My First SANFL Match – Centrals v Woodville – 29/7/1967 (an Adelaide Time Capsule)

It was Monday lunchtime on the final week of my second stint on Project Death March. For no good reason at all, I opened eBay and entered ‘SANFL’ into the search box. To my immediate surprise, I found that someone was auctioning off (individually) a series of 1967 Footy Budgets. Surprise begat delight, as I realised that one of these was the Budget for the round when I attended my first game.

So I placed my bid for Volume XLI, No 19 (ie Round 15), 29th July 1967 and waited. My needless nervousness disappeared a handful of days later when it was confirmed that I was the sole bidder.

I had no real idea what to expect. I’ve kept Budgets dating back as far as 1970 and knew their form and content intimately. This 1967 one was smaller than I had expected, think of a Best Bets trimmed by 1/2 an inch on the X and Y axes, an unusual size.

But what I also didn’t expect was the torrent of memories and observations that would be unleashed, like an episode of Irwin Allen’s Time Tunnel, as I leafed through its 36 pages.

Here they are:

July 1967 finds me in Grade Two at Elizabeth South Infants School. On the cusp of my 7th birthday, the eldest child (and only son) of parents married hastily in the early months of 1960. Mum had recently popped out her fourth child weeks before her 24th birthday. My father was a few months away from embarking on a single minded adventure to rescue nuked warplanes from the South Australian desert.

My interest in sport was sustained by a diet of the Channel 9 Sports Show, hosted by Mike Peterson, The Advertiser, The News and the Sunday Mail. I read a lot and followed my local SANFL team, Central District, The Bulldogs. This interest was not shared by my immediate family.

Some time earlier that month, I was taken to the dentist in Sidney Chambers at the Town Centre, just across from the AMP Insurance office operated by Charlie Pyatt, 1953 West Torrens premiership player, Centrals Chairman, Lions Club member and local Chamber of Commerce bigwig (and pal of my grandfather Charles ‘CP’ Schwerdt). I travelled to Whyalla in the Pyatt’s Mercedes the following Xmas, still the plushest car I’ve ever travelled in.

In the waiting room, Mum and I struck up a conversation with a friendly lady from Salisbury. She had a prominent jaw that (thanks to her), I’ve since come to associate with ladies that can give as good as they get. I must have mentioned my love of the Doggies as next thing I knew she had offered to take me to their next home game and Mum had agreed, just like that.

On the 29th July, she arrived at our place in her green Falcon, with her son in tow and wearing a green woollen coat, to take me on my first visit to Goodman Road. I wore my cobalt blue car coat, the solid YKK zip going all the way to the top.

I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember ever knowing her name, but her kind act led to my lifelong relationship with the Dogs.

We must have arrived early, as we were able to secure a spot at the highest vantage point available, the centre of the top row of the stand. The glassed-in press box that also housed the radio commentators was located behind our possie.

To our left was the view of the still developing Town Centre, in the middle distance was my future High School. Further to the east stood the fag end of the Adelaide Hills, the disused limestone quarry apparent, as the Hills slunk miserably into the Adelaide Plains.

We may or may not have bought a copy of the Football Budget that day, but I have one now.

…

The garish Kraft cheese tones used on the cover made it hard to read the contrasting white print, but it was the only concession to the Swinging 60s that I could discern throughout its entire contents. Torrens hard man with the soft name, Tracy Braidwood was the cover star.

To think that a galvanised steel supplier would reside in one of Adelaide’s main streets and find the coin to advertise on the back page.

…

Overleaf, I am given the first reminder of the growing role that the motor vehicle played back then. “Taylors of Medindie. Medindie” went the jingle of one of the many car yards that dominated the Main North Road landscape. Taylors was a Lyle Skinner screw punt away from that famous landmark, Scotties Motel.

Twice in three lines, the “inexplicable” nature of the Croweaters recent loss to the Sandgropers was bemoaned. The tight race for the final four was highlighted, and I enjoyed the turn of phrase “slammed to the mat” to describe Port’s run of injuries. Perhaps the editor had been to the Thebarton Town Hall for World Championship Wrestling on the preceding Tuesday.

