Almanac Footy: Bill Bennett – A Fortunate Life

 

 

Bill Bennett had an extraordinary career with Carlton – eleven games and a premiership.

He came back into the senior side in the back end of the 1968 home and away season and held his place through September. His final VFL game in navy blue was the drought-breaking Grand Final win over Essendon as part of a brilliant team pulled together by Ron Barassi.

At centre half-forward, he looked ahead and saw Brent Crosswell, Gary Crane, Ian Collins, Wes Lofts, John Gould and Robert Walls. At stoppages, there were John Nicholls, Sergio Silvagni and Adrian ‘Gags’ Gallagher. To his right was Bryan Quirk, to his left was Alex Jesaulenko, and behind him were Brian Kekovich and Percy Jones resting in a pocket.

He was 22 years old.

The match wasn’t a classic – strong winds swirled around the stadium, making for fraught leads seeking kick-and-hope passes. It is the only time in league history where the winners kicked fewer goals than the losers (Carlton 7.14.56 Essendon 8.5.52).

A week later Carlton played Sturt in Adelaide for the title of ‘Champions of Australia’. That sunny afternoon, he kicked three in a 37-point win and along the way took a hanger over Jones that was the cover of Harry Beitzel’s Footy Week on Monday.

So, it was twelve games and a premiership and a Champion of Australia team member.

Therefore, people say Bill Bennett was a fortunate footballer who somehow chanced his way into a successful side … but give me your definition of fortunate and let’s see if it matches.

 

 

He was from Maffra, but the Blues discovered him in Sale in 1965. That was where he booted a few in a trial match, one of which was launched with such power that Ron Barassi watched it orbit over his head like Sputnik. The coach told the teenager to come to Melbourne immediately.

Bennett was big, honest and country strong, snatching overhead marks, kicking long and playing with a fearless swagger and strength that made everyone walk taller.  In his debut, Round Two 1966, Carlton were being flogged by St Kilda at Moorabbin. In the third quarter, he came off the bench and ran through Jim Reid. Barassi seized on it as a potential spark for the team – ‘Do what the kid is doing, hit them hard, follow the kid,’ he roared in the three-quarter time huddle.

‘I am looking around trying to find this kid I am supposed to follow,’ recalled Bennett. ‘It was me, apparently.’

Bennett and Barassi liked each other from the start. They were both hardheaded in their approach but saw that each could help the other find success. They had meals together after which they played chess deep into the night – neither wanting to let the other win.

“I told Barassi to get stuffed a few times. Once I miskicked a ball at training and he told me to go and get it and I told him to piss off because I had a bad ankle. I limped up the race toward the dressing rooms. Next thing I hear … clomp, clomp, clomp … behind me.

“He charges in and says, ‘What is the matter?’ I said, ‘You know I have got an injured ankle.’ He says, ‘You haven’t got a red injured guernsey on,’ and I said, ‘That is because I don’t want to be injured, I want to play on Saturday’. He says, ‘What will I do with you? You got to stop telling me to get stuffed in front of everybody!’”

In only his fourth match, Bennett lit up Princes Park, as reported in The Age.

 

Carlton supporters could not believe their eyes in the first quarter of the match against Essendon.

Young Maffra recruit Bill Bennett, being tried at full-forward, showed all the polish of a copy-book spearhead.

Within 10 minutes, Bennett had Carlton’s first three goals on the board after taking some glorious high marks.

Seconds later he unselfishly short-passed to rover Adrian Gallagher for the Blues fourth goal.

 

A routine win over Melbourne followed and then preparations were made for Footscray. At the Thursday meeting, Bennett found himself so drowsy he couldn’t concentrate.

‘Wake up, Bill,’ roared Barassi, but it didn’t help. The club doctor gave him a script for the ‘flu, but he could barely find his way to a chemist, all but falling out of the tram on Sydney Road on his way there. It took half an hour for him to stagger on uncooperative legs the 200 yards to the boarding house where he lived. He collapsed into bed and was awoken by his landlady the next morning who discovered him in a lather of sweat, unable to move. An ambulance took him to hospital, where he spent the next three months in a plaster cast from his ankles to his neck.

‘I was playing with blisters on my feet from new boots, and I got a bad knock in my back. They didn’t know that I had blood poisoning in my system, and the paralysis had started to set in as I left the club to go home. It was life-threatening. I was in a bad way and didn’t know it. It was probably in my system for a few days. After being in that cast, I was just a bag of bones. The only thing left was my sense of humour.’

The next pre-season, Bennett went for a fly over a pack and landed on his back. Club medicos were taking no chances and took him straight to hospital, where he spent five weeks before being told to sit the 1967 season out.

An off-season back home carting hay had him fit as a scrub bull for 1968. However, on a weekend before the season started, he was a passenger in a car accident. Bennett had his arm leaning out the window when the car hit a loose track and rolled, pinning and crushing his outstretched arm. The inexperienced doctor in Maffra worked on it for hours and said in an apologetic tone that he did the best he could – he saved the limb, but it was now several inches shorter than the other.

During the weeks of recuperation, Bennett didn’t tell Carlton of the injury and agonisingly had to ignore the entreaties from Barassi. ‘We need you, come down and play,’ he implored. Myths grew that there was friction between the two or that the coach’s discipline was too much for him. Bennett bristles at this – ‘Just not true – I would do anything for Barassi.’

He answered the call mid-season and was stunned to see his name in the senior list in the paper on Friday. He was staying in a motel in Dandenong and sprang out of bed and started doing push-ups – ‘trying to get fit on the spot’. He was underdone and went to the reserves until Barassi brought him back in Round 16 – finally playing Footscray two years after his near-death experience. After the final home-and-away matches came a semi-final win over Essendon and a Grand Final berth.

Fortunate, eh?

In the semi-final, Bennett’s ankle went early, and he had only one kick when he was replaced at half-time. Also on the bench was Jesaulenko, who had been knocked out by friendly fire after colliding with Kekovich. There were two weeks off to let the ankle settle down, during which came the altercation with Barassi at training.

‘I don’t want to be injured.’

The pair would settle things in a private session on the Thursday before the Grand Final when Barassi put Bennett through a fitness test, making him twist and turn like a brumby in the high country. The player knew the session had ‘woken’ up the injury, but the coach knew what he had.

There is a thought, often expressed, that Bill Bennett was only picked for the 1968 Grand Final to look after Alex Jesaulenko. When asked about this, he draws a breath and says purposefully, ‘I always looked after my teammates in every match I ever played.’

There were plenty more matches, but not with Carlton. The reason for leaving remains private, but the Blues kept chasing him as his football legend grew in Mount Gambier, at South Adelaide and then in Darwin, Alice Springs and Queensland.

Recently at a Carlton function, the 1968 premiership team barely filled a table, such is their thin numbers, but there was Bill Bennett and to his left was Big Nick and to his right was Percy and ahead was Gags.

All fortunate.

 

 

To read more by Michael Sexton click HERE.

 

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