The 1895 VFA season in review
Some of the friends of the Fitzroy team are, I hear, disappointed with the manner in which their victory was received, and consider the comments on their play ungracious. The plain facts are that while the great majority of the followers of the game would prefer seeing Fitzroy at the top to either Melbourne, Essendon, or Geelong - and personally I share that feeling - it was impossible for anyone except the ardent supporters of the team to feel particularly enthusiastic over the manner in which the premiership was won.
Fitzroy played some good games during the season, but their last two against Essendon and South Melbourne at a time when public attention was particularly turned to them were rather a poor crown to a triumphant season - and people naturally remember the later and forget the earlier performances. Although they actually lost but one match they played five draws, and only in one case - that against Carlton - can it be reasonably urged that Fitzroy should have got four points instead of two. Although their goal-kicking was bad this cannot be urged as a reason why certain matches should have been won instead of drawn, for Fitzroy failed to score chiefly in matches where they did actually win, but should have scored many more goals than they got. They certainly played well enough to make their record of 77 goals scored a hundred at least.
I look upon the Fitzroy team of this year as a plucky, plodding, hard-working twenty, but not a brilliant team. Their record contains nothing to compare with a couple of Essendon's feats in the previous year. Who that saw it can ever forget that magnificent recovery by Essendon against Melbourne in June of last year when, with a goal to the bad well into the third quarter, they by a wonderful rally scored three goals in a few minutes, and so changed defeat to victory. Nor can Fitzroy themselves have forgotten that in their return match with Essendon last season, they led at one stage by five goals to one, yet at the finish Essendon had eight to six. Equally meritorious in its way was the plucky uphill game played by South Melbourne against Essendon on the Queen's Birthday of 1894. We have had no games to compare with them this season, and in so far the season suffers by comparison with the last.
The form of the different clubs has been so closely noted by those who take an interest in the game that there is no need to dwell upon it at length. Geelong were a wonderful team when winning, but a poor twenty when led. What soldiers would call their fire discipline was bad. That they were able to tie with Mel- bourne and Collingwood for second place was largely due to their wonderful forwards. Few teams who have ever played the game have been able to boast such a group of forwards as Messrs Decoit, James, Murphy, H. McShane, and the brothers Lockwood. Transfer these to Fitzroy or Melbourne, and then we should have had something like a champion twenty. Melbourne seemed to reach a patch of staleness half-way through the season, and possibly lost the premiership while suffering a recovery, though their forwards were always a weak part of the organisation, and would possibly have brought them to grief in any case. That Collingwood should have been able to tie with Melbourne and Geelong for second place is a proof of the value of evenness in a twenty. Collingwood had no conspicuously weak point in their formation, but with very little patching up in particular spots either Melbourne or Geelong would have run clean away from them. The best thing about Essendon and South Melbourne is that they are so nearly of a class with the four already named that, with the game taken properly in hand, we might have a very exciting season in 1896.
Essendon are to be congratulated too on the fair and manly way in which they played their games, and I hope that a contempt for shabby tricks will always be a dominant aspiration with the club. Having lost their chance of the premiership early in the season they played several of their games in a happy-go-lucky spirit, but a very little bracing up would make the twenty as formidable as of old, for with the exception of the incomparable Thurgood they have lost no man who cannot be replaced. North Melbourne had a peculiar season, for they could beat nothing else in the first half of the season, nor be themselves beaten save by one or two of the clippers in the second half. I doubt whether Footscray added anything to their prestige by taking in the cast-offs of another club, useful though one of them may have been. Yet the one-time serious difficulty with migratory players may be said to have been entirely overcome.
Of St. Kilda, Carlton, and Richmond, one can at least say that they have been three of the fairest teams playing football this season, and as the game now stands that I think is a great deal to say. If a young and promising player asked me tomorrow what team he should join in order to enjoy his football, and not be ashamed of his company, I would say without hesitation St. Kilda. "Oh, the swell suburb," I fancy I hear some say. Well, Richmond is not usually regarded as an aristocratic centre, yet they are to be congratulated on the wisdom shown in recruiting from decent young fellows only.
