d get up and run 5-6km up and down the hills. Although it made me tired to start with, soon I had more energy because I was fitter.
Quarry work did me a world of good. After I came out of the army, I worried I might become a bit soft, so I worked in the Newport quarries for four months to toughen myself up. It was very heavy work in all conditions. I’d be loading rocks by hand, which was bloody hard work, but it was great for my conditioning for when I returned to Footscray (in 1946). That type of manual labour strengthens your whole body.
Later on, I bought a truck and I’d load and unload heavy materials, sometimes on a Saturday morning before a game. That was my job, so I had to do it. It was a good warm-up for a football match.
I was happy to play in any position that suited the team. I went to Footscray as a centreman, but I was in and out of the side a bit. Then Tommy Tribe got injured and they sent me to the back pocket to get some confidence. I’d never played there before, but I got a few kicks and enjoyed running straight ahead. They stuck with me in the back pocket for the next few years. Then our secretary, Roy Russell, said: “I’ll think about taking you out of the back pocket and playing you as a rover or centreman”. I said: “Well, if it’s better for the club, we should give it a go”.
“Shop early and avoid the rush.” I got that saying from ‘Checker’ Hughes (the legendary Richmond and Melbourne coach) when he coached the Victorian team. It meant get the jump-start on the opposition. And if there’s any rough stuff to take place, make sure you do it early on to upset them and get the upper hand. I’d add: “Just to make sure, get to the shop before it opens”.
No premiership side is ever an overnight success. You need a strong foundation to build up to playing in a Grand Final. When I was appointed captain-coach after the 1950 season, I hadn’t even captained the club before. I was nervous about how I’d handle it and how the players would respond. It wasn’t a walk-up start finals team. (The Bulldogs had finished 10th with only five wins in 1950.) I told the committee: “Don’t rush things; let me take care of business and we’ll have a shot at the premiership in four years”. The fourth year was 1954, so it all ran perfectly to schedule.
SONS OF THE WEST: Sutton, Ted Whitten (left) and full-back Herb Henderson formed part of the nucleus of the Bulldogs side that won the 1954 flag. (The Herald and Weekly Times Photographic Collection)
We clicked in my first season as coach. We were lucky to pick up some good players – Peter Box, Jacky Collins and Teddy Whitten, just to mention a few. Then we had to bind them together. We made the four, played in the first semi-final and, although we lost (to Essendon by eight points), it was a great experience for the boys to run onto the MCG for a final.
It’s second nature to help your teammates when you’re great mates off the field. We got the players and their wives and girlfriends together socially and showed them it was all for one and one for all. Everyone was included; no one was left out. Socialising together goes a long way towards binding players on the field. It creates a warm atmosphere where strong friendships are made. You’d do anything for each other. We’d also pool any trophy money we got and, at the end of the season, we’d split it evenly, depending on how many games you’d played.
Every coach has to pull players into line occasionally. You might have a player who thinks he’s better than he is or starts walking on air, so you need to bring him back to earth. Just let him know: “You’re part of a team, so let’s play as a team. If you’re asked to do a job, do it”. I always had the support of the players too, so they’d jump on a bloke’s case if he wasn’t doing what was expected.
I grew another leg for finals. When you ran out on the ground, it was like a bullring and the roar of the crowd nearly knocked you off your feet. I was only 5’7” (170cm), but I felt like I was 6’7” (201cm). Some blokes shied away from that type of atmosphere, but I loved it. You live for days like that.
I suffered a serious back injury in ’52. It was hard luck because a few weeks earlier I’d captain-coached Victoria to a win over South Australia on the MCG – one of the highlights of my career. I was backing back to go for a mark and a bloke crashed into me and chipped five of my lumbar vertebrae. There were no hard feelings though. We were both going for the ball and it was just unfortunate.
I was in plaster from my waist to my chest for three months. I continued to coach, but it was hard. The committee wanted me to come back and play the last three games, but we had no hope of making the four so there was no point risking myself. I told them: “No, I’ll make sure everything’s all right and come back next year”.
In ’53, we won the first semi-final in the Bulldogs’ history. (The Bulldogs had lost their six previous first semi-finals – in 1938, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948 and 1951.) We beat Essendon and then lost the preliminary final to Geelong. But the boys realised they were good enough to beat the top teams.
I didn’t think we were quite ready to play in a Grand Final in ’53 anyway, but we were building. The Footscray people thought so too. We thought: ‘These people will do anything for us if we win a premiership’. We were ready to go in ’54. I could sense it, and so could the players and the supporters.
FOLLOW ME: Sutton leads the Bulldogs on to the MCG for the 1954 Grand Final. They crushed Melbourne by 51 points. (The Herald and Weekly Times Photographic Collection)
We weren’t an overly physical team so we tried to open the game up. We wanted as little of the play in the clinches as possible, because that’s where the stronger sides had an advantage over us. We were still very hard at it, but we played on whenever we could and emphasised handball and long kicking. We had our critics for how much we handballed, but we played to our strengths.
You only earn respect when you beat the best. Geelong finished on top of the ladder (for the fourth consecutive season after recording eight wins in a row), but we beat them in the second semi-final at the MCG to go straight through to the Grand Final. Geelong had a very experienced team (winning flags in 1951 and 1952 and losing the 1953 Grand Final to Collingwood by only two goals). That win was a huge scalp for us, and a great boost. We always felt we could beat them, but actually doing it was a different thing altogether. It topped up our belief that we could win a flag.
