BRIAN KELLY Snr
THE HONOUR BOARD
One question often asked is “How come the Honour Board carries the famous football Hawkins family name”?.Well as I remember, both Win and Alan Hawkins played for Tocumwal when their parents were farmers in our area. Alan never played a lot of footy,but Win played for several years and was regarded as one of the best Ruckman in the M.F.L.Their Dad , Ernie. was a passionate follower and could be heard most Saturdays bellowing out encouragement to his sons.
Raising money was as always hard work and when Ernie came up with the idea of donating a young well bred Aberdeen Angus bull to be raffled we couldn’t stop laughing,(behind his back of course). We couldn’t believe how much it raised. 800 pounds was so much money those days. especially when the basic wage for a 40 hour week was 12 pounds. (I brought an old house for 400 pounds in 1951)
Anyway the Committee at the time erected a new Honour Board and named it after Mr. Ernie Hawkins.
(And that’s no Bull, well not much anyway)
WORLD RECORD PIE EATING
It’s a little harder these days to remember times and occasions,especially back some 70 plus years. However how could anyone forget the great Pie Eating contest, especially the night Blue Freestone broke the Australian Pie eating record of 23 pies in one sitting. He claimed at the presentation that he could have made it two dozen if he hadn’t had a T/Bone steak for tea before he came to training.
CRAYFISH NIGHTS
Or the Cray fish nights when Trevor Hore and Dave Schaeche would bring two wheatbags of Crays in, cook them while the boys trained and spread them out on two long tables.(Winning games was great but the Cray night’s ran a close second).
BOBBY SADLER- ”MR PRESIDENT, IF YOU PLEASE!”
And of course, I’m sure plenty of members would remember The night of the Best and fairest vote with the last vote in my hand, three players all level on votes, dead silence in the club room waiting for me to call out the last vote when the silence was broken by the loudest cry.
“Mister President, if you please!”
Every eye in the room turned to where the voice came from. There in the doorway of the toilet stood our ever popular trainer, Bobby Sadler, dack’s around his ankles (Undies still on thank God).“ Mr President, there’s no toilet paper in the dunny!”Ten minutes later order was restored the dunny restocked and the B & F winner was declared.
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Jeff Beasley
In one of the years when I was Secretary I had trouble getting someone to goal umpire a thirds match at home to Berrigan. There was a young fella wo had just joined the NAB bank and he had started following the footy.He volunteered to do the job.Part way through the first quarter I had an agitated Berrigan official come running into the secretary’s office suggesting a couple of their goals were recorded as points.I went out and fortunately our goal umpire was as the “tin shed end” and easy for me to check him out. When I questioned him whether the balls had gone through the goals, he said “sure, but not on the full”.Needless to say it was necessary to replace him!
Probably early 60’s I broke my wrist playing against Strathmerton and with the arm in plaster missed several games.However playing at home against Numurkah we were a player short and I volunteered to play. As i always wore a long sleeve jumper few realised I had a plaster cast on my arm.During the game battling for the ball I threw my arm back and it hit Numurkah backman Ray Wellman across the forehead sending him to the turf. Eventually getting to his feet he said to team-mate Normy Dove “Dovey, who the f....... hit me”. “Number 17” Dovey was quick to point out. I quickly rolled up my sleeve showing the plaster cast and pleading with Ray it was an accident.The incident never diminished our friendship as today we always have a chat when we catch up.
In the 60’s the club was always looking for new ideas for fundraising and the committee gave a few of us permission to try running dances on Saturday nights.We came up with the idea of calling them “Hoot Nannies” which was a catch cry in the music world at the time. It wasn’t long before we were packing the Toc hall out. It proved a great money spinner for a considerable time.
Several of us were part of probably the lowest time in the clubs history when we didn’t win a game for nearly 2 years in the early 60’s. However eventually the same players became involved in what I feel was the most most successful period in the club’s history.It all changed in 1964 when under Leo Porra’s leadership Don Whitten was enticed to the club as coach. The brother of VFL legend Ted, he had previously been captain of VFA club Yarraville and came to us after a coaching stint with Casterton.Nearly 100% of the team coached by Lance Lane prior to Whitten’s arrival were local kids.
A recruiting drive in the local area attracted Stewy Scott (Blighty), Lindsay McPherson (Yarroweyah), Julian Vise (Lalalty farm), Sammy Smith (Yarrawonga, courting local girl) joined the club and intergrated with the locals to reach the grand finals in 1965 and 1966.
Berrigan defeated us by five points in 1965 (Fred Way was a member of their side and he later joined South Melbourne).
In 1966 we had beaten Deniliquin in the second semi final when Don Whitten who had been injured prior to the finals, had a training run in a paddock on the way to Nathalia. He felt he was right to play. Someone else smuggled his bag into the rooms and his inclusion had Deni in a bit of a spin early in the game and we were able to keep them at bay to go into a successive grand final.In a low scoring game in the grand final at Cobram Tocumwal had a 4-point lead at three quarter time and were kicking with a slight breeze in the last quarter. Unfortunately for us Deni produced their best quarter for the match and we were outplayed, going down by 16 points. Deni was led by ex Footscray player Graeme Ion who was the best player I saw in the Murray League during my playing days.
In 1967 John Dagger came across from Yarroweyah and Col Morris (Ivan Bryan’s brother-in-law) were added to the group to win the club’s first premiership in 21 years against Cobram at Finley.As with most premierships there were players unlucky to miss the victory.Keith Thompson, a stalwart of the club since coming from Griffith, retired at the end of the 1966 season, injury preventing him from continuing. Thompson was full back in the two losing grand finals.Lindsay McPherson was also most unlucky, having to do his National Service at the time of the grand final at Puckapunyal. Every effort to have him released for the grand final failed.
Such was the popularity of the Tocumwal ground most of the finals in the 50’s and 60’s were played at the venue.With the changerooms and bar at the town end of the ground, a large section of the crowd gravitated to the hill area. It provided a spectacular viewing area until the new changerooms were built on the eastern side.However such was the dominance of the Tocumwal senior side in that period the League changed the grand final venues, eliminating any home ground advantage.Strangely enough Tocumwal reserves premierships in 1969, 1970 and 1971 were all played on the Tocumwal ground.
