‘Vaudeville in the dressing rooms…’ by KB Hill

” The new recruit’s training tonight”, Dad said…….. “I’ll take you down.”

I didn’t need to be asked twice……….It was the 1955 pre-season and the Rovers were eager to introduce fresh blood………By all reports this fellow was pretty handy around goals and a bit of a gun.

His name was Stanley George Trebilcock…………

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The Rovers’ President, Harry Klemm had contacts in Geelong who pointed him in ‘Trebly’s’ direction………Stan was offered a job as a Presser at Sandegren’s Dry Cleaners. Accomodation was teed up, and he and his young wife Bessie arrived in town to begin a new chapter in their lives.

He certainly looked the goods on the track and, in no time, the ginger-haired 23-year-old captured the affection of team-mates with his larrikin, fun-loving personality…….As an impressionable fan, I immediately took a shine to him.

He had not enjoyed all that easy an upbringing, having spent a good portion of his adolescent life in St. Augustine’s Orphanage………..

His blossoming football career had taken him from the captaincy of Geelong Thirds (where Cats’ premiership coach Reg Hickey had once described him as an ‘outstanding prospect’) to V.F.A club Yarraville and thence, this exciting opportunity in the bush.

Ted McSweeney, Brian Condon, Don Ellison, Stan Trebilcock and John Tanner serenade in the shower.

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Coincidentally, just as ‘Trebly’ was settling into his new environment, four lads who had been residents of St. Vincent’s Orphanage, South Melbourne, left the big smoke to begin a long-planned trip around Australia.

John and Bob Frawley, Lionel O’Neill and John Morris decided to stop off for a day or so in Wangaratta. The Frawleys wanted to visit an uncle who just happened to be an ardent Rovers supporter.

Within no time they had been teed up with jobs and talked into saddling up with the Hawks………That decision was to change the direction of their lives.

Imagine their surprise when one of the first players they were introduced to was Stan Trebilcock, whom they had known since they were little tackers………

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‘Tich’ O’Neill, Bob Frawley and Johnny Morris lined up in the Rovers curtain-raiser a fortnight later.

Trebilcock whetted the appetites of Hawk fans when he booted 10 goals in the final practice game…….He and John Frawley were two of a number of recruits named in a new-look senior side for the season-opener against Benalla.

‘Trebly’ excited Rovers fans with his display at full forward. He booted seven goals and fed off a couple more……….He followed this up in the second game, against Corowa, with another eight, as the Hawks snuck in by a point.

He was a ‘Collingwood six-footer’, one of those blokes who bob up in country footy occasionally……… The type who can ‘sniff’ a goal and create a scoring opportunity out of nothing.

The Rovers approached the ‘Local Derby’ the following week with the assurance that they now had the fire-power to overcome Wangaratta.

Minutes later, he was at the base of a pack, leaning on an opponent, when he received an accidental knee to the head from a flying Magpie……….The pack crashed on him.

He regained consciousness on Sunday afternoon and was told that five doctors, including Wang’s club doctor, Roy Phillips, had operated on his fractured skull. They had enlisted the help of a Melbourne surgeon, via a telephonic hook-up, and after some anxious moments, had been able to save him.

But their warning was quite blunt : ”You are a lucky man. Your football career is over……… Should you play again, you do so at your own risk.”

Six months on from that fateful afternoon, doctors at Royal Melbourne Hospital covered the gap in his fragile skull with a metal plate, at about the same time that his son Glenn was being brought into the world.

The following season Stan defied the stern medical advice that he had been given and again donned the Brown and Gold guernsey.

He delighted Rovers fans when he booted 13 out of a team total of 16 goals (from 15 shots) in an early-season Reserves game against North Albury.

But he would never again soar to the heights that, fleetingly, made him the hottest property in O & M football in early 1955…..even though he proved a more than handy player……….A broken hand, sustained in the final home and away round of 1958, brought an end to Stan’s 50-game career with the Hawks……….

