Almanac Footy History: Why Not Tom Leahy?
Next time you have a moment at Adelaide Oval slip over to the SANFL historic displays on the second level of the Riverside Stand, around the corner from the Peter Carey Bar. Behind one glass pane is a hand-painted certificate granting life membership to Tom Leahy ‘for many years valuable services rendered to our national game.’ It was awarded in November 1945 and was the final acknowledgement he received from football. The reasons he was honoured 78 years ago build a compelling case that he should be in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
Hold that thought though while we begin at the end.
Leahy’s final match for South Australia spoke to the dark side of the sport. The fourth Australian National Football Carnival was held in Perth during August 1921. The largest crowd Fremantle Oval had ever hosted watched Victoria beat South Australia by 35 points in the opening match. Prior to the game all three states paraded before the two captains – Con McCarthy of Victoria and Tom Leahy tossed the coin. The Westralian Worker described Leahy as the ‘colossus of the paddock’ before detailing the campaign orchestrated by McCarthy and Roy Cazaly to frustrate and injure him from the first bounce.
Victoria’s strong ruck paid Leahy a lot of personal attention. Evidently, they know him of old. They tried to keep him away from the throw-in all day long and got all kinds of strangle holds on him. At times Leahy got pretty sick of the ruck shepherding business, and at such times great 14 stone Victorian ruckmen could be seen getting tossed out with one great strong hand and being spun round like tops. I thought Umpire Collins was very severe on Leahy. He saw everything that this fair player did, but nothing of Victoria’s roughhouse tactics to stop him. We certainly thought Leahy more sinned against than sinning.
By standards of the time, Leahy was big. He stood 193 centimetres in his boots, tipped the scales at 95 kilograms, had 12-inch feet and large hands. He grew up in Adelaide’s West End where physical work was everything and with it came a strength of purpose. Leahy was always a ruckman, first with West Adelaide and then North Adelaide. At the time rucking involved two players; one known as a ruck shepherd whose job was to run interference for the other player to have a clean shot at the ball. From his debut in 1905 until the last of his 200 games in 1921, Leahy played with an opponent designated to knock him off the ball. The Mail reported as a result, the position required an even temperament and a plentiful supply of liniment.
Although still a schoolboy when he started playing league football (at 16), Leahy was immediately a star, soon winning the best and fairest, leading the goal-kicking and being picked for South Australia at eighteen. West Adelaide climbed on his back and went on a wild ride. Week after week he plucked the ball from the air, flicked taps in all directions to his team-mates, kicked goals, chased, bullocked and set the tone. There is scarcely a match report of the time that doesn’t mention his impact on a game. A team was built around him with follower James ‘Sorry’ Tierney, centreman Henry ‘Dick’ Head, wingman Johnny McCarthy and rover William ‘Shrimp’ Dowling all benefitting from his play. Tierney won Westies first Magarey Medal in 1908 and Head their second the following year. They were brought together by coach Jack ‘Dinny’ Reedman who emphasised team above all.
Having lost every game in 1906, the Red and Blacks collected the premiership in 1908 by beating Norwood in the Final and again the following week in the Challenge Final. At the end of the match Tierney, Dowling and Leahy were carried shoulder-high off the field by delirious fans. Even in the late 1950s football judges were still calling the trio the best ruck combination South Australia had known.
Their charisma and success drew large and loyal crowds from a part of Adelaide that suffered disproportionately from poverty, illness and infant mortality. The excitement of Saturday afternoons was described by the Observer as ‘unexampled prosperity and popularity’. The joy was unbridled after the premiership, when West Adelaide beat Victorian Premiers Carlton to claim to be the best club in Australia.
After repeating as Premiers in 1909, a restructure of the club upset Leahy and along with two of his seven brothers, he transferred to North Adelaide where they brought success. Around the broken war years, Leahy won the Magarey Medal (after being runner-up three times), three best and fairest medals and captained the Red and Whites to the 1920 premiership, kicking two goals in a grand final best afield display. North Adelaide played Collingwood the following week after which the Magpie players presented Leahy with the match ball mounted on an inscribed silver stand.
