The 1890 VFA season in review
Last Saturday's matches completed the season's programme, and now there remains only the obligation of briefly reviewing the more important incidents that have occurred during the past five months, and of furnishing the customary statistics of the performances of the various clubs.
Foremost amongst the events of the season has been the renewal of intercolonial contests with South Australia, a circumstance that has afforded the keenest pleasure to all interested in our popular sport. The excellent form exhibited in the match which took place on the Melbourne ground on July 5 between representative teams of Victoria and her western neighbour lives, I am sure, in the memories of the 30,000 spectators who were present on the occasion, and it will scarcely be necessary to remind these of the fact that during the first half of the engagement the visiting champions played a rattling game and gained well-merited and universal applause for their general cleverness. Nor will the football loving public require to be informed how nobly our representatives comported themselves all through the match, but especially in the concluding terms, when their better acquaintance with the fine points of the game and their more extended experience, rather than their individual superiority, enabled them to secure a glorious victory.
Before the contest there was not a little cavilling at the composition of the team selected to do battle for Victoria, because the match committee had thought fit to include some half-dozen players from each of three prominent clubs, whilst men equally expert belonging to other clubs were left out. The wisdom of the committee's action was, however, manifest on the day of the match, as the men were better acquainted with one another's play than a more heterogeneous combination would have been, and this fact enabled them to work in thorough concert.
Beyond a doubt, their success was due in no small degree to the admirable fashion in which they played together, and I think it will be well if future selections are governed by the considerations which influenced the match committee on the occasion under review. Possibly we would have fallen into the error of choosing the best men from every club had not our South Australian friends themselves suggested the wiser course by culling their representatives entirely from their two crack clubs. We have to congratulate ourselves upon the result of the engagement, and it is to be hoped that now these matches have been revived nothing will happen to prevent their annual recurrence.
Notwithstanding that the weather during the season has been unusually wet and that the convincing grounds have in consequence been generally unfavourable, the play has been of a particularly brilliant and interesting character. Teams have been somewhat more evenly matched than in any previous year, and Saturday after Saturday the premiership contests have afforded entertainment and frequently intense excitement to large multitudes of onlookers. That the game has not waned in public estimation is proved by the increasing crowd that attend the matches.
On more than one occasion within the past few months, the grounds have been thronged as they have never been thronged before, and thousands have been unable to gain admittance. As a matter of fact, it is but necessary for two crack teams to meet to ensure the gathering together of from 25,000 to 30,000 spectators. It may be urged that these enormous attendances muster only when the best clubs are engaged, whilst the smaller fry have to play to empty benches, and this is as undeniable as it is deplorable. In the best interests of football, it is a matter for regret that big crowds mean the expansion of already heavy exchequers, and increase of wealth affords increased facilities for attracting good players from less affluent clubs.
Princely trophies, numerous pleasant and remunerative trips, are baits which to many a votary of the game prove irresistible, and if these were all the inducements offered, the circumstances, though bad enough, would hardly threaten the stability of the game. But over and above the giving of valuable prizes and the numerous other luxuries Iavished upon members of wealthy clubs, there has grown of late in the public mind a strong suspicion of players being paid for their services in the field, and that, too, in defiance of the rules of the association. This may or may not be true. No direct evidence can be procured upon the point.
Personally, I am inclined to the popular belief and not the least cogent reason for my being so it that too many of our prominent players appear to find it unnecessary during the football season to engage in any pursuit of a serious or remunerative character. Then, again, if the bulk of the gate money does not go in the direction indicated, where does it go? Genuine well-wishers of the game would like to have this question honestly answered, and no one would be more delighted than the writer if it could be shown that everything was square and above board. Those balance sheets over which Mr Hunt, the Melbourne club delegate, waxes at times so wrathful and so eloquent, reveal nothing except perhaps, the care which is taken by certain club executives to bulk heavy items under the heading of general expenditure, or the equally elastic and unsatisfactory titles of travelling and training expenses. If there be anything in the rumours one hears on all sides concerning the paying of players, many of the V.F. A. delegates must be cognisant of it, and I appeal to them in the interests of football pure and simple, to institute a speedy and comprehensive reform, the first step towards which must be the instant setting in order of their own particular households.
According to its lights, the association has carried on the business of the season in a fairly satisfactory way, but it must be owned that, though individually the delegates seem possessed of more than average capacity, their collective administrative ability has now and again been at fault. For instance, they have severely punished men for less serious offences than those committed by other players, whose sentences have been merely nominal, and they have occasionally laughed out of court matters of the very gravest importance.
Some week ago I took occasion to point out a few alterations which if made would beneficially effect the association and, through the association, the clubs and the game over which its influence is exerted. In the hope that the gentlemen appointed to revise the rules during the summer recess may take these suggestions into consideration, I set them down again.
