I’m ruminating after a cricket loss at Yarrawonga when a voice behind me rubs further salt into the wounds:
“Geez, it’s good to beat you bastards, whether it’s cricket or footy……..”
Two years later, I’m absorbed in watching a Junior footy game at North Wangaratta and the same bloke taps me on the shoulder. The Pigeons’ belting of the Rovers at J.C. Lowe Oval the previous day remains fresh in my mind:
“We still owe you blokes a few hidings for those flags you cost us in the seventies,” he quips…….
***
John White is a Yarrawonga football ‘blue-blood’. He’s a Club Best and Fairest winner – as were his late dad Alex and older brother Billy…….Following his retirement he devoted years of service to his beloved Pigeons and remains as staunch as they come…….
He occasionally ponders those ‘Coodabeen’ Grand Finals of half a century ago…… There were three of them…… Each year Yarra won the minor premiership; in each instance they’d finished three games clear of their ‘nemesis’, the Rovers……No wonder he still feels ‘dirty’ on being deprived of O & M premiership glory……..
***
John’s old man Alex, like so many of his contemporaries, used his football skills as a launchpad to set his family up in the immediate post-war period.
He’d been a more than handy player with Essendon Reserves during the late thirties…….When war was declared he enlisted with the 2nd 43rd Battalion, seeing action in Borneo and New Guinea, and also captaining the Battalion’s football team.
He spent a season with South Adelaide following the restoration of peace whilst also successfully completing a VFL Coaching Course……
On perusing the Sporting Globe newspaper one weekend, Alex noticed an advertisement for the Yarrawonga coaching job. He applied and was appointed to the position in 1948.
A brilliant centreman, he took out the Morris Medal that year but failed to drag the Pigeons from the lower reaches of the ladder during three seasons at the helm.
Alex White (right) congratulates incoming Yarrawonga coach, Marty McDonnell
After spending a season under his successor – Marty McDonnell – he went on to coach Oaklands , Rennie, Waaia and Katamatite whilst working as a Water Bailiff with the State Rivers…..
“My only footy memory of him was in his last year as a playing-coach at Katamatite in 1961,” John recalls……”He didn’t have his teeth in and was delivering a passionate three-quarter time speech……Not a pretty sight…..He would’ve been about 43 but was still getting plenty of kicks……”
“Dad was a mad footy person…..very knowledgeable…..and had a big influence on Bill and me….”
***
John’s five years younger than Bill (“Mum joked that I was an accident”) and thought the world of him.
“Bill was a real little fellah and won a Yarra B & F at 17……Underwent three cartilage operations before he was 21…….Still played good footy afterwards but he was really never the same player ……He’d have chalked up close to 100 senior games in Blue and White, I reckon.”
“He was a bit of a terror of a Saturday night…….My job the next morning was to head down to Jack McFarlane’s shop and buy him a bottle of Coke to aid his ‘rehab’……To tell you the truth, he couldn’t get out of bed….He’d been under the packs for most of the game the previous day, then liked to wind down with a fair few beers….”
John came through the ranks with Yarrawonga Thirds, and played a leading role in the only premiership side of his career – their Tungamah League triumph in 1969.
“There were a few fellahs in that side who went on to be heavily involved in footy,” he recalls…..”like Les Parish, Phil Stevenson, Jeff Ramsdale, Jeff Hicks, Ian Harbrow and Glenn Brear……..Lew Leslie and Pat O’Kane, two Yarra icons, coached, and Dad helped them……..One of my best mates, Steve Parle, also played. He’s now a Development Officer with the Brisbane Broncos……”
As a pointer to his development, John won the McMillan Medal as the O & M’s best player in the Victorian Schoolboys Championship in 1970. It led to him being named captain of the State side which contested the National Carnival in Brisbane later that year.
When Yarra coach Ken Fraser handed him his senior debut, aged 15, against Wang Rovers during that season there wasn’t a prouder kid in town…….The Pigeons were assembling a powerful combination and the classy youngster was rapt to be going along for the ride.
He became an automatic selection the following year and lined up on a forward flank in Yarra’s 1971 Grand Final side. It was to prove a match of fluctuating fortunes.
The Rovers held a convincing three-goal lead at half-time but Yarra, opting to abandon their short game for a long-kicking approach in the third, wrenched control. Neil Fell was unstoppable in aerial duels and grabbed seven marks. Peter Ennals also got plenty of it and the White boys cleaned up around the packs……
The Pigeons’ seven goal to one term handed them a 20-point lead at lemon-time……Their fans were delirious and already envisioning premiership glory……..Alas, the Hawks took charge again in the last through Neville Hogan, Ric Sullivan and the irrepressible Steve Norman, to win by 19 points……
Yarrawonga’s 1971 Grand Final side. John White is at the left, front row.
***
The inevitable contact came from North Melbourne who were combing their Zone for recruiting prospects. They wanted John to move down to the city, which he duly did, for a couple of months:
“ I played in a practice match against one of the SANFL sides and had one of those days where the ball kept following me…….I was on this old snoozer who, I later discovered, was Neil Kerley and must have impressed…… They were pretty keen to keep me down there…..”
“I remember Max Ritchie, who was the Chairman of Selectors, coming up and saying : ‘I reckon you’ve got the makings of another Leigh Matthews, young fellah….’ “
“Heck, that was the height of optimism !….”