…

Here it is, the page that I had been waiting for.

Is there a better symbol of mid-century Adelaide mores than the Starline Drive-In ad? I hadn’t heard of the main feature, but it looks to have been made in 1964, so it took a while to make it to the big outdoor screens of suburban Adelaide. I went to at least four of the six establishments shown on that page over the journey, but the Mainline at Gepps Cross was the King of Drive-ins. Rather than a “plunge into hell”, it was often the opposite.

To the footy itself.

Centrals were 9th (3-11), Woodville were 10th (1-13) before this round. Neither club had seemed to advanced much since their admission to League ranks in 1964. Centrals wore its woollen, Footscray style outfit, up against the Peckers’ yellow with a bottle green yoke, also woollen.

I fell instantly in love with the tri-colours, not just the jumper, but the socks. I begged Mum to make a visit to the Coles Variety Store at the Town Centre to pick up a pair, arguing that it would be a lot cheaper than a jumper.

The thick, prickly leg warmers were just that much too big for me, and the contrasting white foot often peeked out over the top of my Dunlop sandshoes, making it look like I was permanently wearing the white anklets favoured by flashy rovers and lazy umpires. Nylon footy socks came into being a few years later, they didn’t need garters, they didn’t itch, but nothing was warmer on a cold night than the woollen originals.

The Dogs had as Captain-Coach Ken Eustice, the 1962 Magarey Medallist. He was fearless and particularly well loved by my escort. She was listening to the radio broadcast on her tranny during the game and the radio blokes behind us copped a fearful spray whenever anything mildly critical came from their lips. Her verbal feedback probably resulted in broadcast feedback into her single bakelite earpiece as her serves were relayed back to her via the airwaves.

Eustice went on to make (and lose) a fortune in the car business. There was a book written about him a few years back. It has been on my bookshelf for a while, but I’ve only dipped into it, never read it cover to cover. Perhaps I should, soon.

Looking over the full list, it is doubtful that I knew many of the players by sight back then. I now recall virtually the entire Bulldog 20. Colin Stutley was tough as nails, going on to be an opal miner once his playing days were up. Bones Bentley was a fixture on the GMH assembly line.

My most pleasant discovery was realising that Sonny Morey had played that day. His 200th game (a win against Glenelg at the Bay in 1976) was a highlight of my years of attending Centrals games.

Julian Swinstead was a rarity, a cadet journalist and footballer. It was his number 7 that adorned the Centrals lace-up guernsey that I was given the following year.

Rick Vidovich would top the SANFL goalkicking in 1968, Terry Phillips won the national Rothmans Champion Kick comp in 1967 and boom WA recruit Tom Grljusich had a name that wasn’t able to be spelt correctly by the Budget during his 3 years at Elizabeth Oval.

Lyle Skinner looked like his mum had dressed him for the match, his Beatle-length strawberry blonde locks rendered post-War thanks to a Gillette-sharp right hand part.

The Peckers side had Peter Obst as Captain-Coach. His brother Trevor (Bubbles) won the Magarey Medal in 1967. Bob Simunsen also played Shield cricket. Teenagers Ray Huppatz and Craig McKellar would go on to play in the VFL.

But truthfully, I have very little memory of the game itself, apart from the fact that we were in front all day.

I was captivated by the vastness of the playing area at Elizabeth Oval. It wasn’t until I visited the other SANFL grounds that I was able to understand how much bigger it was than say, Norwood, with its narrow confines.

Being in the stand, which was full, I was plunged into a mob – not necessarily in a bad way, but never before had I been in situation where so many people were yelling, roaring, shouting and arguing constantly.

It was like being thigh deep in the water at the beach, anticipating each incoming wave, jumping, being dumped, getting up before the next one, until you were called back to your spot on the sand. You couldn’t remember the individual waves afterwards, just the exhilaration of the entire experience. (And no going back into the water until thirty minutes after eating)

One abiding memory is that of Woodville player Fred Hansch going up for a boundary throw-in on the grandstand wing and noticing his prominent ears.