Reduce the number of delegates by one-half, endeavour, if possible, to get men to act whose desire for the wellbeing of the game is paramount to their club partisanship, and regulate discussion in accordance with some recognised mode of conducting business. To these, I take the liberty of adding a suggestion, not original, but calculated to reduce to a minimum club jealousy and the selfish pursuit of club interests, namely, that no secretary of a club should be permitted to occupy the position of delegate.
That complaints against players have not been so numerous as in previous years is a matter for congratulations, if, indeed, the reason for the improvement has not been indifference on the part of some of the umpires. At all events there have occurred very few cases in which more than a reprimand has been considered necessary.
Nothing has been done to lighten the labours of the field umpires, who have generally performed their arduous functions as satisfactorily as possible. Previous season's heart-burnings concerning the non-appointment of Trait to matches in which South Melbourne were engaged have not been repeated, or, if they have, the public have known nothing about them. A correct impression of what ought to be expected of an umpire has apparently grown upon club executives and club delegates, for we have had the uncommon spectacle of a Geelong representative rising at a V.F.A. meeting and demanding as a right that Trait should sometimes be appointed to matches in which Geelong were engaged; what is more, we have seen the demand acquiesced in without demur.
Everyone admits that this same Trait, though a resident, I believe almost a native, of Geelong, is incapable of favouring his fellow townsmen, and no one disputes his consummate ability as an umpire. Indeed it has over and over again been said that if all our umpires were up to his standard there would be no need for considering how their labours could be reduced. It is to be hoped he may be found officiating next season, notwithstanding that when suffering under a recent very sad bereavement, he announced his intention of retiring.
The umpire's association has been a factor for good in so far as it has secured something like unanimity of interpretation to knotty points connected with the administration of the laws of the game, and it has also been a vehicle through which umpire's grievances have been brought before the V.F.A.
Contests for premiership honours have been more exciting than in previous years owing to the fact that the clubs have been more equally matched, and for a very considerable portion of the season, the question of ultimate supremacy was an exceedingly open one. At first, Fitzroy were greatly fancied by the public, as they started the season in rare style, and inflicted heavy defeats upon the first four teams they encountered. Unfortunately for their show, however, they fell away in consequence of overtraining, and South Melbourne had not much difficulty in putting them through when they met them for the first time. This reverse was followed by five others in quick succession, and the maroons sank to a very low position on the list, so low indeed, that, notwithstanding their subsequent recovery of form, they had no possible chance of achieving first honours.
Essendon looked dangerous for a long time, but an unfortunate draw against South Melbourne in a game which upon the merits of the play should certainly have ended in their favour, followed by a crushing defeat at the hands of Carlton, together with the loss by accidents of Caldwell, their champion goal maker, and several others of their best men, their light was extinguished.
As the season advanced Carlton's consistent excellence began to assert itself, and though they lost a match unexpectedly to Port Melbourne and could only succeed in drawing their first games with Geelong and North Melbourne, they were a menace to South Melbourne right up to August 2, on which date the crucial test of the year between them and the unbeaten Hilites resulted in favour of the latter, after a splendid engagement, by the bare majority of a single goal. How the air resounded with the enraptured plaudits of the Southern supporters when the renowned Peter Burns, with about the finest effort of the season, kicked the winning goal on that occasion is to the premiers a most pleasing recollection. Even after this overthrow the Carltonians continued to exhibit the dogged perseverance for which their club has ever been remarkable, and it was only subsequent to their turning the tables upon the sturdy red and whites in the return match that they succumbed to Geelong, and left Elms and Co. to enjoy the peaceful possession of the season's premiership.
That South Melbourne have thoroughly earned their exalted position is admitted on all hands, though many would have been pleased to know that the coveted "caps" had been won by some other club, if only for the sake of variety. Nevertheless, I am perfectly satisfied that the best team in Victoria now heads the list, and to me, it is not a matter of regret that this is the third successive year in which South have been clever enough to assert their supremacy. Their success has been due, as I said last week, to the fact that they had gone into the conflict in a wholehearted manner and, in addition to this, their players in nearly every department of the game have surpassed in skill the players of most other clubs.
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Certainly, no hotter combination of ruck men has been seen in a football field than Purdy, O'Meara, Page, Burns, Graham, and McKay; and Elms, Doran, Powell, Dunn, and Morton have been a most reliable body of defenders. Windley had earned the title of best centre man in the country before he met with the injury that robbed the team of his services in several of the later matches, and Kerr, Waugh, McMurray, Spence, Brown, Middleton, Talbot, and the rest have had very few off days during the season. The rumours which gained currency before the recent match with Carlton have yet to be sheeted home to the originators of them, and I sincerely trust that the source may yet be readied, and that punishment may quickly follow detection. That the Southerners have incurred a liability to suspicion owing to injudicious associations is a matter to be deplored, but that any of them have been guilty of the discreditable things attributed to them is, to my thinking, extremely improbable.
