Resource The NMFC History thread

[Hard_to_Beat]

R.D.Barassi congratulates Gary Farrant at the end of the 1975 grand final

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[Hard_to_Beat]

The great Snake Baker 1978

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[tazaa]

The great Snake Baker 1978

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Tim Lane makes sense now.

 

[royals1922]

Arden Street 1920s

Arden Street 1966 to 1974

Arden Street 1980

And the late great Gasometer

 

[Dan]

The great Snake Baker 1978

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Reminds me of a mark Sholl took at Optus Oval in 98.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Early 2013 and North players step out on the newly re-sized and resurfaced Arden Street Oval. (Thanks to Twinkletoes for photo)

 

[tazaa]

lol Loose is an idiot

 

[Old Shinboner]

Arden Street 1920s

Arden Street 1966 to 1974

Arden Street 1980

And the late great Gasometer

Is anyone old enough to remember the wooden stand that stood next to the grandstand in the top two photos?

When did that stand get removed and was the social club built straight after its removal?

 

[Twinkletoes]

First Grand Stand


Player Race
The first grandstand was built in 1906 on the Fogarty Street side of the ground, at a reputed cost of £850. Remnants of this stand, the concrete players’ race and the base of one of the external staircases, remain in the terraced area. The players’ race still connects the players’ dressing rooms in the Football Club administration building with the oval. In 1909, plans for a new grandstand, to cost £1,000, were drawn up by local councillor and club founder J H Gardiner. Despite the popularity of the club, it was deemed that too few finals games were scheduled for the ground to warrant the construction of another stand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arden_Street_Oval#1928_Grand_Stand

I'm not old enough to remember it as the old grandstand, given that I was born in 1968 and the Harold R Henderson pavilion was constructed after our return from Coburg.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

I have no memory of seeing it either.

 

[gokangas]

I remember it. From memory it was a standing terrace undercover. Can remember my uncle (loved a beer) standing under there when it rained to protect his beer.

 

[GarnerSmash]

Lucky buggers.

 

[Woodson]

Back in the day I decided to make up my own footy record scorecard as a build up for the footy on a Saturday arvo... remember those days? I found a swag of these cards in the old man's garage when helping him clean up and man, I'm so glad I saved/ stored them somewhere safe. This WIN still remains as North's biggest winning margin against the mongrels from Windy Hill.

 

[muttley45]

Back in the day I decided to make up my own footy record scorecard as a build up for the footy on a Saturday arvo... remember those days? I found a swag of these cards in the old man's garage when helping him clean up and man, I'm so glad I saved/ stored them somewhere safe. This WIN still remains as North's biggest winning margin against the mongrels from Windy Hill.

looks like the chief didnt have his kicking boot on

 

[Woodson]

looks like the chief didnt have his kicking boot on

Well considering he was a midfielder back in the day.. he was as serviceable player as you can get. Doubt he polled more than a handful of Brownlow votes but that's irrespective of his role in the team. He gave David Rhys-Jones a nice touch up in the '85 Elimination final IIRC. Plodder footballers were/ still are a dime a dozen. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Mr Reliable]

Well considering he was a midfielder back in the day.. he was as serviceable player as you can get. Doubt he polled more than a handful of Brownlow votes but that's irrespective of his role in the team. He gave David Rhys-Jones a nice touch up in the '85 Elimination final IIRC. Plodder footballers were/ still are a dime a dozen. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Top find, Woody. What is the number in red to the right of the player's name (if you don't mind me asking)? At first I thought it was their barrier draw until the numbers began repeating.

Brendan Ryan....good player. Copped the wrath of John Kennedy one day at the MCG. He jumped over an opposition player who was kneeling. Kanga wanted Brendan to run right through him.

 

[Woodson]

Goals kicked to that stage Mr R.

