Almanac Footy: Pride – Otway Districts FC 125th Year Celebrations Saturday 26 April

Sammy Harriott

 

Pride

 

Otway 125^th Year Celebrations; Sammy Harriott

 

When Sammy Harriott was 18 he moved into his first house; Cliffy Young’s old shack, up on the ridge, just outside foggy Beech Forest. He had already played seniors in Geelong, and juniors locally on holidays. Had grown up around the Gellibrand pub, with its tall, gristly men and their bush stories. He was 4^th generation Otways on his mother’s side and Cliffy’s shack had big rats, birds in the roof, but was too cold for snakes.

 

   He got a dairy apprenticeship through Dickie Dawes, who recruited him. “Rent was $10 a week,” he tells me.

 

   Dickie! The old school Otway ruckman and spud farmer, from our days of purple and gold!

 

   “He recruited me, too!” I laugh.

 

   Dickie recruited everyone!

 

   It’s late on a Thursday night, rain is coming down on the ridge. I’m on my way home from work in the bush, having a bourbon, stopping to talk footy, as always, with Otway District’s most decorated player, five-time B&F winner, Sammy Harriott.

 

   The club’s 125-year anniversary is coming up. Or, at least, 125 year of footy in the Otways. I decide to ask Sammy his story, not in snippets of chat, but all of it.

 

   *****

 

      Sammy played hard, even when young. He was tough, but had the reflexes and sublime skills of a ball winner. Great around the ankles, could pluck a pack mark, kick freakish goals, and kill you off three steps with is absurdly powerful acceleration.

 

   From day one Sammy was spinning out of packs, snapping this way and that, dodging, breaking tackles, before turning goalward.

 

   That season, ’94, was the club’s first after being in recession. Otway had returned via the Haytesbury-Mt Noorat league, wearing North colours, because another team already had the Demons.

 

   “I’ll never forget our first win,” he tells me. “I’d come from a successful club in Geelong, but this was something else, after the club folding for two years, to come back… That win was like a grand final! It was unreal, smiling faces everywhere. Locals, everybody was so happy. It made me aware of how important the club was to so many good people. Their lives. It never left me. It really sold me on Otway.“

 

   “The clubrooms back then were dumpy,” he says. “I was totally fine with that, it was just different to what I was used, too.”

 

   He doesn’t have to tell me. I remember! They were tiny, cinderblock, with a half dead potbelly in the middle. I loved them, they were a place to huddle and play poker after training, protected from winter’s worst, or the river fogs that rolled in making the drive home near impossible.

 

   “Our rooms weren’t so bad, but I have no idea how the opposition got ready for a game!” Sammy laughs. “Holes in floors, cold showers, like a dungeon! Haha! The door was just hanging on! No respect shown to them. Half the time they were already beaten.”

 

   “But that’s what it was. Us against them. Half the time it was war.”

 

   Men of mud, playing on a ground of mud, Dickie would bring his tractor and roller down to the club on Sundays to level the oval. Come Tuesday, the first on the oval would step ankle deep into a smoothed out, brown surface. Nobody’s fault, we were just a club without a lot of money and had a small ground, surrounded by eucalypts.

 

   We played accordingly. Otway had a reputation for being the wild west of football. It suited Sammy.

 

   “Yeah, I played with a few tough men, they made you walk taller. Physical workers, bush workers. Jacko Conway, Dean Norman, Steven Meade… A lot of blokes who would rather a fight than a feed. One in all in. I had no problem with it.”

 

   The club could be rough around the edges, loggers and dairy farmers, mostly, but it has also always been a proudly family club. A community. Simpson, in my day, were our biggest rivals. I put it to Sammy.

 

   “Too right. They were close by, down the gravel Lavers-Cobden road, in the farming plains. They were much the same, tough, bush people, dairy farmers, all had to go milk cows after, a strong family club.”

 

   “Nothing against them, in hindsight. They were successful, and I just hate losing.