Second place has again fallen to Carlton, whose record is a very good one in spite of the poor exhibition they made last Saturday against Fitzroy. They have not had to thank Dame Fortune for assistance in any of their encounters and doubtless, the knowledge that they have reached where they are entirely on their merits compensates to some extent for their having failed to get a niche higher. Their most consistent workers all through have been Currie, Morehouse, McKechnie, Batters, Bailey, Roberts, Hutchison, Walton, Sutton, Lorrain, and Salt. Strickland, whose play in the early part of the season was less brilliant than in previous years, returned to form, and was seen to great advantage in the later matches and Williams and Ross have sustained their reputations as goal-getters, the former heading the list with 20 goals, and the latter being a good second with 16.
Notwithstanding their unusually heavy list of casualties, and in spite of their bad fortune in drawing many matches wherein their superiority was distinctly evident, Essendon has run into third position, and under the circumstances, they merit high praise. Their exhibitions have seldom lacked the brilliancy which characterised them in the previous year, but their goalkicking, except whilst Caldwell operated for them, has been below the average. Forbes has been again their greatest performer, and Ball, Rout Angwin, Dick, Desailly, Finlay, Fleming, Ball, Julien, Furnell, Schutt, Sykes, Stab, and Willmott have all contributed largely to the general efficiency of the team. In his four matches Caldwell netted 15 goals, and Finlay, Schutt, Hall, and Sykes, in the order mentioned, have been fairly successful scorers.
A very small interval separates Essendon from Fitzroy, who come next on the list, and who, upon the form they have recently displayed must be reckoned one of the most evenly balanced combinations in the colony. They are expert in every department, and in the most important all branches of play, namely, goalkicking, they take the topmost place. Grace, the champion scorer for the year, has bagged no fewer than 37 goals, and Worrall is second both for the club and for the colony with 32.
The popular Fitzroy captain [Worrall] has performed splendidly in other ways as well as in straight kicking, and it is a moot point with the critics whether he is not entitled to rank first amongst the metropolitan players for general excellence. Banks has done his share of the hard work in a highly satisfactory manner, and associated with Leydin and Hickey, who were always to be depended upon, he has beaten back his goal's assailants with consummate skill. McPherson has played many a magnificent game in the centre of the ground; Leckie and King, on the wing, have had hosts of admirers; and Meiling, Rappiport, T. Mclnerney, and Wiseman, with Worrall or Cleary roving, have constituted a thoroughly capable ruck. Callaghan, a comparatively new man from the second twenty, has done exceedingly well in every match since his promotion.
The North Melbourne club have been more consistent than has previously been their custom and they, in consequence, occupy a place on the list that is far from discreditable. Their engagements with Geelong have not been so evenly contested as of yore, and only one of the three on the programme terminated in a draw. The Northerners had the honour of drawing also with Carlton, after a most exciting tussle, and they twice encountered the premiers, whom they made play all they knew to win. Houston, captain and rover, Robertson, Henderson, Todd, Peters, Alessio, McInerney, Abrahams, Smith, Lording, Christian, and Thompson have been constantly in the van for them, but beyond a doubt, their most earnest worker from first to last has been R. Gibson.
Very in-and-out play has marked the course of events for Geelong, who, however, at the close appeared to have run into splendid form. It will not be surprising if next season the young players of which their team is principally made up, succeed in restoring to the Pivot some of its former renown. Joe McShane, Parkin, R. Reid, Conway, Kearney, Landy, Timms, O’Farrell, Adams, and Baker, especially the first two, were sterling and deserving performers in most of the club's engagements.
Melbourne, through the generous and sportsmanlike conduct of the M.C.C., have been enabled to get along better than in the previous season and appearances point to even greater improvement next year. Both Melbourne and Geelong, however, are below the St. Kilda heroes, who by dint of genuine hard work in the matter of training and practice have kept themselves meritoriously before the public all through. Alf Smith, Harper, W. Smith, Bennett, Wimpole, Fergusson, Allard, Brooks and Rusden have contributed largely to the success of the team, which, if the men can be kept together, should occupy a higher place at the end of next season.
Port Melbourne have been heavy losers by the defection of players, hence their fall to ninth place. Footscray have played several good games and they have not always been beaten on their merits. The same may be said of Richmond whose players, if well generalised, should have been a step or two higher, and Williamstown [illegible] … hope to be anywhere but last, considering [illegible] …of really capable men who have [illegible] … sought fresh field in all directions [illegible].
Ballarat premiership matches [illegible] … than the casual attention, and [illegible] … Ballarat and Ballarat Imperial [illegible] … points gained shows [illegible].
Footnotes
Title: The past season
Author: Markwell
Publisher: The Australasian (Melbourne, Victoria: 1864-1946)
Date: Saturday, 4 October 1890, p.17 (Article)
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