SANFL - The weird & the wonderful

[SimonH]

Whoops.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

The guy I remember was most famous for doing handstands on the mark was the bicycle-riding Doctor ruckman Michael Gregg (sp?) who played for Norwood circa mid-1970s. Unlike today where most players are expected to be footy-obsessed automatons, and the term 'character' is reserved for loudmouth television morons like Sam Newman, he really was a character.

Although I've since seen a number of 'handstand on the mark' anecdotes, so I wouldn't claim that he invented the practice.

Yes, Dr.Michael Gregg, alias the 'Galloping Hat-rack'. What a wonderful player he was. He appeared so gangly and uncoordinated and yet he was so skilled. I recall one match against Glenelg when Peter Marker (I think it was Marker) was running down field with the ball looking to set up a scoring avenue when Gregg appeared. He jumped around waving his arms like the robot on Lost In Space .. "danger, danger" ... the Glenelg player was so stunned he handballed directly to Gregg and turned the ball over. I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes, it looked ridiculous. I agree with your comment about 'characters', we had real characters back then, not manuifactured ones like we see these days.

 

[spell_check]

I'm sure a statistician with way too much time on their hands could do a statistical analysis, but a theory I've recently come to, is that teams that thump the living daylights out of weak opponents are less likely to win a premiership: the school bully who can't fight when a bigger boy stands up to him, if you like. Apart from Glenelg's cricket score, 2 other prominent examples are:
· Sydney Swans in the 1986/87 period. They clocked up 100+ point winning margins at the SCG with monotonous regularity, and then went 0-4 in finals.
· St Kilda in 2004/5. In 2004 they admittedly hit the wall well before the finals. They reached 10-0 after their last 2 victories were 101 and 108 points, and then after losing their first game in R11, never looked remotely so threatening again. They looked like they were peaking at the right time in 2005, finishing the season belting Brisbane by 139 points, having also clocked up 4 10 goal+ victories in a row from R15-R18. None of which counted for much against a probably less-talented, but better-drilled, more unified opponent in the prelim final.

Some other anecdotal stuff: Adelaide's highest winning margin (189 points) was in 1993 (when they should have made the grand final but choked); Port Adelaide Magpies' greatest win (179 points) came in a year (1970) when they failed to make the grand final (I don't know whether they regularly thumped teams this year); Norwood's record win (158 points) came in 1995, when they again failed to make the GF; Port Power's biggest win (just 117 points) came in 2005 (and they followed delivering a 87-point thumping in week 1 of the finals with being on the wrong side to the tune of 83 points in week 2); and finally, 1979 was a red letter year for the VFL, with both of its 2 highest winning margins of all time being recorded in that year (involving 4 different teams). Fitzroy clocked up a 190 point win and were knocked out in the semi-finals; and Collingwood won by 178 points, and would gladly have traded 25-odd of those goals for one solitary goal in the GF, which they lost by 5 points.

The serious moral of the story is that a champion team who's stared adversity in the face together is better prepared for finals footy than a flashy team of frontrunning champions etc etc. The joke moral is: when you're more than 15-odd goals up, for the sake of your premiership chances, take your foot off the pedal and take it easy!

This would need to be looked at in terms of who had the biggest average winning margin throughout the minor round, and seeing what happened to them in the major round. Without seriously looking at the scores I have, I too agree to this theory - but there are exceptions.

Firstly, I can think of other occasions where a team has thrashed others during the season, but not winning the pennant. Centrals in 2002 had the following winning margins in the first 13 games of that season: 94, 101, 70, 37, 70, 38, lost by 13, 195, 64, 86, 48, 65, 50. That's an average of 76.5 points per win. The wins after that leading up to the GF averaged 34.8.

Central in 1988 included wins of 198 and 178 points but lost the two finals.
Eagles in 2000 had wins of 137, 116 and 98 points.
Sturt in 1978 lost just one game leading up to the GF.

However, Port in 1980 (Biggest winning margin of 161 points, plus wins of 108, 117, 122 and 102 points), Glenelg in 1973 (losing only 1 game - to North and biggest winnign margin of 160 points - against North!), Eagles in 1993 (Club record winning margin of 156 points) and Norwood in 1997 (Wins of 102, 127 and 122 points) are the opposite to the theory.