The final score (CD 8.13 d Wood 7.12) was fitting for a fixture at the foot of the table. The twin emotions of arm-raising joy for the victors and shoulder-slumping gloom for the losers as I looked around at siren time conveyed to me that this meaningless result in a meaningless sport was in fact anything but. Well, I don’t think I would have seen it in those terms back then, but I liked what I felt and saw.

Like a seafood cocktail entree before a lamb’s fry and tripe main course, I was fooled by this game into expecting we’d keep winning forever. My faith in the Bulldogs went largely unrewarded for the next twenty five years (as did my time wasted at St Mary Magdalene’s each Sunday, along with about a dozen Plattens)

…

The Budget looked to have an odd method of placing its match previews as far away as possible from its corresponding players and scores page.

Not for the first time, attention was drawn to Peter Darley’s conditioning, but with fellow future publican Whale Roberts, they would have made a fearsome pairing on and off the field.

The Holdfast Hotel was a famed Bayside watering hole.

Oh look, more cars. “Get A Ford, Get A Ford from Maughan Thiem” went their jingle, no doubt bashed out in an O’Connell St recording studio in the pre-Seekers days. (Probably by the same crowd that brought us “Lawlors, The White Ant People” and the Solomons Carpets ads). The introduction of decimal currency in the previous year seemed to have passed unnoticed.

…

Small business ads once more, a theme is developing. Pubs, car repairs, meat and furniture.

At the Parade, the Redlegs were helmed by Captain-Coach Haydn Bunton Jr, although his immediate successor Robert Oatey (Jack’s son) was lurking nearby. Big Bill Wedding was in his penultimate season and Damien Nygaard was two years away from a clash with Knuckles Kerley that derailed his career.

North was chock-full of famous names (but nonetheless Chocka-less that day). Don Lindner, Terry Von Bertouch (father of Australian netballers Laura and Natalie), Bugsy Jaworskyj and the barrel-bellied Dennis Sachse were just some of them. A dozen or so years later, Dennis’ wife was in charge of the typing pool on the 7th floor at my first job at the Highways Department. She was a lovely lady, and took my cheeky cheap shots about Dennis’ performance in a sewing machine commercial (the Empisal Super Stretch) with good humour.

In his debut season, Barrie Robran was already the best of them all.

I am unsure how much hair was left on the head of everyone’s favourite boundary umpire Vin Camporeale in 1967.

The Roosters flogged the home team by 68 points, despite only leading by 11 at half-time.

Most of my visits to the Parade were made on summer Wednesday nights following the local baseball comp. I had a Redlegs mate in the early 80s whose son played junior footy in a team that included future Redleg Martin Pike and Josh Francou, whose father Maurie was a (very) no-nonsense Rooster player that day. The outer at the Parade was close to the action and the fans close to each other, so when the scores were also close, it made for a fun afternoon. (And their pasties were good too).

…

More small business ads. Cruickshank’s travelling sales reps could well have been the chosen occupation for many of the names in the Budget. My mouth is watering at the idea of Sandery’s “sumptious” Christmas Dinner.

Note the final paragraph of the reminiscences of season 1959. Richard Ings chose not to reply to my tweet alerting him to this tidbit, but I suspect that any bottles being wee’d into at the footy around that time had long brown necks and were located in the outer.

…

Page 10 has the first evidence of Adelaide’s booming “Health Studio” sub-culture. I guess it was the “trained female attendants” that made all the difference at Loriette.

The ad for Stereo Services is just plain weird.

The two match previews on these pages did their best to say nothing useful.

…

The full page ad taken out by another automobile related supplier is light on for copy. Maybe they paid by the word, not the column-inch.

Page 13 has some interesting nuggets. Mal Brown picking on little blokes, who would have thought?

The last par on the Subi boundary line markings, why so, were there lime rations in the 1960s in the West?

…

It seems that whoever was lining up the ads for the Alberton game knew the audience well. After a night on the turps at the Globe and a late night visit to Helene’s for a Sportsman’s Massage, a quick getaway in a HR from Smith’s might have been needed the next day for many of the crowd. And get Cooks to send across my belongings, darl.

