Victorian footy is a game only for fanatics
Clayton (Candles) Thompson, former SA and Sturt full forward and ruckman, has become the talk of Melbourne since he joined Hawthorn. He has rapidly become one of Victoria's top footballers. Here he tells what makes Victorian football tick — and how different it is from South Australia's.
Big football in Victoria is game only for fanatics
FANATICISM — that's the word for the essential difference between SA and Victorian league football. All Victorian footballers are fanatics.
That is the answer I give to an oft-asked question. The players will win a game with complete disregard for personal cost — and for nobody other than their club. They just live for the honor and glory they can bring it.
Perhaps I can best illustrate by comparisons in recounting my own impressions as one new to Victorian football. They begin with the training program. The instant one walks into a league clubroom in Melbourne the atmosphere of big-time sport strikes forcibly. There are rooms for this purpose, rooms for that. For example, there's the locker room, reception room, and president's room. All indicate a professional organisation rather than a straight out "sport for the fun of it" club. By that I don't mean the element of sport has been removed from Victorian football — only that it is on such a large scale, and to no small degree commercialised.
When you arrive on the field for training you warm up thoroughly by doing several laps of the oval and exercises if you wish. Then it's time to report to the coach, who is "monarch of all he surveys" on the field.
No escape
That very important medium of Victorian football is a taskmaster and a disciplinarian. He watches, criticises, teaches, and urges individually and collectively every player on the training list. No one escapes his eve or rebuke if there is any pulling up or relaxation for a minute.
It's his axiom that you play as you train. To play hard over there you train hard. On training nights there is an organised match in which players are paired. It is common on those nights to see a man knocked down, or one going through a pack of players is no rarity. Players are taught to receive and absorb heavy knocks. If a player is in the way of another there are no apologies if he is felled. That's the way he learns.
Their jobs
After a brief period of that, groups are formed, each being assigned a particular task. One may practise handball, another short-passing, white yet another may be working on back-turning baulking, or other finer points of the game.
On another part of the ground individual attention may be given by the coach to particular players. Any time you are likely to hear his voice urging you to go harder. When it gets too dark for ball handling, the groups are put through their paces in sprinting for a further 10 minutes before being sent in. A big man is often given a ball and told to "stretch out." He is made to sprint 100 to 200 yards throwing the ball out and into the air just far enough to be reached. This adds to his pace.
Spectators
And to give all this pre-match work more emphasis, there is always a good crowd of spectators in the outer and in the stand. When you come in you know what hard training is. But it is always worth it because on Saturdays, as a climax to intensive newspaper and radio backing, comes the match played before as many as 35,000 fans yelling their heads off. It is something that never ceases to thrill me. You are told and retold till you feel it, that upon you rests the entire fortunes of your team. It is you who must win prestige for your club. You are told that if a teammate makes a mistake you must make up for it. So one becomes a fanatic for his club.
In every league team in Melbourne there are 18 first-class footballers. In Adelaide, by Victorian standards, there would be perhaps eight or 10. Team spirit is so strong that you know you have 17 other players right behind you. It’s all tor one and one for all.
The average Victorian footballer has a greater understanding of the game itself. Apart from individual talents of propping, blind-turning and ball control in general, he backs up to receive a handpass or goes past a player to be placed in possession — or he effectively uses himself to shepherd a team mate.
Tactical
The Victorian footballer has a deeper sense of tactical football and of how to create system. I've found that you have to concentrate for the whole time. You can't relax or allow your attention to wander for a second—not because the game is faster, it's not. But because it's at high pressure all the time.
And when you get the ball you have worked hard for it. If you don't work just as hard to keep it, or if you don't dispose of it quickly, you haven't got it any more and you find yourself on the ground. Nobody cares how hard you are hit with the body. In other words, you have to think and act much more quickly in Melbourne football to dispose of the ball. This is because everyone is thinking and moving in top gear. You have to do so to fit into the machine. The game there is closer and harder.
Tear-through
The small men, it's interesting to note, are protected all day, although there are no really small men. Almost all the players are capable of tear-through tactics and often employ them. There are one or two classic examples — Les Foote, St.Kilda captain-coach, and Bob Rose, Collingwood utility player. They don't have to, being two of the most brilliant exponents of turning the game will ever see.
That is the way the game is played in Melbourne in contrast to the fast, open, and much more attractive style in SA. Which is the better? Not one follower is qualified to answer because each differs from the other. It is purely an academic question.
Footnotes
Title: Big football in Victoria is a game only for fanatics Publisher: The Mail (Adelaide, SA: 1912 - 1954) Author: Clayton ‘Candles’ Thompson (as told to The Mail Staff Writer) Date: Saturday, 19 June 1954, p. 9 (Article) Web: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57956095
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