Australian Football

Although he was born in Adelaide, Jack Oatey grew up in Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula, where his father Ted moved with his family during the Depression in order to find work. Ted Oatey was a fine footballer, who had played as a rover in the SAFL with Port Adelaide and West Torrens, and the young Jack was keen to follow in his footsteps. For a youngster growing up in a South Australian country town during the 1930s there was very little to do in the way of recreation other than play sport, and this suited Jack Oatey just fine. At the age of 14 he followed his father into the Maitland senior team, and for the next five seasons he garnered a reputation as a wily and tenacious goal-kicking rover.

Oatey moved back to the city in 1940 when he joined Norwood. In a war-interrupted league career he played 181 games for the Redlegs (plus seven for the state), winning four club best and fairest awards, and captain-coaching the team from 1945 to 1952. During his time at the helm he oversaw premiership wins in 1946, 1948 and 1950, and despite his noteworthy accomplishments as a player, it would be chiefly as a coach that he would make his name.

During his active service in World War II, Jack Oatey was briefly stationed in Victoria, where he played five games for South Melbourne, an experience which played a significant part in shaping his coaching style. For one thing, Oatey was struck by how much more team-orientated the Victorian players were when compared to their counterparts in South Australia; shepherding, tackling, smothering and all the supposedly unglamorous aspects of football were essential components in every VFL footballer's armoury, and the ultimate effect of this was to make life for the player actually in possession of the ball considerably easier. Although Oatey's great rival Fos Williams is normally credited with introducing a Victorian mentality into South Australian football, there were elements of the typical VFL game, notably the 'all for one, one for all' team ethic, which Oatey implemented first. 

During his time at Sturt in particular, success was repeatedly achieved by teams ostensibly devoid of stars (which is not to imply that the players lacked talent - far from it: footballers like Bagshaw, Schoff, Adcock, Shearman and Graham were all among the finest in the competition - merely that that talent was ineluctably channelled towards team goals). Had Paul Bagshaw, for instance, played for virtually any other SANFL club, he would probably have won at least one Magarey Medal. As it was, the best he could manage was coming a distant third, 12 votes behind winner Barrie Robran, in 1973. But then Bagshaw played in seven premiership teams, compared to Robran's two.

After finishing his career as a player, Jack Oatey remained at Norwood as non-playing coach for another four seasons before obeying the interior whisper that told him it was time for a change by accepting the position of senior coach at West Adelaide. His time with the Bloods was almost unendurably frustrating, yielding one hundred per cent finals participation coupled with one hundred per cent ultimate failure, all of it at the hands of Port Adelaide, in four seasons in charge.

The frustration must, if anything, have been intensified in 1961 when, in a year away from the game, Oatey watched Neil Kerley guide the players that Oatey had nurtured and schooled for the previous four years to an elusive flag. Perhaps it was this that re-kindled his passion for the game, but whatever the reason, in 1962 Oatey took over the senior coaching job at Sturt, a club which had not secured a premiership since 1940.

Under Oatey the Blues would secure no fewer than seven in a glorious 11-season period from 1966 to 1976, including five in succession between 1966 and 1970. In the process, although the word tends to be over-used, the team would revolutionise South Australian football, raising standards both of skill and professionalism to unprecedented heights. Oatey himself was central to this process, exhorting, instructing, encouraging - but above all, always ensuring that football, for players and spectators alike, was something to be enjoyed, a game and not a chore.

Statistically, Oatey's record as a coach was remarkable: in 37 years at the helm he masterminded 10 premierships, an achievement only Port Adelaide's John Cahill, among South Australian coaches, can match. Only four times during those 37 years did the team he was coaching fail to qualify for the finals. However, Oatey's legacy to Australian football goes way beyond the merely statistical, impinging in a sense on the very soul of the game.

Although he was in no way connected to South Australia's inaugural AFL club, the Adelaide Crows, there was a sense in which their premierships in 1997-98, and in particular the style in which they were achieved, bore direct and eloquent testimony to Jack Oatey's impact on South Australian football, and if there truly is a heaven above he would doubtless have been looking down with no small measure of pride, and smiling.

Author - John Devaney