His reputation as the ‘Prince of Ruckman’ was by then confirmed in interstate minds. In his book Red and White Redemption, Nick Haines quotes a telegram from North Adelaide Secretary Charlie Young ahead of a team visit to NSW in 1920 that confirms: ‘Tom Leahy will make the trip. Of him, Victorian players say he is the best ruck man in Australia.’ It was almost a copy of the description given of Leahy by Carlton and Essendon premiership coach Jack Worrall who praised his ‘marvellous strength and good temper.’ It was an assessment confirmed by Western Australian coach Phil Matson who believed he was ‘the greatest ruckman who has ever played football.’
Leahy never missed state selection, totalling 31 appearances. For perspective, it is precisely the number of games that Hall of Fame Legends John Nicholls played for Victoria and Polly Farmer for Western Australia. Lindsay Head is the most decorated South Australian with 37 caps.
In the 1911 Carnival in Adelaide, Leahy led the unbeaten home state to the title with a 43-point win over Victoria in the final contest. ‘That team was, in my opinion, the best South Australian eighteen to have competed in carnival football,’ Leahy said. In 1920 he captained South Australia to a five-point win over Victoria – the first success in Melbourne since 1902.
Which is why at the Carnival in Perth in 1921 Victoria targeted him. As they followed the ball in, the Victorians threw their bodies at Leahy. He countered by reversing the role and having Vic Peters go for the ball while he shepherded Rupe Hiskins and McCarthy. What he couldn’t counter was the kicking. Time and again boots thundered into his shins, like axemen chopping at the base of a mighty red gum. Each blow slowed him and eventually took away his leap. The Daily News reported:
The Victorians kicked Tom Leahy in the shins and ran away with the ball. Every now and again the umpire would bring that ball back and bounce it in the centre of the field, and every time he would do this the Victorians would kick Tom Leahy in the shins and run away with it. As a consequence of this Victoria won the game, and Tom Leahy’s shins didn’t.
There is no explanation why South Australia received only one free kick for the match but in later years Leahy reflected that the umpire let the game get out of control.
“The Vics had me set. They dealt it out to me all the time hoping to make me quit. They started ‘cow-kicking’ every time I went for a mark or knock. Cow-kicking is lashing out with sprigged boots backwards as a man is coming in. At half-time, the first aid men were flat out picking pieces of stocking and dirt out of my bleeding shins.”
At the end of the match Leahy limped into the rooms where a doctor peeled down his bloody socks and with a scalpel began cutting pieces of flesh away. The Daily Herald reported his right shin was stripped of skin. He couldn’t play in the match against Western Australia but hobbled through the final three games of the season for North Adelaide before calling it quits. His daughter Betty Acton told James Coventry in his book Time and Space of the lifetime toll the injury took; that her father had a lot of scarring on his legs, suffered varicose veins and had to have his legs bandaged all the time.
In the immediate aftermath of the bloody encounter though, Leahy spoke no ill.
‘Good luck to the Vics,’ he said to a reporter from the Daily News. ‘They were the better team, and we all wanted to see the better team win. They beat us cleanly and fairly.’
‘You take your defeat philosophically,’ said the reporter.
‘Perhaps so, but I think we gave a good account of ourselves. Even so, we must give every credit to the victors.’
This was typical of Tom Leahy who played the most rugged position against enormous physical pressure with a spirit of sportsmanship it often didn’t deserve. That he did so was attributed to his nature and the nurture of his Catholic faith. Each Magarey Medal is a different design and Leahy’s was fashioned as a Celtic cross cornered by tiny trefoils. The heart of the medal is engraved SAF – South Australian Football – as if it is being protected by the strength of Leahy. It is a symbolism that backs the legion of reports of his graciousness to opponents and support for team-mates.
