Ovens and King claims a new crowning glory.
On the 13th of June 1903, a handful of men met at The Bulls Head Hotel in Wangaratta to consider forming a football competition. One week later, the first matches of the Ovens and King Football Association, later to become the Ovens and King League, were played.
Milawa kicked five goals while holding Wangaratta to none. Rainbows, a Wangaratta club that had taken its name from its players' need to wear whatever guernseys they could find, kicked two goals and held Tarrawingee to one. Carboor, a club that would last only the opening season, had the bye.
The North-Eastern Despatch reported that the match at Tarrawingee was played on a ploughed paddock that was unfit for football. The boggy conditions prevented the home team from scoring before half-time.
Rainbows full-forward Bob Condron kicked both goals for Rainbows; he would later receive a cigarette holder for leading the goalkicking table, apparently with 10 goals.
A century later, the Ovens and King league is to kick off its centenary celebrations with the launch of a book, All Links in the Chain, that provides a fine insight into the competition's history. Mick Nolan, a Tarrawingee ruckman who went on to star for Wangaratta Rovers and North Melbourne, will launch the book before 350 guests at Wangaratta Town Hall next Saturday night.
Nolan's former North Melbourne teammates Peter Keenan and Sam Kekovich, who are both products of north-east Victoria - Keenan is from Tungamah and Kekovich is from Myrtleford - will also join in the fun.
The book, available through Ovens and King clubs, came into being after Neil Barter, a retired former principal of the Chiltern Primary School, saw that a former pupil had kicked 15 goals for Chiltern in the final round of the 1999 Ovens and King season.
Barter asked Fred Baker, the long-time Ovens and King secretary, whether the tally of Dale Andrews, now at Wodonga Raiders, was the highest in the history of the competition. Baker didn't know.
Barter flicked through back issues of newspapers such as the Chiltern Federal Standard and the Myrtleford Times, and discovered that Bert Carey had kicked 21 goals in a match for Wangaratta in 1931.
To check his finding, he asked a sports writer at the Wangaratta Chronicle whether he knew the highest tally kicked in a match. The journalist replied that his newspaper had recently run a feature on just that topic, celebrating the feat of North Wangaratta full-forward Todd Stone in kicking 20 goals in a match.
Barter realised the ease with which inaccuracies become perpetuated. The discovery prompted him to ask Fred Baker whether the Ovens and King league would mind if he wrote a history of the competition. Baker told him to go right ahead.
"It was a wonderful journey that started off with a single question," Barter said.
Barter combed newspapers and football programs and spoke to old players and officials. At every turn, an insight appeared.
After one of Barter's weekly rounds of golf at the Jubilee course in Wangaratta, the barman, Des Culhane, revealed that he had played for Myrtleford before the club transferred from the Ovens and King league to the stronger Ovens and Murray league in 1950. Barter had found another unlikely source.
The author's favourite tales from his history refer to the earliest years, such as the incident in 1904 when the Wangaratta captain, a Mr E. Hickey, led his players from the field eight minutes into a game against Tarrawingee. He explained that, as his team had been unable to move the ball into its forward line, there seemed no point in playing.
The Ovens and King leaders ruled that a rematch should be held the following week. It was a ruling to which the Tarrawingee players took exception.
By the second quarter of the rematch, cries of "Lay them out, Tarra" could be heard as the game disintegrated into violence. The Tarrawingee captain, whose surname was Nolan, was ordered from the field, only to be recalled when a Tarrawingee player hit a spectator and a massive brawl seemed imminent. The umpire was upset at the official overruling.
Early in the last term, Tarrawingee sought to protect its lead by playing every member of the team in the back line. Wangaratta, pre-empting the flooding debate, objected to the tactics and more brawls ensued.
Players and spectators hopped into each other until the match was abandoned. The second rematch was played at Wangaratta in excellent spirit, with Tarrawingee finally winning the points.
In 1934, the league needed a new secretary. Moyhu's Clyde Baker, who carted cream from farms to dairies, and Bill Matheson, a North Wangaratta schoolteacher, won the most votes of the 11 applicants.
To separate the leading two, a name was drawn from a hat. Baker won the lucky dip and went on to hold the league secretary's position for 38 years, until he died after the 1972 season.