In the general play the serious fault is that the ruck, usually the least skilful section of the team, has still too much to say in the game. In throwing the ball well in umpires have remedied to some extent the defect, and when the V.C.A. cease to insist upon the ball touching the ground before it is in play a further improvement will follow. This seems to be one of the desirable reforms noted at the end of each season and forgotten before the beginning of the next.
Considering what little moral support they have had from clubs the umpires have done remarkably well, but J.J. Trait was sorely missed, for strong umpires are not found every year. As long as representatives of clubs during play continue to yell remonstrances and reproofs, and in some cases abuse, at umpires - from the press-box, for choice - or seek by an interview at half-time - freely interlarded with compliment or complaint, as the committeeman may consider necessary - to warp his judgment or overawe him in his duty, so long will an umpire's duty be an unenviable one. I hope for no improvement, for this sort of civil embracery, though a gross offence against both good taste and fair play is almost universal. In this respect many of the managers of clubs seem to rank their responsibility no higher than the outsider in the crowd, who having paid his sixpence is free to yell as he pleases.
The losing caste
During the season the game has to some extent lost caste, and for this the managers of the clubs are mainly to blame in not seeking to encourage a more manly tone. The character or conduct of a player is as nothing, provided he can play the game well enough. Right through the season I have seen petty tricks tried fit only for street arabs, and quite unworthy of grown men. For a writer on football to comment on such matters is simply to earn the ill-will of all connected with the club and to glorify the offending players as martyrs. The motives attributed in such cases are of just the character one might expect from those who place skill in the field above every other consideration. The writer has either "a down" on this particular club or player, and instead of the offender being seriously advised to mend his ways he can rely upon the profound sympathy of both his comrades and his committee. It is not so much the censure itself that clubs and players fear, but the fact that umpires who have not the courage to report an offending player on their own responsibility may do so on finding that attention has been publicly drawn to his offence. Provided only a reprimand from the association follows no harm is done, but to lose the services of a good player for a single Saturday is a serious matter. Yet the association refuses to see that disqualification is the only real punishment, possibly because the men who are called upon to judge to-day may be judged tomorrow.
It is something of an incongruity, too, that while an umpire is trusted to see fair play on the main issue he cannot be trusted to come before a committee of inquiry and make a plain statement when a player is charged with misconduct, but must be harassed by an amateur advocate for the club, who considers it correct form on such occasions to ape the worst methods of a third-class police court attorney.
While the game, on the whole, is not more rough than formerly, and the rules meet the requirements, I have never seen blows so often struck in any previous season, and the frequency with which players "put up their hands" to each other without coming to blows is very noticeable. But, after all, a blow - serious as its consequences may be in provoking a free fight - is a manly act compared with some of the offences I have noted, always assuming, of course, that it is not a treacherous blow. That there are many such given is best proved, I think, by the significant fact that most of the black eyes received in football are got in the ruck - and that the blow should repeatedly land on the eye is something more than a coincidence. We punish the open blow and overlook a multitude of less manly faults.
In one case, where I drew attention to a big player handling a little one most unfairly in a match without apparent provocation, I learned afterwards that the offender had been provoked by language of the filthiest description. I have seen a player trip his opponents match after match, but as it rarely happened that the same umpire officiated in all it was charitably put down to accident. Most men would call such conduct cowardly and contemptible, for, as it is the last thing a player expects, it is naturally that for which he is least prepared, yet, on drawing the attention of representatives of clubs to this misconduct, I have beard it described as "clever." The offence, it seems, becomes a merit when the guilty player is sufficient of a sneak to escape detection. How can manliness, honesty, or fair play, be cultivated under such circumstances.
Another petty offence and a very common one is that of a player marking his royal displeasure with an umpire's ruling by seizing the ball and throwing it as far away as possible, especially if the waste of time be a gain to his side. It is at best a childish display of spleen mixed with a low cunning in the waste of time, but constant repetition has made it a characteristic of the game, and a far from desirable one. Yet we never hear of players being reported for several of the offences just mentioned, and we never shall as long as the responsibility of doing it is placed upon an already over-burdened field umpire - who cannot possibly see half the things that occur in the game, and if he does see them knows what he has to face it an inquiry is ordered.