Kanga Kennedy is one of the most classic footy coaches ever... very much the Vince Lombardi of the VFL.. I always wondered why the premiership cup doesn't have a name? Or does it? Coz saying just the 'Cup' is too Melbourne Cuppish? get it?

 

[Mr Reliable]

Goals kicked to that stage Mr R.

Kanga Kennedy is one of the most classic footy coaches ever... very much the Vince Lombardi of the VFL.. I always wondered why the premiership cup doesn't have a name? Or does it? Coz saying just the 'Cup' is too Melbourne Cuppish? get it?

Thanks. Yes, good one!

Round 7 and Jim and Phil were leading our goalkicking with 11 each. Hmmm.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

When loyalty counts

by Richard Hinds

The presentation had proceeded in an orderly fashion. The lap of honor was completed in traditional arm-waving, champagne-scoffing, cap-wearing style. And then, a funny thing happened on the way to the North Melbourne dressing rooms.

As the fans screamed at them across the fence, the North Melbourne players did not gesture vaguely at anonymous faces and acknowledge half-heartedly the cheers of unfamiliar voices. Instead, they walked over to the fence and picked out people in the crowd. People they knew.

Some players lifted friends on to the field to join them, others shared their emotions with people with whom they were familiar, not only by the color of their scarves and caps, but by sight and name.

North Melbourne is a small part of inner Melbourne. And the supporters that wave the club's football banner seem to shrink each year in the ever-growing national league. Perhaps it was too small - it acknowledged as much by attempting to merge with Fitzroy - to survive on its own.

But North Melbourne has an enormous heart. On Thursday, after its final training run, Denis Pagan's players stayed on the field to sign autographs, chat with fans and soak up the enthusiasm of their small, but loyal band of supporters.

"It's a real community. I work in the area and I really feel that and understand that," said Dean Laidley, who joined North from the giant western conglomerate known as West Coast. "The people are part of this club."

As North Melbourne found out this year, in this AFL bigger is usually better. "It's been a hard road," said chief executive Greg Miller, who suffered more than most through the agonising decision to merge, and the AFL's eventual rebuff.

"North Melbourne doesn't do it easy. We don't get the support that our neighbors get. So many people work so hard at this place and they deserve everything because it's not easy to operate in Melbourne at the moment as a club with a small supporter base."

But the AFL is not yet so big that fairy tales do not come true. In an age of drafts and deals and limited control of your own destiny, Brett Allison found you can still grow up to win a flag for the team you cheered on as a boy.

Before the grand final, Allison had talked of watching his idols Keith Greig, Arnold Briedis and Steve McCann, and his excitement at seeing them walk into the Kangaroos' change rooms during the week.

Now, he had become, in the most significant way, their equal.

Every story has a beginning. Miller says the story of North Melbourne's third premiership began in 1985, the day John Kennedy was appointed coach and Miller became football manager.

"I joined him the same day and I guess we embarked on a new era in recruiting some kids," says Miller. "I went and signed up Sholly (Craig Sholl) and Schwatta (Wayne Schwass) on my honeymoon. They've stuck with me. My wife's pissed off."

There have been many plot twists since. A junior coach called Denis Pagan took charge of a series of underage teams that included names such as Carey, McKernan, Crocker, Martyn, Schwass, Rock, Stevens, Anderson and Archer. But he is forced to leave the club before getting the chance to coach a senior team he believes is long overdue.

"I've watched them grow from young men into adults," says Pagan.

Very determined adults, too.

Darren Crocker is one of Pagan's veterans who have craved a premiership for many years. He says his resolve was hardened on Friday. "At the parade yesterday when the two captains held up the cup, I said to Arch and Stevo, we've just got to get that cup tomorrow. We were really, really focused."

As much as it has a soft heart for its supporters, North Melbourne has a hard shell on the field. In the preliminary final against Brisbane, David King ran 20 metres to remind Craig McRae that the man who goes hardest for the ball is the most likely to get it. Yesterday, King looked down on Craig O'Brien who was nursing a gash on his head inflicted by King's flying knee and let him know that a Port Melbourne boy would not still be on the ground.