 

   Indeed, that was a defining trait about Sammy’s career. Ask the AFL/VFL champions of days gone, and almost to a one they’ll tell you Carlton’s Geoff Southby was the best full-back of all time. When I interviewed him for my book, he said AFL clubs, are less looking for someone who loves to win, as they are someone who HATES to lose!”

 

   When he told me that, I thought; Sammy. Just intensely competitive!

 

   “Playing Simpson,” Sammy continues, “It wasn’t like it is now, everyone knowing each other via Colac. There were more schools in the bush, you went to town less. You’d never met another Simson bloke, wouldn’t help him up. It was tribalism. They were simply the enemy.”

 

   Pipes Balboni had the best side in Sammy’s time playing for Otway. A wonderful, friendly man with a fierce competitive streak, goody laugh, and skills you’d die for.

 

   “The year was ’97. There were great players on every line,” Sammy says. “No matter how good you were, you got an injury, you worried about getting back in.”

 

   But you didn’t win a flag, I asked. What happened?

 

   “Round 16,” Sammy says. “We were the equal best in the comp, Pipes was on half forward, with the ball, turned, the other bloke ran through him, iced him! Best hip and shoulder I’ve ever seen. No one had a go. It was fair back then.”

 

   “Pipes was our leader, fearless. Fearless! The way he span out of packs, the way he led us. We were young, losing him for the year derailed everything.”

 

    “Otway has always needed on field leaders.”

 

   When Pipes didn’t coach the next year, the club was struggling. Come January, still without a leader. Sammy, three B&Fs already under his belt, was tapped on the shoulder. “Coach us to a premiership!” he laughs. Sammy was only 21. “No worries! It’s gunna be easy!”

 

   Sammy was too young, not ready. Too much one of the boys. As any 21 year old would be. But in taking the job on, he held the club together, maybe, in my mind, saved it.

 

   He brought friends down from Geelong, like Shane Wicks, and gave the job everything!

 

   His ruckman, Lenny Perkins, agrees.

 

   “Every ¾ time pep talk involved a lot of shouting that the other mob being a pack of weak bastards!” he chuckles over the phone. “You could hear it echo around the district!”

 

   At that age, with Sammy’s skills, and hardness, the offers came in from everywhere. He could have gone to any club he wanted, for good coin, but never even considered it.

 

   “Nah, I’d met Linda by that stage, and I thought winning a premiership at Otway would fulfil anything I wanted to get out of footy. Gelli felt like home. Never got an offer I couldn’t refuse!” he cackles.

 

   Eventually, two dead set ripper kids were born, and that was that. Sammy played it out at Otway.

 

   I remind him of when he kicked 14 on Otway’s 20 year celebration. I played that day, it was a sight. So crisp, pack marks, out bodying his opponents, kicking them from everywhere.

 

   One goal, a straight kick while running along the boundary in front of the clubrooms, was just golden.

 

   “Yeah, I’d kicked more, but that was my best game, I reckon. For the club, it was an important occasion.”

 

   I ask him about his place in the club’s history.

 

   “Pa captained the 1955 premiership at Gelli, my great grandfather helped set up a league on the ridge, back in the day. I just wanted to add my name to it.”

 

   I’ve actually got the ’55 footy here,” he tells me. “Being captain coach, they gave it to him.”

 

   “Would have been as heavy as hell!” he laughs.

 

   It’s amazing, the history that’s probably still out there, buried in farm sheds, in closets, in forgotten timberyard storerooms. Just imagine it; the ’55 premiership football!

 

   Thing were so different then, in the 50s, earlier. You had to be hard to work the land. We talk about it; Carlisle River, Beech Forrest, Lavers Hill, Gellibrand, the mountains, the shipwreck coast, the inland valleys, it all had teams that now make up Otway. And before that, the loggers league that ran the ridge, when every dirt track you see now had a mill down it, a small thrown-together school, workers in wooden huts, and a football team. A league built on cross-cut saws, Clydesdale horses drawing timber trains out of the gullies and the old Beechy steam train that wound its way up through the bush from Colac.

 

   Sometimes it feels like every paddock up there, lost in the mist, was once something else, is full of the footy club’s history.