Another bad feature implying a more general disregard of the principles of fair play is the tendency to get the ball out of the field, and keep it out as soon as one side has secured anything like a decided lead. In this a certain class of barracker co-operate heartily - and if the character of the game is to be gauged by its sympathisers in such a case I am sorry for the game. It is not easy to suggest a reason for this downward tendency, but it is significant that it has become more pronounced since the clubs began to draw so largely for recruits upon junior teams of all sorts. Many of these lesser clubs acknowledge no control whatever, and the player who learns the game with them is under no kind of restraint. He brings his faults confirmed into senior football, and helps to lower its character, and those who take no steps to check him and will make no sacrifice in skill for the sake of their club's good name really aid him in his work of demoralisation. It is quite time that this question of tone was seriously considered in our sports.
Even in cricket - where temper is not provoked to anything like the same extent as in football - one cannot help making a comparison at times between the methods of conducting, say, county matches in England and pennant matches in Melbourne. In the one case we rarely hear of disputes, never of a charge of unfairness; in the other wrangling is continuous. While what are called "junior" players have been so largely absorbed by senior teams, players trained at the public schools are more scarce than formerly - although the number and calibre of school teams has largely increased of late years. Possibly schoolboys find the harrier clubs more congenial, or are attracted by cycling or some other pastime. At any rate, school players are fewer than formerly, and the game is the loser by it.
Individual play
Individual play is a difficult and delicate matter upon which to offer an opinion - so few interested in the game take the trouble to consider the performances of any other than one team. Taking goal defenders first, the best I have seen are Banks and McMichael, of Fitzroy; Officer, Essendon; O’Halloran, Melbourne; Monahan and Williams, Collingwood; Marmo, Geelong; Hogan, St. Kilda; and E. Launder, North Melbourne; and the pick of them I take to be Banks, Officer, and Marmo in that order.
Some of the cleverest and most attractive play of the year has been seen on the centre line, where Pannam and Strickland of Collingwood; Howson and Windley, South Melbourne; Palmer and Finlay, Essendon; McCallum, Geelong; Lewis, Melbourne; Hannah, Carlton; Williams, Footscray; Backhouse, Richmond; Freame, Port Melbourne; and Brooks, Fitzroy, have all done remarkably well. Taking constancy, pace, and cleverness as the basis of calculation, I regard Pannam of Collingwood as the best of the group, with Palmer and Howson the next best pair.
Geelong had in Decoit and H. McShane a pair of exceedingly clever forwards; while Frazer of South Melbourne and Smith of Collingwood were both prominent. While I don't think Decoit the best footballer of the group, he is as much superior to all others in goal-kicking as Thurgood was in his day.
It is more difficult to make a choice between followers than place-men, but the men who have performed most creditably in the close work are Parker and Taylor of Richmond; Sicily, North Melbourne; Flaherty, Collingwood; Fry and Christy, Melbourne; Gibson, South Melbourne; McMurray, Port Melbourne; Maynard, Footscray; Fribbs, Williamstown; McKinley, Geelong; Melling, Fitzroy; and last, but far from least, Blake of Carlton. Taking the season right through, I think the three best of them are Parker, Blake, and Gibson in that order.
The rovers, together with the men who play equally well whether placed or on the ball, may be taken as a class. Of the former I liked best McGinnis of Melbourne; James, Williamstown; Burns, Geelong; H. Launder, North Melbourne; Cornelius, Port Melbourne; and Cleary, Fitzroy; while the men who have done well in any position are J. Grace, Fitzroy; Moysey, Melbourne; Windley, South Melbourne; Vautin, Essendon; Shaw, St. Kilda; Fitzpatrick, Port Melbourne; R. Warren, Williamstown; and Condon, Collingwood.
To place a half- dozen from all the players named as the champion players of the season I should put them in this order:
McGinnis (Melbourne)
J. Grace (Fitzroy)
Burns (Geelong)
Moysey (Melbourne)
Vautin (Essendon)
Parker (Richmond)
Footnotes
Title: The finish of the season. Notes on the game, the clubs, and the play Author: Donald MacDonald ('Observer') Publisher: The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria, 1848-1956) Date: Monday, 23 September, 1895, p.6 (Article) Web: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9375778
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9375779
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9375780
Comments
Jim McBride 26 November 2012
it is fascinating to read such an in depth appraisal written in the terms and thoughts of the time of a season from so long ago.
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