There are a handful of photographs of Leahy. In some he appears staring at the camera like an ancient warrior –canvas guernsey laced up tight, a football in one giant paw and knees wound by bandages. The best one is held by the State Library of South Australia and was taken prior to the 1920 semi-final against West Torrens at the Adelaide Oval. It shows a communal sense on the faces of both he and opposition captain Stan Patten.
Leahy was reported once for striking during a match against Norwood in 1914 and was rubbed out for three weeks. It was a charge he hotly denied and was horrified at the suspension because of his adherence to fair play. In the days after the tribunal decision letters to the editor poured in defending Leahy’s character and suggesting if he was guilty of anything it was just finding the limits of his endurance.
After the brutal end to his playing career, Leahy went to Norwood where he coached the club for three seasons, winning premierships in 1922 and 1923. The hand-illustrated certificate on display at the Adelaide Oval was the half-way mark of his service to football. For decades after retiring from the worst of the game he spread the best of it.
Any club, anywhere in South Australia that needed help he was there – travelling to the Riverland, McLaren Vale, Whyalla, Port Pirie, Mount Gambier and beyond to speak, coach and promote. Sometimes he would take along an old team-mate and opponent and so pulled them together by forming the Past Players and Officials Association. He wrote about the game in the press, was Tribunal Commissioner for a year and resident officer of the SANFL for two decades. His Requiem Mass in 1964 drew a final packed house.
There has never been a question of his place in the game in his home state, but the nagging question remains about his absence from national recognition. The Australian Football Hall of Fame eligibility criteria is for players who show ability, integrity, sportsmanship and character, outstanding service and overall contribution to Australian Football.
It is hard to imagine a player who fits this better than Tom Leahy.
To read more by Michael Sexton click here.
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About Michael Sexton
Michael Sexton is a freelance journo in SA. His scribblings include "The Summer of Barry", "Chappell's Last Stand" and the biography of Neil Sachse.
Great article and totally agree.
A beautifully written and compelling piece, Mike
All who are selected for the Hall of Fame deserve the recognotion, but many have records far inferior to Tom Leahy. They did have the advantage of livimg in Victoria in a football sense.
To help with the photo, Tierney (nickname ‘Sorry’ ) and Leahy are seated at the front.
Wonderful read. I knew the name but none of his history. Very deserving of Hall of Fame recognition.
Very compelling Mike. Let’s hope the Hall of Fame selectors agree.
WELL WRITTEN as always MS
You’re a guru
Who did he play for during the War Years 14-18 ??
Excellent read and agree a compelling case. I was familiar with the name but did not know much about his career previously.
On a quick look, there are very few players in the HoF whose careers pre-date (wholly/partly WW1), and of those only a couple of South Australians. Seems a major gap in the HoF that should be addressed, particularly when you see the modern players who have been inducted.
PS- Don’t get me started on Neil Kerley not being in the Legends group.
Thanks for this Michael. Persuasive argument for one of South Australia’s great footballers.
Michael you make a very valid point. And below is a link to a contemporary Victorian who was well qualified to support you. Five time premiership coach Jack Worrall wrote an article in 1932 listing best players he had seen, including those from outside Victoria. His verdict on Tom Leahy was “the best ruck man, bar kicking, I have ever seen in my long association with the game.” (Maybe in the only games that Jack saw Tom play, his kicking skills were impacted by being kicked in the shins by the Victorian players.)
Too many of the champion players of pre WWII and even pre TV days are ignored in the Hall of Fame and other “Lists of best players”. And those who plied their trade outside the VFL are even more ignored. Sad situation for our National Game.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/141363661
Sexton talks, the selectors listen.
That’s a fantastic piece Mike. Glad to see him inducted in to the Hall of Fame. Now for Ken Farmer to be rewarded with very long overdue legend status