“The plan was for me to attend University High…..when that fell through they suggested Essendon Grammar. But I’d become a bit homesick…..so I’ve ended up back at Yarrawonga High School, and playing for the Pigeons.”
“Later that year Ron Joseph, North’s Secretary, got in touch (It was around the time I represented the O & M against Bendigo). He said: ‘We’d like to pick you in the Seniors this week-end.’…….For some reason I knocked him back…..”
“Reflecting now, if we’d have won that ‘71 flag I might’ve stayed when I first went down there……But I had it in the back of my mind that I didn’t want to miss a Yarra premiership…….”
John enjoyed a fine season…. Again, the Pigeons held the upper hand in the 1972 decider, playing all over the Rovers in the first half before Mick Nolan took charge in the ruck and the Hawks triumphed by 17 points…….
The appointment of Ron Barassi as coach of North Melbourne in 1973 coincided with the revitalisation of the ‘Roos……A total of 17 players recruited from the Ovens and Murray were named on their Final List……
John White was one of them……He headed down for another crack at League footy…..
For a lad who had never ventured far from Yarrawonga, he didn’t quite come to terms with the Barassi coaching style ……”He was a hard man……A bit over the top in my opinion,” he says.
After playing some pretty fair footy in the Reserves, John was rewarded with his VFL debut in a Round 16 match against Collingwood…..
“There was a crowd of about 25,000 out at VFL Park, Waverley…… I was roving and the ball was flipping around everywhere…….The records have got me down for about eight kicks……I think you can halve that….” he jokes.
“But I remember Doug Wade taking a mark and kicking a long goal after the siren…….We got up by five points….”
That was John’s fleeting taste of the big-time…….He was dropped the following week and was back at Yarrawonga in 1974……He reflects that he probably should have given it a better shot.
“I bought a Standing-Room ticket and watched North win it in 1975.…..I thought to myself: ‘A man’s a bloody idiot; I’m as good as a few of these blokes….”
***
He concedes that the John White of the mid-seventies was a far more-rounded player than the precocious teenager who first burst onto the scene.
Adaptability was one of the hallmarks of his game……as was his pin-point disposal with either foot……and, for a chunky fellah who stood just 5’9”, he was as tough as they come……
The acrobatic John White
In the thick of the action
Stationed in the centre, he took out the Pigeons’ Best & Fairest in ‘75. He later transitioned to the back pocket where he picked up his second B & F in 1980.
“I was having a year ‘out of the box’ that year, and Fitzroy were zooming in on one of my good mates, ‘Salty’ Parish…….They asked if I might be interested in going down with him…..I told ‘em: ‘Nah, I’ve had my chance…..’ “
John represented the O & M on a further five occasions in the back pocket in 1980-‘81, thriving on the step-up in standard and revelling in the camaraderie :
“Actually, when I renewed acquaintances with one of my inter-League team-mates, Merv Holmes, I reminded him that I played on him when he made his debut for the Rovers against Yarra nine years earlier……He was like a fish out of water that day……Hardly touched the ball….He ended up as one of the O & M’s most resilient and best-ever players……..”
John was 29 and had played 180 games with the Pigeons when he accepted a two-year stint as captain/coach of Mulwala. Emboldened by that experience, he returned home to Yarra with the aim of reaching the 200-game milestone.
“It wasn’t to be…..I broke my elbow in the first 10 minutes of the opening game of 1986,” he says.
Two years later, Rennie appointed him as coach…….”It was some of the most enjoyable footy I ever played……There wasn’t a harsh word spoken in the two years I was out there……Great club, Rennie…..”
***
Back again at the J. C. Lowe Oval, John took over as coach of the Thirds for a couple of seasons…..
“We only won five games in two years, but out of those sides came two AFL players, Joel Smith and Ben Dixon, a future club captain in Leigh Ramsdale, and Clinton Shoppee, who holds the Club record for games played in all grades at Yarra…..”
“I really enjoyed that role and handed it back to one of my great friends, Neil Davis….”
“He’d coached the Thirds for two seasons before being elevated to the Senior job when ‘Salty’ resigned in 1989……What he did in leading us to that flag was unbelievable…..He knew how to build a good footy culture and was a sensational bloke. “
“ ‘Davo’ coached the Thirds for the next six seasons…..”
John was the Yarrawonga Auskick Co-Ordinator for eight years and spent five years (2000-2004) on the Football Club Committee.
‘The Godfathers’, an influential group who provide financial support to the Football/Netball Club, rewarded him for his dedicated service to local sport by naming him ‘Godfather of the Year’ in 2007.
John also acted as a Trainer for the Pigeons from 1995-2009……….
”The year we won our third flag (2006) ‘Craigy’ gave me a licence to do a bit of roaming, or coaching, with the water bottle……I loved it…..I’d run out a drink to a bloke like Marcus McMillan (who ended up a bloody good footballer) and say: ‘You’ve gotta chase Marcus’…..I won’t tell you what his reply was, but it’s not hard to guess….”
“That was my premiership……I felt a part of it, anyway…” says the old champ.
John White (right) with O & M Hall of Famers: Martin Cross and Neil Davis
This story appeared first on KB Hill’s website On Reflection and is used here with permission.
All photos sourced from KB Hill’s resources unless otherwise acknowledged.
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No mention of this year’s flag, with Jeff Garlett butchering a late chance?