John Wynne

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Spook

Spook

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Aug 19, 2003
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I am not from SA but I have heard of a player John Wynne who played in the 60's. He was originally from WA I think.
What can you guys tell me about him?
Was he a good player?
How about the Jack Oatey incident in the '78 GF?

Cheers
 
Ah yes, John Wynne, alias 'Gentleman John', alias "two-eight'.

I could write volumes on John Wynne. If you have questions, just ask. He began with West Perth in 1966 and played in their 1969 premiership team, as well as the 1969 WA team in the Adelaide carnival. He transferred to Norwood in 1970 in exchange for SA carnival player Damien Nygaard,

He played 193 games for Norwood and 8 with SA from 1970 to 1982. At 6'3" tall he played his early football at CHF but made his mark with Norwood as a ruck-rover. He was a very physical player who could apply tremendous pressure to opposition players, but at the same time possessed very good skills in the air and also on the ground.

He was captain of Norwood from 1975 to 1977, and captained the 1975 premiership team, featuring very high in the best players on the day. He was also a member of the 1978 premiership team. On that day he was involved in an incident when he ran into the Sturt coaching box. According to the Sturt runner. the only two people not upset by the whole thing were Wynne and Jack Oatey, the Sturt coach. When asked about the incident the next day, Wynne replied, "I never miss an opportunity to enter a box".

He suffered from bad ankles at an early age which restricted his mobility over the second half of his career but he remained a valuable part of the Norwood Football Club. He was a tea-total, non-smoker who was a great club man and very much the spirit of Norwood through a very successful era in the club's history.

He was colourful, controversial, brilliant, brutal, exciting, inspirational, and and damned nice guy who gave 100% to the Norwood Football Club. There are many John Wynne stories, too many to relate here, but I was very glad that he chose to play for Norwood.
 
He was also one of the very unlucky guys (probably the last) to be reported for striking Dave Granger (Peter Marker of all people was the other). At his tribunal hearing he said he only did it to stop Granger continue hitting Phil Gallagher (for which Granger wasn't reported).

Wynne's wife also managed "Sams" - the disco in the Redlegs Club in the late 70s/early 80s.
 

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Adelaide Hawk said:
Ah yes, John Wynne, alias 'Gentleman John', alias "two-eight'.

I could write volumes on John Wynne. If you have questions, just ask. He began with West Perth in 1966 and played in their 1969 premiership team, as well as the 1969 WA team in the Adelaide carnival. He transferred to Norwood in 1970 in exchange for SA carnival player Damien Nygaard.
He played 193 games for Norwood and 8 with SA from 1970 to 1982. QUOTE]

Certainly " Two- Eight " was a fine contributor to Norwood over many years! I reckon Norwood did very well indeed in the Wynne- Nygaard swap, how many games did Damien Nygaard play for West Perth? Methinks it wouldn't have been even close to Wynne's 193! Norwood, BIG WINNERS ON THAT DEAL!!.....
Click to expand...
 
The Big Warrior said:
Certainly " Two- Eight " was a fine contributor to Norwood over many years! I reckon Norwood did very well indeed in the Wynne- Nygaard swap, how many games did Damien Nygaard play for West Perth? Methinks it wouldn't have been even close to Wynne's 193! Norwood, BIG WINNERS ON THAT DEAL!!.....
Click to expand...

Not sure how many games Damien Nygaard played for West Perth but it wouldn't have been too many. He went to the USA in the early to mid 70s and played Gridiron as a kicker (is that what they are called?). Yes, I think that was one of Norwood's better deals.
 
wynne2.jpg
wynne1.jpg
 
Thanks heaps Adelaide Hawks. When you say a tea total is he an ex alcho or never drunk?
HEard he has some good views on coaching and wrote a coaching manual for the central districts area when he was in SA
 
Spook said:
Thanks heaps Adelaide Hawks. When you say a tea total is he an ex alcho or never drunk?
HEard he has some good views on coaching and wrote a coaching manual for the central districts area when he was in SA
Click to expand...

Tea-total as in never drank at all. That coaching manual is news to me, I must look around for it. I know he had some very radical ideas on coaching, especially preparation of players. He coached at West Perth for 2 seasons in the mid 80s with medium success.
 
Recall vividly a day a Richmond in the mid seventies, when Wynny was trying to upset the heavies of Westies. He was going from Ray Hayes to Bruce Stevenson to Joe Humphries and stamping on their toes. All the time wearing a huge grin.Even though I was a West barracker I loved it.