Fos Williams was still the man at Port, with his loyal henchmen Johnny Cahill, Ron Elleway, Kevin Salmon, Jeff Potter and Reg Beaufoy in tow. Bubbles was absent that day, but Fritzy Freeman was once again the Maggies top goalsneak. Freeman made his Test debut the following January.

Port looked to have a less than full strength line-up, with newcomer Katavich causing more trouble in the spelling department with his new-Australian reffo sounding name.

The Eagles, only fourteen years since their most recent flag, were coached by Ron Ashby (who also coached Centrals in its pre-League days). The truly legendary Fred Bills was skipper, Bobby Gibson kept the resting rovers quiet, future AFL leader Wayne Jackson (who had an ugly kicking style) and dour John Graham were joined by the first of Torrens’ multicultural influx in Peter Phillipou. Of course, the SANFL’s answer to Bobby Skilton, Lindsay Head, managed to prise himself away from the Cross Keys Hotel and nearby Globe Derby to suit up for yet another season in the aquiline lace-up.

Port made short work of the visitors, in what was the first of a string of six wins going in to the finals. The Eags had to wait until the final round against Woodville for its next win, heralding a new era when John Birt joined as Captain-Coach the following year. It finished like all of the other post-1953 eras.

Alberton Oval was a place to be avoided by the opposition supporters. My future bride came from down that way, so I must say that my childhood fears were unfounded.

…

The art or science of graphic design was absent throughout this Budget, the all important centre spread a prime example.

Much space was given to the Tiges’ Kevin Rowe and the season attendance and goalkicking tallies were buried inside some awful formatting.

Charities were named fairly directly back then. I’m loathe to make any “Golden Jets” jokes about Ansett-ANA.

…

Here we find the CD v Woodville preview – that’s Grljusich with a ‘J’

Of course I didn’t know it back then, but the Red Cross Blood Service would become a regular haunt for me after I was diagnosed with haemochromatosis a few decades later, as well as being a workplace on two occasions.

More vehicular related advertising (I think the whole life cycle has been covered so far), but the wordsmiths were on overtime when spruiking the SAFC Annual Ball. It appears that they had the services of that hard-working 60/40 combo “Basket Supper” as the evening’s entertainment.

The Field Umpires listing was always the source of much groaning – who’s number 1, not that mongrel Cunningham/Posa/O’Connell/Ducker …?

Of the names listed, O’Connell and Bailhache also umpired Test cricket and KG was, well, KG. Mark Posa was BA Santamaria’s man in Adelaide and DLP State Secretary.

A reminder of the state of technology is there also – I wonder if the 5-0611 continuous score service still works?

…

Despite the headline, this was the Norwood v North preview, not a half-time question to one of Maurie Francou’s opponents. John Robinson’s boy-next-door looks served him well on TV after retirement, I recall his to-the-point work on the Sunday direct telecasts of the SAFA from Adelaide Oval.

The League Seconds Corner reminded me that there was always one Seconds game shown direct starting at 11:30am. Before I regularly attended games, this was almost as good as the real thing. Some of the regular dew-kickers such as Sturt’s Romeo Zoanetti and John Kalleske seemed to be on every week.

Once I attended more regularly, I’d get there as early as I could to see the Seconds go around. I and whoever else from school was already there, would set up shop on the fence behind the goals, returning the Ross Faulkners by hand or by wonky foot.

Sometimes I’d get game and dob a left-foot snap over the exasperated full-back’s head, hoping not to get too much mud on my Koala desert boots.

Being that close, the on-field sounds were everything, the slap of oiled up shoulders colliding in the first quarter gave way to wheezy gasps as time-on neared. Later in the match, it was the groans as pointed knees rammed into stationary thighs, followed increasing abuse at the umpires as the frustration at another loss and the likelihood of being dropped for that kid from Saddleworth in the 19s took hold.

…

Small business ingenuity 1960s style. The combined plumbers and coat/frock alteration service must have been all the rage on Jetty Road.

All of our old favourites can be found down at the Bay. Pubs, cars, burgers and the obligatory ‘Health Clinic – for satisfaction and personal attention’.

