Nick Marshall’s excellent series on the Keilor Sports Club, and the history of sport in the area, research made possible by the Hayden Kelly Scholarship, generated lots of comment at the time it was published and an occasional comment still bobs up.
Yesterday Jim Parker, the winner of the 1979 Gift, left a comment asking if there were an honour board.
Quick as a flash, Hayden was onto it. And so was Nick. Thanks gents.
“When Jim won it in 1979,” Hayden wrote, “he ran 12 seconds flat off 9.75 metres which looks like the equal fastest winning time recorded along with three others doing the same . Given he ran inside evens he must have been a good runner. For the record best run ever at Keilor. In 1994, Steve Brimacombe won the Gift off half a metre and he clocked 12.14.”
I’d love to find out more.
The other winner with whom I had an association is Jim Bates who died about a decade ago. I met Jim because he was the oldest living Essendon player for a while. During the early days of the Depression, he moved from his birthplace, Nathalia, to take up a post office job in Melbourne. He played in Essendon’s seconds for three seasons until he was picked on the wing in the firsts in an early round of 1933. He told me he got one kick, right at the start of the game, but was so spooked by the roar of the crowd he didn’t want to play at the top level. Eventually he became a boundary umpire which was not uncommon for those also involved in professional running. Jim was really quick, but he was not treated well by his trainer who asked him to run dead time and time again. Jim finally got jack of it and, in the final of the 1939 Keilor Gift thought, “Bugger it, I’ll just go flat out and see if I can win.” He won. Collected the prizemoney and that was the end of his pro-running days.
When I visited him around 2004, he was in his mid-90s, living with his wife in Nathalia. He died in 2019.
Read Nick Marshall’s excellent series on the Keilor Sports Club.
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About John Harms
JTH is a writer, publisher, speaker, historian. He is publisher and contributing editor of The Footy Almanac and footyalmanac.com.au. He has written columns and features for numerous publications. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Play On, The Pearl: Steve Renouf's Story and Life As I Know It (with Michelle Payne). He appears (appeared?) on ABCTV's Offsiders. He can be contacted [email protected] He is married to The Handicapper and has three school-age kids - Theo, Anna, Evie. He might not be the worst putter in the world but he's in the worst four. His ambition was to lunch for Australia but it clashed with his other ambition - to shoot his age.
Lovely insight. I recall Hayden’s writing on this and enjoyed it. Victoria in particular was dotted with these rich, historic, community Gifts. Sadly many disappeared.
Pro running has never really been about the times run. It’s been about the winning. Born out of a culture of hardship, punting and endeavour it was a reflection of its time and place. But times have changed.
Sorry – Nick’s writing
Keilor is on again on 17 February .We ran in 2023 after missing 21 and 22 through Covid . Everything is in readiness and all we need is some fine weather and a good turn out of runners .
If I get time this week I will enlarge on the day Steve Brimma won the Gift .There is a good tale behind it
Somebody once told me that there was a gift run at Rheola in the early days. There is very little at Rheola from my obsrevations (not far from Inglewwod) could this be true?
Notice on the honour board the names Furness, Brmacombe, Kerr -are they former top-flight league footballers? Brimacombe might have played VFA.
Lovely to see these honour boards – one of my pet loves!
Citrus
Laurie Kerr played for Carlton and later was a successful business man and a backroom powerbroker at Carlton
Don Furness was a champion centreman at Fitzroy . Ripping bloke and he owned Sims Sports Store in Puckle St Moonee Ponds for many years .His son Robbie still owns and runs Sims and they sponsor at Keilor every year
Don told me that on an end of season train trip to Perth Bill Stephen and himself wrote the Fitzroy theme song and put it to the tune of la marseillaise . Great song still albeit the Lions have butchered it a bit
Steve Brimacombe is the son of Laurie who was a legend at Coburg in the VFA and also coached a few clubs including Greensborough
The 1996 winner David Robertson played 17 games at Collingwood and 3 at Essendon
Cheers
HK