The Hawks of 1958, pictured on the eve of the finals. ‘Trebly’ is third from left, front row.

Whilst some wondered ‘what may have been’ had the brilliant ‘Trebly’ not fractured his skull, the man himself never stopped to bemoan his fate…….

He could possibly have pursued a career in vaudeville, such was his propensity to entertain, his sense of humour and his delight in performing in front of an audience.

At some stage during festivities of a Saturday evening he would launch into a bracket of songs, which were sure to include his favourites: ‘Barefoot Days’ and ‘Lucky Old Son’……..And, as the composer of the Rovers’ first theme song, “The team of the Brown and Gold”, he would always give that a bit of a run.

Stan Trebilcock, with Bob Rose and John Tanner, at a Rovers Ball

Stan also made an indelible mark as a legend of Wangaratta cricket……… A brilliant all-rounder, he dominated the local game throughout the late fifties and early-sixties, winning 10 Chronicle Trophies – four WDCA and six WSCA awards.

Bowling to a defensive field was his forté……He would wheel down over after over…….But he had plenty of variety in his slow-medium armoury, including a subtle change of pace…..His ‘quicker one’ sometimes raised the eyebrows of the square-leg umpire…

As captain of WDCA team Rovers Brown he captured 68 wickets in his first season, 77 in the second, and a remarkable 99 (including 12 in Finals) at a cost of 5.0 in 1957/58.

A decade after adopting ‘Trebly’ as one of my favourites, we became Country Week cricket team-mates and I secured a front-row seat to his daily dressing-room floor-show.

Wangaratta’s Melbourne Country Week team: 1966.
Stan Trebilcock is in the front row, either side of him are John Welch and Neville Hogan.

It was after one of his earlier CW matches that his skipper Mac Holten recounted a classic ‘Trebly’ story:

“We were in a disastrous early position at Glenferrie Oval, on a wet wicket against Ballarat……After 30 minutes we were 5/3…..It was then Stan’s turn to bat….”How many do you want from me today, Mac?” he asked………..

“Resigned to defeat, and in a sullen mood, I replied: ’46 will do’…….’Okay…..Just sing out if you want some more,’ Stan replied, as he strode to the wicket and proceeded to play a brilliantly aggressive innings…..”

“He was dismissed once the game was safe, playing a rash shot when he was on 46…..”

“I later rebuked him for throwing his wicket away…….As always, he had the last laugh…..”

“46 was what you ordered……46 was what you got……You didn’t sing out for any more……! “

He played in three Country Week Provincial Premierships……two with Geelong and one with Wangaratta.

With Bessie and their three kids, he later moved to Broadmeadows to run a fruit shop ……..They later re-located to Strathmore, where he became a stalwart of the local cricket and football clubs.

The ‘Stan Trebilcock Award’ was instituted by the Strathmore Cricket Club in his honour……..He played his last game of cricket at the age of 58, alongside his sons Glenn and Brendan.

And he probably found his true calling in later years, as a spruiker at the South Melbourne market, where he would trade banter with customers and hard-bitten stall-holders………

Footnote: Stan Trebilcock’s four acquaintances from the Orphanage days never got to make that round-Australia trip.

John Morris stayed four or five years before moving on.

John Frawley, a bricklayer, married Mary, had 4 kids and played 105 games with the Rovers. He featured in the club’s first two premierships and was still doing odd- jobs at the Findlay Oval twelve months before he died, in 2013.

Bob Frawley had a long career in the Railways, played 24 senior games with the Hawks and captained the Reserves for several years.

Lionel ‘Tich’ O’Neill was a handy and loyal small man who later became a committee-man with the Hawks and was awarded Life Membership. A French Polisher, he became a furniture salesman and spent 40 years in Wangaratta before retiring to the Mornington Peninsula.

After a prolonged battle with Motor Neurone Disease, ‘Trebly’ passed away in 1999.

One of sport’s unique characters, he had the knack of enabling people to see the brighter side of life…….