The game down on Brighton Road was attended by the original owner of this Budget and a Tigers supporter at that, judging from the pencilled recording of goals on the left hand side.

He or she would have left unhappy with the 8.22 to 11.9 loss, despite the home side racking up 4.7 to 0.2 in the final stanza.

Kerls was in his first year as Captain-Coach of a Glenelg side that had only a single premiership up until then. I’m not sure how much of a taskmaster his counterpart Peter Darley would have been, but he probably shouted the bar that night (and the following night etc).

Glenelg had the foundation for a successful next few years. Peter Marker was a gun (a recent YouTube excursion told me that he was even better than I had remembered). Dennis Keith ‘Fred’ Phillis was a couple of years away from his stellar 1969 season and I always liked the look of Noddy Voigt who ran hard and in very straight lines.

For South, I was surprised to see Dave Darcy’s name there as I thought that he came over a bit later. Further research told me that his 1967 sojourn was due to an employment transfer (thanks woof.net.au) which lasted one year. He was a very likeable and insightful SANFL TV commentator in the 70s, traits that must skip generations it seems.

…

I listened to the radio broadcasts a lot. 5AD, 5KA, 5DN and 5AN divided up the spoils each week (was there a fifth station?).

Ken Aplin was an opinionated former umpire (I think the glasses came after he was finished), his offsider Wally Miller was quietly spoken counterpoint to Aplin’s bluster.

Miller went on to become a legendary administrator at Norwood for over twenty years. The name Fred Heaton means nothing at all to me, but now there’s always something there to remind me of him.

The season’s scores on the facing page give the impression that defence wasn’t a priority, nor was goalkicking. In the oft-repeated words of Wally May, ‘bad kicking is bad football’.

…

The ads are getting predictable by now, although we have the first appearance of the all-important night pharmacy (just don’t get sick or lucky on a Sunday night though).

The B&D roller door TV ads of the time were often amusing rehashes of Gilbert and Sullivan (‘You’ll get much more, with a roll-a-door’), but I was more interested in Meccano than Mikado in 1967.

Max Hall and Wally May were probably the Channel 9 commentary team at Richmond Oval that day.

Westies had future SANFL GM Don Roach as Captain-Coach, with the usual cast of middle of the roaders that inhabited their side until Kerls took them to the ’83 flag. Sports store tycoons Hughes and Loveday (which many used to think was one word) would eventually join the list of heartbroken Blood n Tars coaches.

Sturt was on its way to another flag, its star-studded lineup etched into my neurons at an early age. Their five in a row (66-70) under Jack Oatey was brought to a halt in Centrals’ first final in 1971. True to form, I missed that match, visiting my grandparents in the shadow of the Blue Mountains during the school holidays, but I did return in time for the (unsuccessful) Preliminary Final.

The Blues looked like they had come from the local Baptist Church gathering, the straight-laced (but lace-out) Chessell, Bagshaw and Hicks looking more Peter, Paul and Mary than Mick, Keef and Brian. They played with a grace and style that avoided body contact, not because they were scared, but because they were above all that. Rick Schoff and Diamond Jim provided the meat and potatoes when it was needed.

The game itself must have been a beauty, with the Blues prevailing by a straight kick after trailing at every change.

I used to marvel at how the various commentators, players and others made it back to Tynte St in time for Nine’s Football Inquest at 5:30, but it was always compelling viewing.

…

The 1959 rehashed highlights were continued, with an alarming tale of spectator aggro directed at Big Bill. They should have loaded up with garlic from the Norwood Market before the game.

Kerls was already a multi-platform media performer, although I don’t remember what he used to say about his Tiges’ chances each week.

One of the first things to sort out when you arrived at the ground was the allocation of letters to teams so that those not within earshot of a portable Sanyo radio could follow the quarter by quarter scores. Things heated up in the last term when harried scoreboard attendants updated the scores more frequently, and I think that some grounds overlayed a different coloured letter to indicate that the scores for that game were final.