 

[Leaping Lindner]

After quite a winless streak in 1982 Glenn Elliot finally in frustration got West Torrens to go for a run at 3/4 time of a Escort Cup game rather than talk to them (obviously feeling they weren't listening to him). They ended up losing the Escort Cup but IIRC won the next home and away game.

My favourite SANFL story of all time is still Stan Wickham sleeping through the entire 1951 preliminary final in the Adelaide Oval change rooms. Better than the bike story IMO but not as well known.

 

[overtheline]

The guy I remember was most famous for doing handstands on the mark was the bicycle-riding Doctor ruckman Michael Gregg (sp?) who played for Norwood circa mid-1970s. Unlike today where most players are expected to be footy-obsessed automatons, and the term 'character' is reserved for loudmouth television morons like Sam Newman, he really was a character.

Although I've since seen a number of 'handstand on the mark' anecdotes, so I wouldn't claim that he invented the practice.

I remember it well...very funny!

 

[TooFar]

On Glenelg of that era, has a club with so much ever achieved so little? One flag from a five year period of being the clear cut best team in the comp. was certainly an underachievement. There could have been, and probably should have been 4, perhaps more premiership flags hanging on the GFC walls from those years.

Could not agree more. I am still haunted by this. With the talent the Bays had from the Kearly era to 1990, they should have won at least 8 flags.

Coulda, shoulda & woulda...

 

[mianfei]

The serious moral of the story is that a champion team who's stared adversity in the face together is better prepared for finals footy than a flashy team of frontrunning champions etc etc. The joke moral is: when you're more than 15-odd goals up, for the sake of your premiership chances, take your foot off the pedal and take it easy!

There are certainly cases where teams playing flashy attacking football fail under severe pressure. The Geelong teams of between 1989 and 1995, who lost four Grand Finals, may be an example very similar to Glenelg in the 1970s, and I always thought they struggled under the pressure of West Coast or the manning up of Carlton. If you have not watched Carlton’s thrashing of Sydney the week after the Swans scored 30 goals for three straight games, you are missing possibly the best team effort in football history. The Blues’ manning-up for three quarters was so perfect that they kept the Swans to 3-5 (23) in basically dry weather without the Swans playing badly, simply because they made sure the Swans were absolutely forbidden from creating a loose man and had only about ten uncontested possessions for the entire last quarter with the wind!

The 1970s Glenelg teams were so strong in attack that their 49-goal score is not that flukish. In 1975 the Tigers averaged a phenomenal 159 points per game in the minor round, and only twice were they held to under 100, once by a brilliant Sturt backline (even taking into account the 1989 Grand Final, was that unit the best defence in SANFL history?) and once by Port Adelaide. Their only rival for huge scoring in a major football league has been the 1981 Claremont team, which lost only two games and was held to under 100 only twice all season (one of those was on a very wet day at Fremantle Oval), yet this 1981 Claremont team struggled to win the Grand Final.

It is true, though, that there is a crucial distinction between playing flashy football, as that Glenelg team did, and the extremely attack-oriented style of, say, Hawthorn in the 1980s when they won five flags in nine seasons. Hawthorn were basically all-out aggression without trying to defend, which made them the most able side in football history at playing under tough conditions for kicking goals because their long, direct possession play could score under conditions that defeated more defence-oriented teams (look at the 1988 VFL season). A team playing that sort of football, like Hawthorn in the 1980s, Richmond in the 1970s and much earlier Collingwood and Melbourne in the 1930s, is no doubt much less prone to such failures.

 

[Damon_3388]

Jackie Love singing at the 83 GF and the first time I heard the immortal line'' she has the longest legs I have seen and they go all the way to heavan''

Still looks great for her age now too - https://au.tv.yahoo.com/the-morning-show/video/watch/24386985/flashback-friday-jackie-love/

 

[Damon_3388]

Good points. The SCG, Unley and Parade also shouldnt be used for senior football.

Regardless of size, Unley Oval is a shocking surface. I know it's technically a public park that they just happen to play league football on, but still, there's hardly any actual grass, and it's a rolled ankle or twisted knee waiting to happen because of all the divets, unevenness and softness of the ground.