Baker's son, Fred, had helped Clyde perform his administrative duties. After his father's death, Fred took the league's books along to the next annual meeting and was swiftly voted into the job. After 30 years, he continues to act as league secretary, bringing the family lineage in the role to 68 years.
His own service earned him life membership of the Ovens and King league four years ago and a medal for community service from the Federal Government before Anzac Day. He was presented with his medal in Wangaratta on Friday.
Baker, who, with his brother, David, moved his father's business towards fuel carting, said he had remained secretary because he enjoyed meeting country footy people. He would have struggled to adjust to computers without the help of his wife Helen, but the main problem in recent years has been the increasing demands on time.
The lowlight of his tenure has been stripping the Beechworth under-17s of all points on the eve of the finals a decade ago. A handful of players had forged birth certificates on computers. The matter was settled when a member of a rival club drove to Sydney to bring back a birth certificate that contradicted the one held by the league.
"I felt sorry for them but it's what we had to do," Baker said.
A rumour circulated before the grand final that the Beechworth thirds would sprint from behind the fence and run through an opposition banner before the match. Police were called in to insure against mayhem, which failed to eventuate.
Beechworth parents did, however, vent their frustration on Baker, who was abused for carrying out the decision by the league delegates to strip the points. "They had to take it out on somebody," Baker said.
The highlight of his tenure has been watching his son Steven kicking the winning goal for Moyhu in the dying minutes of the 1988 grand final, enabling the underdogs to topple Beechworth.
Fred Baker played in three premierships with Moyhu himself, in 1959, '60 and '62. The 1962 team is regarded among the best in the league's history. Under playing-coach Ray Burns, Moyhu went through the season undefeated, equalling the feat of Wangaratta in 1906 and Myrtleford in 1949.
The ruckman from the Moyhu premiership teams, Maurice "Bumper" Farrell, went on to be the playing coach in three premierships with Greta, a club based on a paddock about 10 kilometres out of Moyhu. Greta won the flags from 1965 to '67 under Farrell.
The main threats to the greatness of these Moyhu and Greta teams is the Whorouly side of 1977 and '78, which went on a rampage under tough former Hawthorn defender Norm Bussell. The team was packed with stars, including Alan Sewell, whose 1977 tally of 126 goals remains the competition record.
Sewell showed his class when he booted 16 goals against North Wangaratta, which went on to lose the grand final to Whorouly by 14 points. In the 1978 grand final, Whorouly eclipsed Beechworth by 119 points, which remains the record margin. Sewell kicked seven goals to bring his tally to 104.
The first player to kick a century of goals in the Ovens and King league was Myrtleford champion Len Ablett, a cousin of Gary Ablett's father, who kicked 108 goals in 1946.
Other greats include Milawa forward Jock Gardner, who won three competition medals just after the Second World War, Tarrawingee and Moyhu ruckman Ray Warford, who won three competition medals in the 1950s, and John "Rowdy" Lappin, who also won three medals. By the time of his victories in the late 1970s and early '80s, the award was known as the Baker Medal, after Clyde Baker.
Rowdy Lappin, a member of the famous Lappin clan that regularly contributed more than half a dozen players to Chiltern senior teams, also finished second in the Baker Medal three times. His successors in the Lappin lineage contributed greatly to the star team of 1993, when Chiltern lost the grand final to Greta in a huge boilover, and the next year, when Chiltern was undefeated champion.
The star midfielders in Chiltern's 1993 teams were schoolboys Nigel Lappin and Matthew Lappin, who both began their AFL careers the next year. Also in 1994, King Valley ruckman Mark Porter won the Baker Medal at 17 years of age. He now plays for the Kangaroos.
The performances of these players in the AFL indicates the strength of football in the Ovens and King league. The passion for football in the region compares with anywhere in Australia. The centenary should bring hearty celebrations.
Today, more than 100 years on, teams from Benalla, Bright, Greta, Glenrowan, King Valley, Milawa, Moyhu, North Wangaratta, Tarrawingee and Whorouly participate with three teams each in a strong and vibrant competition.
Located in the rich Ovens and King Valleys of northeast Victoria, the League is a renowned breeding ground for elite footballers. Chief among these has been cousins Nigel (Brisbane Lions) and Matthew Lappin (St Kilda/Carlton), ruckman Mark Porter (Kangaroos/Carlton) and most recently Michael Newton (Melbourne).
