David ‘Malt’ Wildy: Sobers, Richards, Wildy

 

 

David Wildy – North Adelaide – 146 games, 32 goals

 

1981 – John Downie Memorial Trophy (Reserves)
1983 – Northern Tavern Encouragement Award
1984 – Harrison Encouragement Award (1 Magarey Medal Vote)
1985 – Woodroffe Skylights Trophy (2 Magarey Medal Votes)
1986 – Rodney Robran’s Sportslover Award
1987 – North Adelaide Football Club Encouragement Trophy

 

David Wildy complete player history at NAFC HERE

 

Life member of the North Adelaide Football Club

 

Media personality including commentating the past 31 SANFL grand finals (a record), six AFL grand finals

 

TV footy: ABC and Channel 7, Cricket: Channel 9

 

26 years continuously with radio station FIVEaa

 

David is entrenched in the media in South Australia and is an important part of the furniture, currently commentating AFL footy and doing an hour long sports show nightly with Malcolm Blight on FIVEaa.

 

Back to the beginning!

 

David is the son of Bob (deceased) and Allison with brothers Mark and Tim and sister Carolyn. He attended Vale Park Primary School and Marden High. David played both junior cricket and footy for Walkerville, playing state primary school cricket at Under 17 and Under 23 levels and made the senior state squad in 1983 before retiring at the age of 24.

 

Cricket

 

The first bowler David faced Playing A-grade district cricket for Prospect was none other than Ken Cunningham! David won the Prospect DCC batting award twice – hey, Sir Garfield Sobers in ‘61, Barry Richards in ‘71 and David Wildy in ‘81 has some synergy!

 

I rated David very highly as a batsman and was working on the scoreboard in a state Under 23 game against WA. The word was whoever got the most runs out of Harvey Jolly and David was going to play the next Shield game. Wilds was run out for 50 odd – we won’t mention who by but it was smart to get rid of your main opposition (only joking Harvey).

 

 

Joel Garner also remarked that Wilds was the best batsman he played against in Adelaide district cricket – fair endorsement! David was a tall, elegant batsman with similarities to Greg Chappell.

 

Football

 

 

Footy wise, Wilds started with Walkerville playing Under 9s, 11s and 13s. David was roped into playing for St Peters YCW when he was 15, ending up badly breaking his leg. He was in hospital for four weeks and in plaster for nine. Now, Adelaide University FC readers, David may have received a visit from a certain Boz Moloney and as we all know Wilds couldn’t run or hide. The next couple of hours of his life he can’t get back (I can see plenty of heads nodding).

 

David missed two and a half years of footy, returning against doctors’ advice and his dad, Bob, wasn’t overly keen on him playing either. David kicked 99 goals for Walkies Under 18s that season. He was then invited out to North Adelaide and played Under 19s under the coaching of Rodney Robran.

 

He started his Rooster career in the ruck but, explaining to Rodney his body couldn’t cope with the physical demands of rucking and that he was a full forward anyway, Wilds proceeded to kick 101 goals in 15 games including seven in a losing Grand Final (pipped at the post by a Grantley Fielke inspired West Adelaide).

 

A very important point in Wilds’ footy career is he was a one-eyed Norwood supporter. Growing up and playing juniors for the Roosters he used to then rush to go watch the Legs (always said you were a man of class, Wilds).

 

David made his league debut against Woodville in Round 4 1980 playing under the legend Barrie Robran. He kicked five goals replacing the suspended Mike Doszna. David played the following week against Centrals but was then sent back to the 2s to further his development.

 

In 1981, under new coach, Mick Nunan, the two had a meeting at the start of the year where Mick said ‘I reckon you can play and I will back you in but footy has to be the total main sporting focus’. So, David retired from cricket – he adds he does not regret the decision whatsoever and wouldn’t have had the resulting media positions in all likelihood if he had kept trying to combine both sports.

 

David established himself in the league side halfway through the season in ‘81 after consistent performances in the reserves. Unfortunately he only played one game in ‘82 (injuries held him back). Season ‘83 was when Wilds (aka Malt) established himself as a league player.

 

Now there is a bit of debate how David acquired his nickname. I will back in the great man, Nick Haines (North Adelaide FC historian), that Mick Nunan called him ‘Malt’ as he was making sure Wilds was having plenty of malted protein shakes trying to put on weight.

 

David’s fine form coincided with him doing the training to enter the fire brigade, changing from the National Australia Bank. The strenuous training David was doing for the fire brigade helped dramatically as he was so fit that 30 plus possessions playing in defence was commonplace. Getting to every contest and running off wasn’t a problem whatsoever.

 

David kicked on and became an integral part of the Roosters’ defence. His consistency was a key and he did a very good job on key forwards such as Neville Roberts, Roger Luders, Malcolm Blight, Stephen Kernahan, Tim Evans, Rick Davies and John Roberts while also being mobile enough to stand Wilbur Wilson and Ralph Sewer.

 

In ‘85 and ‘86 David played in the North Adelaide sides which lost to Glenelg in both Grand Finals. In ‘85 he was knocked out by Stephen ‘Sticks’ Kernahan in Stephen’s last SANFL game (no problem with Sticks whatsoever, Malt said it was entirely his fault). A highlight of David’s career was playing very well against and having team success against the VFL sides Melbourne and Collingwood while also being high up in the Roosters’ best in the loss against Hawthorn.

 

In ‘87 David was like the Roosters – on a mission. Having the best year of his career, he made the SANFL Advertiser and the News teams of the year as well as the West End All Stars team. It is his biggest footy regret, being injured playing against West Adelaide in the Round 18 game in a questionable incident by Glen Goss. The led to him missing the rest of the season including the North Adelaide premiership.