He gave plenty and took plenty.
Also recall many " incidences " between he and Bruce Light from Port.
 
rooboy said:
Recall vividly a day a Richmond in the mid seventies, when Wynny was trying to upset the heavies of Westies. He was going from Ray Hayes to Bruce Stevenson to Joe Humphries and stamping on their toes. All the time wearing a huge grin.Even though I was a West barracker I loved it.

He gave plenty and took plenty.
Also recall many " incidences " between he and Bruce Light from Port.
Click to expand...
A post recalling:

  • John Wynne
  • Ray Hayes
  • Bruce Stevenson
  • Joe Humphrey
  • Bruce Light
Try and think of a current day player (AFL or SANFL) like those guys! In the words of The Greg Kihn Band (for late 70's music tragics) - "They just don't write 'em like that anymore".
 
McAlmanac said:
A post recalling:

  • John Wynne
  • Ray Hayes
  • Bruce Stevenson
  • Joe Humphrey
  • Bruce Light
Try and think of a current day player (AFL or SANFL) like those guys! In the words of The Greg Kihn Band (for late 70's music tragics) - "They just don't write 'em like that anymore".
Click to expand...

That's because footballers were characters back then. Current coaches couldn't handle them, they prepare the stereotypical 21st century footballer. almost totally devoid of personality and unable to think outside team perameters. Someone like Jason Akermanis comes along and people don't know how to handle him :)

I just thought of a funny John Wynne story I thought I would relate to show how resourceful and enterprising John Wynne was. When he was a promising junior at West Perth, the coach of the time took a group of players out to a park miles away, dropped them off, and told them to make their own way back to the club.

Now, the average player would take that to mean "run back to the club", but not Wynnee. So at the time the others were beginning their trek back to the club, John was searching the park for anything he could use. He managed to find two empty soft drink bottles and took them to a shop for a refund.

With the money, he called his mother on a pay phone and asked her to pick him up and return him to the club. Can you imagine the look on the officials' faces when Wynne turned up in a car? That was Wynne all over, he was a clever man.
 
Someone mentioned Sam's Disco - I reckon my uncle used to DJ there. And I have all the vinyl that he used to spin there.

As for characters, it sounds like those Gowans boys might be of the similar type of characters that people would have loved or loved to hate in the ol' days.

And finally, on to John Wynne.

I've got a mate (a bit older than me) whose dad was fairly influential at Norwood around that time. And when Wynne came over to SA he needed a job, so one of his jobs was to drive my mate to school and back every day. My mate reckons he had some good times and conversations on the way to school.
 
Thanks and keep the stories coming guys.

Wynney is helping my club (I'm on the committee) with some skills coaching. His ideas seemed 'out there' until you think about it for 30 sec and then see a huge amount of logic and the how the rewards will come. The players were a bit skeptical to start with only because they there were used to the same old, same old ********** that all coaches they ever had did.
We are now actually teaching/coaching rather than taking players for kicking/hand balling/marking practice.
Players are handling the ball hundreds of times at training now rather than 10 or 20.
What makes Wynne so good is that he makes people think. Learning to be a smarter footballer is what a good coach is all about and we are extremely lucky to have him helping our club.
He is also teaching our coaches alot.

But please keep the stories coming..they are great
 

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Got to admit that 2-8 was my favourite Norwood player. My fave story was when he managed to completely deck an unsuspecting player at Norwood Oval one day. Now I wasn't there, so must rely on what I believe was a fading memory of a radio commentary.

Evidently some Redleg had just come off the ground (I think the interchange rule was in place when this happened). 2-8 sized up the situation quickly and didn't immediately take the field. Seconds later an opposition player, apparently metres in the clear, bounces his way up the wing with not a player in sight, when suddenly from outside the field of play 2-8 appears and just runs straight through the middle of him. Please Adelaide Hawk - confirm if this is even the slightest bit true. I have a feeling it may have even been against me beloved Peckers.

Can also recall Greg Turbill telling an interviewer that it's like running through a tunnel whenever 2-8 was around, such was his shepherding.

I dips me lid to Gentleman Johnny Wynne.
 
Unfortunately I can neither confirm nor deny whether the above incident took place as I cannot recall it. However, it sounds very much like something John Wynne would do. He was a very clever player who stretched every rule to the the 'n'th degree. I remember him running outside the boundary line holding the ball in play, and the moment a player went to tackle him he drageed it into his body and thus, out of bounds. It was his ability to create something different that kept opposition players guessing. I'm so glad he appears to have the respect from members of other clubs because we at Norwood loved him.
 
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