During our week’s rest, we had the best training session I was involved with. We trained at Footscray on the Sunday before the Grand Final in front of more than 18,000 people. It had the atmosphere of a match and the crowd was magnificent in their support of the players. It was a great training session – the ball hardly hit the ground. The only thing that worried me a little was whether any of the players were doing too much and if it was going to take it out of them the following Saturday. But we kept everything lock, stock ‘n’ barrel and told them: “Make sure you look after yourselves, keep a lid on it and get on with the job”.
We instructed the players not to go mad (in the Grand Final) – I could look after that side of the business. Everyone was to keep their cool. Melbourne had a few tough nuts in their side, like their captain, Geoff Collins and ‘Barass’ (Ron Barassi), but I told the players: “I’ll look after the heavy stuff; you just concentrate on playing football”. I asked them to play with grit and determination. We were going to play run-on football at all costs and, of course, shop early and avoid the rush.
I made out I was injured and it worked. I’d missed the second semi-final with a (left) hamstring strain, but I was 100 per cent fit for the Grand Final. But I thought we might get an advantage if I wore a huge bandage around my thigh because the Melbourne boys would think I was still injured. It worked because they started a younger, more inexperienced opponent on me – John Beckwith. I thought I’d try to upset them a bit, so I started a dust-up with Beckwith and had another with Barass. I knew we had them worried because they started shifting their backmen around and reacting to what we were doing. When they put their captain, Geoff Collins, on me, I thought: ‘Hello, there’s the crack in the armour. We’ve got them rattled’. By then though, we were on our way. (The Bulldogs led 6.3 (39) to 1.4 (10) at quarter-time.)
It’s hard to get there; it’s even harder to stay there. After we won the premiership, we didn’t perform as well as we should have. I don’t think we had experienced people around the club to handle the success. The boys celebrated and it was hard to keep their feet on the ground.
You’re in trouble when you start playing like millionaires. Round one in 1955 against (eventual Grand Finalist) Collingwood was a great exhibition of football. We could do no wrong (in a 56-point win). The next week we played Richmond at Footscray and were terrific in the first half, but then our fellas started trying to take one-handers and doing the flashy things rather than sticking to the basics. (After leading by 47 points at half-time, the Bulldogs won by 31 points.) When players ignore the basics, it’s the hardest thing in the world to get them back on track. We missed the four by 0.6 per cent.
The supporters make you; you don’t make them. So respect them. They give you enormous support and players ride on it. As a player and a coach, I always tried to give my best for the supporters. Our theme in ’54 was: “Do it for the supporters. They’re the ones who have stuck with us the whole time, through thick and thin, and they’re the ones we need to reward”.
TOP DOG: Charlie Sutton holds the Bulldogs' retrospectively produced 1954 premiership cup. He was captain-coach of the club's one and only flag.
What happens on the field stays on the field. You can’t be a sook in a game of football. If you cop a whack, don’t make a big song and dance about it. Fight fire with fire. Go in even harder the next time and make the ball yours.
I was careful not to overtrain players who’d worked hard physically during the day. Many were tradesmen and labourers; there weren’t too many players who had collar-and-tie, office jobs. Half the time they’d be tired when they turned up at training. I wanted to know how their legs felt; if they felt strong, you knew you were giving them the right amount of heavy work. With blokes who had pen-pushing jobs, you could work them harder.
A playing coach must be prepared to sacrifice his own game for the team. You must be prepared to put yourself in the toughest positions. You might say: “I’m getting plenty of possessions in the back pocket, but we need a bit more at half-forward, so I’ll go there”. There’s no point in a playing coach winning the best and fairest if the team isn’t going well. You need to get other players to play like you do so they can become on-field leaders and make your job easier.
People are often too quick to barrel a coach when they don’t know the full story. Usually the public, and sometimes even the club’s committee, don’t know the real reasons why the side or certain players aren’t performing. They’re not privy to everything that goes on behind the scenes – the conversations a coach has with certain players about problems they’re having in their personal lives that are affecting their mental state and their approach to their football. When people are putting pressure on you or calling for your head, you have to turn a deaf ear to them. Telling people the real reasons would help get you off the hook, but it’s a matter of principle: you don’t broadcast what a player has told you in confidence. What has a coach got if he hasn’t got trust and respect?
It’s about what you can do for the club, not what the club can do for you. It’s like what (US president) John F. Kennedy said. What’s best for you individually isn’t always best for the club, so sometimes you have to swallow your pride. It might hurt at the time, but people will respect you for it.
A football club is like your mother. It’s your first and only one. You learn a lot from them and they influence the person you become. If it wasn’t for League football, a lot of us wouldn’t even be known. If you can’t help them, don’t hinder them. Respect them; don’t disrespect, bad-mouth or knock them about. It’s sad when former players become bitter and nasty towards their old clubs. Clubs lasts a whole lot longer than individuals.
CHARLIE SUTTON - CAREER
BORN: April 3, 1924.
THE PLAYER
Footscray 1942, 1946-56: 173 games, 65 goals.
Honours: Western Bulldogs Team of the Century (coach, back pocket); 3rd Brownlow Medal 1950 (equal); best and fairest 1950; All-Australian 1950; leading goalkicker 1951 (equal); premiership side 1954 (captain coach); captain 1951-56.
THE COACH
Footscray 1951-57, 1967-68: 163 games, 82 wins, 79 losses, 2 draws, 50.3% winning percentage, premiership 1954.
Footnotes
This article was originally published in Champions - Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football, Copyright © Slattery Media Group 2008.
Comments
This article does not contain any comments.
Login to leave a comment.