 

   I ask if Sammy regrets not playing in days like that? In snow and mud, wearing spud sacks under your jumper to keep the feeling in you limbs? It’s adventure?

 

   “Nah!” he laughs. “I worked in snow. No need to play in it!”

 

   “The team I coached were mates,” he cuts back to his time. “That was the main thing. It has always been the main thing, Otway. We had Ross Edwards playing, Scratcher, who was older, but there was Cuppo, Homer, Doggy Middleton, we got Lenny back. It was a young team. Most of us ended up playing good amounts of time for Otway.”

 

   “Socially, after footy we headed to the Gelli pub. It was a wild, bush pub those days. Most weeks there’d be a fight. Times change, which is good, but back then none of us minded.”

 

   Eventually, the club decided to re-enter the CDFNL, where it belonged. It was hard, the Haytesbury League had other small towns like Gellibrand. This was a step up. But a step up the club needed.

 

   Sammy agrees, but it wasn‘t plain sailing.

 

   “Re-entering the CDFNL was hard for me. I broke my ankle badly in a workplace accident and missed that year. It was good for the club, though, a better standard of football. The club rose to it. Homegrown talent like Khan Beckett, Dean Mahoney were reaching a good age, Lenny Perkins was in his prime. Tommy Sutherland brought a few mates down from Uni, they topped it up nicely.”

 

   Eventually, my ankle came good, we had several solid years playing finals. We were just missing that few good players, that depth. We were never quite the top team in the comp, but we gave it a shake. Losing that final by under a kick to Simpson was heartbreaking. Khan and Lenny were injured. We just had to get through that one, but couldn’t.”

 

   “It was always hard to compete with the Lornes, the Apollo Bays. They had good population to draw from, money, resources. You’d think you’d be level with them, then they’d go buy another player.”

 

   Soon enough, were talking about the lifeblood of Otway, its supporters.

 

   “One word,” Sammy says. “Passionate.”

 

   ‘They wanted Otway to win. It affected their whole weeks. We had a decent crew following us around most matches. Rural people, who barracked for you both home and away. Grunter, Brian Edwards, loyal people.”

 

   I agree. The Otway Footy-Netball Club has always been of the land. Its people’s social glue, as well as entertainment.

 

   “That’s why playing at Carlisle River once or twice a year was good. The coldest wind I’d ever felt! Straight out of that valley!” Sammy laughs. “But it was healthy for the club, you could feel the history, what people like Scooter did to get it up and running. They had good jumpers, there was that small-town passion. Farmers with hay on the back of their utes parked behind the goals.”

 

   “But I guess like a lot of small towns, the farms got bigger, and the people moved away.”

 

   I ask Sammy who his favourite player was at Otway, fascinated about his potential answer. He has played alongside so many great of the club, so many simply great people.

 

   “There were no favourites in my time there,” he says. “It’s a hard question. You pulled on a jumper, I was with you. Anyone who was prepared to have a go, they were the ones I enjoyed playing with. That was most of us. Our skills weren’t great, but we gave it everything.”

 

   “I played Ressies towards the end. My body was cooked. That year with Rory Harrington was one of the best. It was only reserves, but their passion, it rubs off on you.”

 

   “You could see how much Rory wanted to win! How much he loved the club. Rory’s passion is contagious.”

 

   That, in a nutshell, is what’s so good about Sammy Harriott. A lot of people with his trophied footy career will drop names, harp on about themselves. One of his best memories, was being taught passion in ressies footy.

 

   A mark of a champion.

 

   Sam won’t talk about his highlights, so I mention Princetown for him. That windswept oval at the foot of the 12 apostles. A great club, that’s no longer standing.

 

   “Yeah, Princetown were near the end,” he tells me. “Conway usually played full forward, but was out. The ball kept coming down. 26.2, just one of those days, every kick hit the boot sweetly.”

 

   I was playing in Tassie that year, or the city, or FNQ, somewhere. Missed it. 30 of my years in adult footy as a backman, I can only dream of 26 goals! It’s close to my lifetime tally! I tell him I want every detail.