 

[mianfei]

One remarkable SANFL match I have been curious about but never seen footage of is the 1975 elimination final between Port Adelaide and North Adelaide. North were obviously out of their depth, being four wins and a huge percentage gap behind the Magpies. In one of only three major round matches between 1974 and 1984 – a period when the Roosters won only 36 percent of their matches – Port must have been red-hot favorites, and the Magpies did win well, but the scoreline has to be seen to be believed, especially since this was a dry day:

Port Adelaide:.............2-3 (15)............6-14 (50)............8-23 (69)...........11-32 (98)
North Adelaide:...........4-9 (33)............4-14 (38)............7-18 (60)............8-20 (68)

That is 52 aggregate behinds in conditions that were judging by Bureau of Meteorology data perfect for football, and the scoring was not so high one can imagine Port and North were recklessly shooting at goal from long distances and missing.

52 aggregate behinds is one more than the VFL/AFL record of 51 between Richmond and South Melbourne the previous season, and I am not aware that any SANFL match exceeds this figure.

Does anybody have memories of this game and any idea why the Magpies and Roosters kicked so badly?? Is there some footage?

Never made the finals at all from 1973 until 1978. Only one spoon in that period but weren’t travelling all that well I wouldn’t have thought. There aren’t any valid excuses for that day though. Its forever going to be the worst day in the history of the CDFC.

Centrals’ record for the six seasons 1973 to 1978 in total:

• Played: 126
• Wins: 50
• Losses: 75
• Draws: 1 (their first-ever SANFL draw, at Prospect Oval in 1977. Centrals have drawn only six matches since, but their two draws at Prospect in one more than at their home ground of Elizabeth)
• Points For: 12,216
• Points Against: 14,297
• Percentage: 46.08

 

[worbod]

This was an article from the Victorian newspaper The Sporting Globe, July 20, 1949, page 14:


South Australia have a unique chance to become champion Australian football state for 1949. They must defeat Victoria in the interstate game on Saturday to win the honour of being the only unbeaten state.
The Victorians leave Melbourne by plane Thursday and will train at the Adelaide Oval that afternoon.
Victoria thrashed WA at Melbourne. In turn the Westerners were beaten by SA in Adelaide. Both WA and Victoria have beaten New South Wales.
Therefore the game on Saturday should give either Victoria or SA an unbeaten record.
The Victorian team is not as strong as the side that defeated WA on June 26.


The headline that preceded this article stated: SA Have Big Chance To Be "utensil" State.

 

[mianfei]

This was an article from the Victorian newspaper The Sporting Globe, July 20, 1949, page 14:


South Australia have a unique chance to become champion Australian football state for 1949. They must defeat Victoria in the interstate game on Saturday to win the honour of being the only unbeaten state.
The Victorians leave Melbourne by plane Thursday and will train at the Adelaide Oval that afternoon.
Victoria thrashed WA at Melbourne. In turn the Westerners were beaten by SA in Adelaide. Both WA and Victoria have beaten New South Wales.
Therefore the game on Saturday should give either Victoria or SA an unbeaten record.
The Victorian team is not as strong as the side that defeated WA on June 26.


The headline that preceded this article stated: SA Have Big Chance To Be "utensil" State.

I didn’t know of that – though I did know oddly how strong the “big four” WANFL clubs (South Fremantle, West Perth, to a lesser extent Perth and East Fremantle) were then. It is of course true that owing to the Coulter Law and the beginning of pooling of finals revenue, the rich VFL clubs were momentarily unable to recruit significant numbers of players from interstate. Moreover, although the VFL and SANFL were by no means “amateur” in the strict sense of the word (John Devaney on page 515 of Full Points Footy’s SA Football Companion reveals how 1950s footballers could have privileges denied to the public at large) there was some movement from Victoria for employment-related reasons, further weakening the VFL.

 

[CP28]

The serious moral of the story is that a champion team who's stared adversity in the face together is better prepared for finals footy than a flashy team of frontrunning champions etc etc. The joke moral is: when you're more than 15-odd goals up, for the sake of your premiership chances, take your foot off the pedal and take it easy!