 

In ‘88 David played the in the Escort Cup and the opening two minor round games. He got injured and then returned from Rounds 8 to 14 before getting dropped. David then bizarrely broke his arm playing in the reserves against Sturt, colliding with Matty Benson’s head (hard head, Matty!) which turned out to be his last game.

 

In his career David had a broken arm and wrist, a bone in his back, a shoulder reconstruction, two groin operations and a fractured ankle (bloody hell, sounds like a medical dictionary!). These were at the start and end of his career, missing 40 to 50 games with injury and playing over 100 straight games in the middle of his career.

 

David and Mick Nunan had a falling out which thankfully is repaired now. At one stage it looked like Wilds and Steve Riley would head to the Parade in ‘89 – unfortunately, the clearance fee put paid to that (other clubs showed interest in David also).

 

Post-footy

 

David had been North Adelaide’s main representative on the Channel 9 footy show so had a relationship with Ken Cunningham. Also, after his injury in ’88, he had been involved in the coverage of footy on the ABC (the good old days with plenty of coverage of the SANFL!) so KG lined up an around the grounds role for Wilds in ‘89 on 5DN. By the end of the season Wilds was calling games – this was like a dream come true.

 

When 5DN wound up, David moved to 5RPH calling footy with Ian Aitken. Then when the late David Hookes moved to Melbourne, Wilds was offered the job at FIVEaa a casual 26 years ago. He has now called a remarkable 31 SANFL Grand Finals in a row – an Australian record at state level which is very unlikely to be surpassed. He has also called six AFL Grand Finals.

 

Some highlights were when it looked like Scott Hodges was down for the count hurting his knee in the 1990 Grand Final and Rick ‘the Jumbo Prince’ Davies in the FIVEaa box wasn’t exactly shattered as it looked like his SANFL goal kicking record of 151 goals in a season was going to survive. Alas, Scotty hobbled back out on to the ground and ended up with 153 goals. Safe to say that Rick was just as disappointed as the losing Glenelg side.

 

The Teddy Whitten lap with Neil Kerley in the State game in ‘95 (I will always maintain that is the best radio I ever have had the privilege of listening to – KG, Wilds and John Reid painted the picture perfectly. I pulled over driving as it was emotional and I wanted to listen closely), the AFL Grand Finals stand out for different reasons but the Crows comeback in ‘98 when seemingly dead and buried at half time is his favourite. Hey, 30 plus years over 1,000 games commentating.

 

When FIVEaa were commentating both SANFL and AFL games every week, one year David commentated 75 games! Let alone hosting Summer Drive and regularly Saturday morning talk-back there have been many highlights (obviously the calls of Malcolm from Highbury is No. 1).

 

But seriously, David thanks Gary Beau at 5DN in the early days and has loved working with Ken Cunningham, Graham Cornes, Chris McDermott, Mark Bickley, Stephen Rowe and Malcolm Blight, thanking Paul Bartlett for being a magnificent boss at FIVEaa and Cam Thompson has been a significant influence as Sports Director.

 

David also worked for the News, writing a weekly column interviewing sporting celebrities such George Foreman in which he spoke about Muhammad Ali, Greg Chappell about the underarm incident, Dawn Fraser, Max Basheer and Mark Jackson were highlights. Hey, even a fellow Prospect batting trophy winner in Barry Richards! The column had some challenges but was a buzz and had its rewards (yep, get that totally Wilds).

 

 

Personal life

 

David met his first wife, Jenny, at the Grenfell Tavern (hey, an enduring relationship starting up at the Grenfell is a life achievement in itself!). Jenny was a magnificent person who I met and had a bit to do with when I was coaching at Pembroke. Their son, Ben, was playing for Pembroke and Payneham. Jenny would always put her hand up to score and help in any way. She was a selfless person always thinking of others. Jenny died of a rare genetic lung disease and refused to tell the kids Melissa and Ben as she didn’t want them to worry – only telling them in the last week, not crying and being very specific that they had each other. A truly remarkable lady and which David had a special relationship.

 

Wilds has struck the jackpot again with his current partner, Gail, who works for Qantas. David originally met Gail after a game in Melbourne with ex-Rooster David Robertson and then ran into her nine months later. I reckon it takes a pretty incredible person to develop such strong relationships with David’s children only emerging recently about the lengthy chats Ben used to have with Gail when David was off working night shift at the fire brigade.

 

I remember Ben as a pretty quiet kid, so for Ben to confide in Gail is true testament to a caring person. Melissa, who was involved in the media here and now living and married to Mitch in the US (hey, Melissa LOVE how open you are on Facebook about your feelings towards David, Gail, Ben and your late mum Jenny!)

 

The fireman

 

Wilds worked for the fire brigade from ’83, retiring recently. He was the first to arrive at the NCA bombing in town in ’94 which was particularly horrific. He also attended the Torrens Power Station fire – it only emerged afterwards how extremely dangerous it was. The Pinery bushfires and being on the scene of numerous terrible car accidents all have had its moments and are huge life learning and changing moments.

 

David misses the camaraderie of the fire brigade. He really enjoyed working there, appreciates and is so grateful for people who covered his shifts and helped him work in his passion of sport. He looks forward to continuing to work in the media and, personally, being the doyen of callers of footy and the chance to travel with Gail. I reckon fair chance of a bit of travel to the USA!

 

Thanks Wilds aka Malt!

 

 

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