 

   “Russel Mahoney came down to tag me, his son Dean is now the Otway president. Dale Fararri, blokes who later came to Otway. It was a shame to see them fold. But what the Mahoneys have put into Otway, as a family… just amazing!”

 

   I want blood and guts storytelling, every kick, mark. For him to talk me through the speckies. It’s not Sammy’s way, though. He never brags, rarely talks about his own footy.

 

   He has a few chores to do, I take my bourbon for a walk, ring a few of the blokes he mentioned.

 

   “Sam loved an umpire! And they loved him!” Pipes Balboni laughs. “26 goals, a masterclass, and still didn’t get the three votes!”

 

   “If I wanted a goal, I’d put Sam full forward, if I needed clearances I’d put him in  the centre. Boy, he could crunch them! I’d break my bones doing what he did! Haha.”

 

   “This one day, I would rest Sam at full forward. It was miserable, absolutely freezing! Our Gellibrand faithful had their 44-gallon drum burning with wood, sipping and cheering behind the goals, it was really blazing! The ball finds its way up the other end, so Sam decides; I’m really cold, so he passed the goal umpire, jumps the fence, warming up his hands and sharing stories with the faithful!”

 

   And a sip, I’d reckon.

 

   “Oops! The ball then comes back down to our end! Sam jumps the fence, leads for the ball. This happened for the whole game. The poor full back didn’t know what to do!”

 

   Pipes is one of the most humorous, genuine blokes you will ever, ever meet. Just a pleasure to be around. A champion of Otway. It makes sense that he would focus on the funny. But then he gets serious.

 

   “I’ve played with blokes from Richmond, Carlton, Footscray, great footballers from VFL clubs like Williamstown. Sammy was one of the best. If he wanted to, he would have made the Big Time.”

 

   Sammy was unstoppable those days, a beast! One of those players you have to watch, who words do no justice to. But bashing and crashing into packs, in a far more physical age, took its toll.

 

   Body battered and bruised, he didn’t quit, rather, simply, took on twos football.

 

   There’s more than one type of proud. Some great players give it away when their best is waning, others keep going. When Sammy’s finished with his chores, I ask him about dropping to reserves football.

 

   “They needed numbers, it was that simple,” he tells me. “I ended up being a player coach.”

 

   “We had some good players in the twos that year. Tod Jamison, Kane Clissold, Sebastian Hill, Tyson Bartlett, Steve Daniels. Lenny Perkins was doing the running.”

 

   They ended up winning the premiership. Our first adult success in decades.

 

   “Mostly, I felt relief, that I’d finally won a flag at Otway. Once it settled in that we had achieved something for the people of this area, that was when I enjoyed it most.”

 

   “I still enjoy seeing that photo on the wall. Still remember the happy locals.”

 

   “Having my grandfather, an Otway premiership coach, see the game made it that bit more special.”

 

    The night’s getting on. I always love talking footy with Sammy. Every time we meet on the ridge, sun, rain or fog, we stop outside our utes, and talk Otway. It’s time to get down to the basics.

 

   What does the Otway Footy Club mean to you, mate? I ask.

 

   He pauses, giving it good thought.

 

   “It means… the world to me.”

 

   Neither of us say much for a bit after that. What’s to add to it?

 

   Eventually, I ask him about the future.

 

   “Hopefully we can get more respect for the club, from others. I’d like to prove the doubters wrong. Have them know what we’re made of!”

 

   “That’s always been the Gellibrand/Otway mentality, we stick up for ourselves, don’t take crap from anyone.“

 

   And we go our own way, as the rain intensifies.

 

   The Otway FNC have had many champions over the past 100 years. If it could be summed up in a photo, there is no doubt in the world Stewart Sutherland would be in today’s frame, wearing the jumper. Small, but skilled and fearless, a great leader, a great example, a great person and family man, every single fibre of him Otway. And a dairy farmer! But, in my prime, in my time, the best I saw was Sammy Harriott. Not for the countless B&Fs, nor the league B&Fs, nor, simply, how hard he hit packs, but because for two or three decades he was what I saw if I held a mirror up to the Otway football/netball club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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