Until I saw this page, I thought that Photoshop was a relatively recent tool, but from the svelte looks of Darls, the “TAA Travel Expert”, it might have been used to knock off a few pounds.

…

I always had an affinity with the Magoos – there was a chance that someone’s older brother might have been given a last minute call up from the Thirds and you could catch a sly wink as he left the Ponderosa at half-time, boots still polished with those three adidas stripes (with the pinking shear edges) peeking through the Nugget, no sign of dirt yet in the sprigs (or moulded soles in the early 70s). Alan Muir, the brilliant but inconsistent half-forward was having a run in the early game for the Dogs. For Woodville, Bob Perry (a radio newshound during the week – Correction 27/10/23) played the role of elder statesman. The Peckers’ number 16 was a bit stiff not to be playing higher up as he had a bit of mongrel in him.

In other games, young Brucey Light and Peter Yeo were starting out for the Magpies as were Peter Endersbee and a youthful (but still short) Mickey Nunan for Sturt.

At the Parade, Don and Brian Woodcock were perennial Seconds players, finding it hard to get a league game, but they kept chipping away. Their younger brother, Roger would launch hundreds of goals with his lethal left foot over the next decade.

The Roosters were bolstered by the inclusion of Fred ‘Chocka’ Bloch, the 1965 senior B&F winner. This proved to be his last season at Prospect and Chocka also made the employment move from behind the teller’s window to the Commerce Department at Adelaide University the next year, setting off a chain of events that had an resoundingly positive impact of thousands of Blacks footballers for decades to come.

Copper Colbey and a young Wayne Phillis were there early at Brighton Road, in a match that highlighted the Budget owner’s zeal, as all ten of the Tiger goals are marked in.

I had to investigate the races at Gawler, finding out that it was indeed regarded as a Metropolitan venue until 1967. It appears that this page of the Budget was composed by a Danish exchange student, whose English was almost as tortured as mine.

“By consulting the Football Budget readers will thus be enabled to know the winners”

And I wonder if the Uni is still running those lectures. I’d be a prime candidate in my current state.

…

Centrals and Woodville anchored to the bottom in all grades bar U17s, but senior powerhouse Sturt was winless in U17s

Finance and house blocks, the Australian Dream, featured inside the back cover, a pointer to upcoming prosperity.

…..

The Washup

If the contents of the Footy Budget that day reflected Adelaide of the time, then it had the appearance of 1947. It wasn’t the Adelaide I remembered, but it was perhaps the Adelaide that Don Dunstan (Norwood’s own) took a progressive cudgel to.

Just five years later, advertisers such as Coke, KFC (with Swamp Fox Patterson), West End, Escort, Taubmans, Hennessy Brandy and Golden Fleece had displaced Marriott Wheel Aligners and Terry’s Burger Bar from our Saturday afternoon reading. Were the ‘Health Studios’ driven underground, or was the opening of the sex shop on Melbourne Street in 1972 the cause of their demise?

This was the only game I went to in 1967. Centrals’ form tailed right off after this, their next and final home game yielding their lowest ever score (losing 1.6 to 8.8 against Port).

My mystery lady took me to a couple of home games in 1968, but I must have proved my maturity to Mum as I started going to games on my own after that.

Until I moved to Melbourne in mid-1994, Centrals were a feature of every winter, through thin and thin. I saw them win one finals game in that time (1972 First Semi against Norwood).

I hardly missed a game (home or away) from 1970-77. After that, I often caught the last half, making a mad dash from wherever winter baseball or amateur footy had taken me, standing with my old school teacher and baseball coach Clyde Williamson (Willy).

I’m ashamed to admit that I then forsook the Dogs somewhat for the bright lights of the Crows. I did return for their first (unsuccessful) Grand Final in 1995.

The last time I saw them play was in 2006. I had flown across one Sunday to make a final visit to CP on his deathbed. It so happened that Centrals were playing that day, so afterwards I took Mum to her first and only footy match, at Richmond Oval. Willy was there too and he was reintroduced to Mum after a gap of 35 years.

Centrals dominated the SANFL in the 2000s, snaring nine flags from its twelve consecutive Flag Day appearances from 2000 – 2011.