As a general rule of thumb I agree with this (with the odd exception of course). As a Norwood supporter, it's notable in the last 3 or 4 years how regularly we've done this. Get control of a game with a comfortable lead, then preserve bodies until the final siren.

Last years AFL Finals series was a great example. Hawks just squeak through the Prelim with injury concerns and get written off by many, coming up against a relatively fresh Swans. Of course the Hawks battle-hardened GF prep would ultimately hold them in good stead.

 

[mianfei]

As a general rule of thumb I agree with this (with the odd exception of course). As a Norwood supporter, it's notable in the last 3 or 4 years how regularly we've done this. Get control of a game with a comfortable lead, then preserve bodies until the final siren.

Last years AFL Finals series was a great example. Hawks just squeak through the Prelim with injury concerns and get written off by many, coming up against a relatively fresh Swans. Of course the Hawks battle-hardened GF prep would ultimately hold them in good stead.

I would doubt that actually it’s a good thing to have trouble getting through finals. In 2012, Hawthorn struggled against Adelaide and I – unlike most other tipsters – expected them to lose the Grand Final to the Swans despite knowing Hawthorn could play better than they did against the Crows. There are many earlier VFL/AFL cases – like Hawthorn in 1985 and Collingwood in 1980 – where a team that struggled in the Preliminary was thrashed in the “big one”.

 

[Angus Young]

Ahhhhh the SANFL in the 80's... a magical time.

Remember the brown plastic coke footys kicked into the crowd at half time during finals at Footy park.

Glenelg not only under achieved in 70's but also late 80's early 90's.... by god did they have some great players/teams.

IMO there just seemed to be more passion/feeling with supporters back then before the AFL family franchise was born. Footy and following your team back then was more of a religion, now its more like a picnic day out...

I remember the passion in the crowd, the banter, seeing people crying after finals when their teams lost or won..I just don't see it anymore with the whole crow s**t. Maybe this a mis-conception due to my age at that time but that's certainly how it seemed especially compared with now.

 

[mianfei]

Even in 1975 when they kicked the 49 goals they weren't minor premiers. On their day they looked unstoppable, but there were weaknesses that the better teams of that era (Port, Sturt, Norwood) could counter. It must have been frustrating for the coaches of that era because they did appear at times to have the strongest player list on paper.

Were those weaknesses in physical toughness - given the incredible strength of their attack one would think any weaknesses in Glenelg would have been in defence, but in their wonderful 1973 season they could win games easily even when their opponents kicked 20 goals (even more than the fabled 1972 Miami Dolphins, Glenelg's 1973 defence is "no name" compared to the rest of the team)?? North Adelaide's Grand Final score was only the third highest kicked against the Tigers in 1973, yet they were not pushed close in the two other games.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Were those weaknesses in physical toughness - given the incredible strength of their attack one would think any weaknesses in Glenelg would have been in defence, but in their wonderful 1973 season they could win games easily even when their opponents kicked 20 goals (even more than the fabled 1972 Miami Dolphins, Glenelg's 1973 defence is "no name" compared to the rest of the team)?? North Adelaide's Grand Final score was only the third highest kicked against the Tigers in 1973, yet they were not pushed close in the two other games.

It's funny this came up just after I watched an interview with Neil Kerley. He openly states his time at Glenelg was a failure because they reached 5 grand finals for only 1 flag. Whereas Glenelg did have some wonderfully talented and tough players, Marker, Phillis brothers, Cornes, Colbey, etc, IMHO they had too many front running types who were very good when Glenelg was full speed ahead, but found wanting when the going got tough. Won't mention names, although I could, but people who saw Glenelg in the 70s would know who they were.

In a way, Kerley was to blame, because although he was a very skilled and tough man himself, he coached a highly skilled attacking game that catered for those players, but when the going got tough, they just fell out of the game because they didn't know how to shut the opposition out.

BTW, not sure Glenelg's defence were no names. Wayne Phillis was a state CHB, Colbey and All Australian half back, and Peter Anderson also a state player. Also, Hywood played in the 1972 VFL GF for Richmond.