Those types of incidents tend to send a message. So, even as he sat on the bench in the second quarter with a cut eye, and Sydney stormed four goals clear, Crocker says he had no doubt the Kangaroos would fight their way out of trouble.

"I knew the boys, knew what we had to do for the whole day. Once the guys started using the ball better and there was a lot more movement (things would change). When I went off with the eye, I was just that keen to get back on it wasn't funny," he said.

All week Pagan had tried to shrug off the burden of favouritism. "Who are these people who made us favourites?" he said constantly. "I don't know if they are good judges or not."

But in their quiet moments, some players had looked beyond the contest to the prize. Rover Peter Bell was in tears in the North Melbourne rooms last week after being taken from the ground early. "I thought my place was in jeopardy," he says. "I was pretty emotional."

Even Wayne Carey dreamed of holding the cup. "I thought of what it would be like to run that lap of honor," he said.

"But I also thought about sitting down and watching them get the medallions."

Fear of failure. Pride in performance. Just being the best team in the competition. Whatever it was, Carey was never forced to endure that pain.

Instead, he clutched the cup in the dressing rooms and yelled at everyone and no one: "You won't be getting this out of my hands tonight!"

Bell, more circumspect, contemplated this time 12 months ago when he was delisted by Fremantle, over-looked in the national draft and seemed to have no football future. North Melbourne played him for half a match in Bundoora, liked what they saw and, when Jason Trianidis put too high a price on his head, took Bell in the February draft.

"Luckily North gave me the opportunity and it turned out to be marvellous," said Bell, who was born in Korea, adopted by Australian aid workers and is one of football's most remarkable stories.

Of course, nearly everyone had a story in the North Melbourne rooms last night. Mark Roberts looked at his surgically scarred knees and marvelled at his own journey via Sydney and Brisbane to the flag. Corey McKernan did the resurrection shuffle, Stuart Anderson rubbed a hamstring that had allowed him, barely, to reclaim his place in the side.

Then there were the hard luck stories. 1ohn Longmire, an integral part of the team, and team spirit, until his pre-season knee injury, tried to hold his head up, but after a while was forced to turn away and shed his tears alone.

Matthew Armstrong, who lost his place to Anderson, hugged every player, one by one. Armstrong, who had been dropped on Thursday, rang Pagan on Friday morning. "He rang to apologise," says Pagan. "He had forgotten to wish the players and coach good luck."

But then, that sort of behavior is expected at a club with real heart. And North has proved its heart on and off the field this year.

In the corner, chairman Ron Casey stood proudly surveying the mayhem. Miller hugged passers-by and grinned madly. Both had behaved with dignity during the merger mess, and emerged with their reputations enhanced.

Now, their team had shown that for a time it could go it alone. So in one corner of the rooms Matthew Capuano fell into the arms of his sobbing father, and in the other a girl in a wheelchair who was in the rooms every week, pushed her way from one player to the next.

And eventually players, family and friends and supporters became as one. Just like they do at real clubs.

Article from The Sunday Age, 29 September 1996

 

[Comebackmick]

Bloody beautiful HTB.
My screen's gone a bit blurry.

 

[Luke72]

Great articles, strangely I was reading the Crutchy Push one a few weeks back by chance. Here is another one resting to the pushes around town ( don't get put off by the site name)
http://www.nickmaxwell.com.au/2011/08/16/larrikins-a-shouting/

 

[GUMBLETRON]

Was just watching the Barassi doco on the teevs - what is this red rooster badge on the '77 GF jumpers?

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

It represents the Courage Brewery, who were Norths major sponsor at the time.

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[muttley45]

It represents the Courage Brewery, who were Norths major sponsor at the time.

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no dressing gown for schimma ay

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Winston Abraham makes time stand still