Community support is strong in the Ovens and King districts with crowds attending games usually greater than most neighbouring competitions. The local football is an important social outlet for many local communities and finals matches draw especially strong crowd numbers.
By - Paul Daffey.
From The Age newspaper
4th May, 2003.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ovens-and-king-claims-a-new-crowning-glory-20030504-gdvna6.html
All Links in the Chain.
All Links in the Chain - A Centenary History of the Ovens and King Football / Netball League.
By - Neil Barter.
Published in 2003, with 309 pages of Ovens and King Football / Netball League history. This is a brilliant & very comprehensive history of the O&KFNL, which is well worth a read.
This book is currently available to borrow from the Wangaratta Library.
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Click on the Trove logo above to view plenty of pre 1960's O&K match reviews & scores.
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JIM MILNE’S HISTORY OF THE OVENS AND KING FOOTBALL LEAGUE – WRITTEN IN 1962:
The following is an extract from the book titled -
All Links in the Chain: The Centenary History of the Ovens and King Football League. By Neil Barter, published in 2003.
“One of the famous footballers of long ago was Jim Milne of Eldorado, who compiled a history of the Ovens and King League in 1962. It’s worth reproducing here some of his wonderful memories and insights into an era when the Ovens and King began.
‘Within the period of my own memory, back in 1903 some of the youths of Eldorado would ride over to Irish Town to see the football. Irish Town, a part of Tarrawingee, had for its centre a red brick hotel that was owned by Mr and Mrs Fred Reid and their son and daughter. The hotel and football ground were at the corner of Eldorado and Beechworth roads, opposite to where the Devery’s lived. Five teams made up the association and it is interesting to note that two of the teams, namely Wangaratta and Milawa, still play on the site of their original grounds.
The Milawa ground was fenced and had brick dressing rooms. The other grounds in the association were handy paddocks and the players changed at the hotel or hall or wherever they best could at the grounds.
Football jackets were sleeveless and often worn over a singlet or flannel. They were made of canvas and were laced up at the front. Shorts were worn very long and usually about three inches below the knee. Stockings (socks) were long and made of wool knitted in the club’s colours. Boots were any- thing you thought suited your style of play – Sunday boots, working boots, tennis boots or sandshoes.
The teams travelled mainly by horse-drawn vehicles and a number of clubs used a five-horse drag. Eldorado hired Crawford and Co’s of Wangaratta. The drag and horses at the time were in the charge of Charlie Teakle, one of their best drivers. He owned and drove the last horse-drawn cab in Wangaratta.
The drag, licensed to carry 22 passengers, often had 28 to 30 men onboard. On a day trip to Beechworth, the horses were stopped at a number of hills and the players asked to get out and walk up the hill to give the horses a rest.
In 1906 I went to Myrtleford in a drag, leaving Eldorado at 10am. The drag pulled up at Keady’s Hotel at Everton at midday, where the horses were fed and watered. After an hour’s rest, the horse were reyoked and set off for Myrtleford arriving at Gerrity’s Hotel, now Mt Buffalo View Hotel, where the horses were stabled. The players changed at the hotel and walked to the football oval. After the match you had a cold shower, if you were game enough, then had tea. Then, after a couple of hours in the town, we climbed into the drag and set off on the thirty-odd mile trip back to Eldorado, arriving home in the early hours of Sunday morning.
A few years later, Jack O’Neil of Stanley transported the Eldorado team with his drag. A custom most of the football teams had was to stop at every hotel on the trip, where the players had a one shilling in, the winner paying for the round of drinks for sixpence with the other half of the money going into his own pocket. Perhaps the stops were to rest the horses.
Wangaratta and Beechworth used special trains for their matches as did Whorouly and Myrtleford when convenient. Harold Hill, an auctioneer in Wangaratta, told me about a match in Wangaratta where a special train had to be hired from Whorouly because the Ovens River was in flood.
Some players travelled long distances to play with their clubs. Jack Slater of Cheshunt, who played with Milawa and later with Moyhu, used to ride his bicycle from Cheshunt to Milawa each Saturday then travelled with Milawa to the match. If that particular match was at Beechworth or Myrtleford it meant a round trip of 120 miles by the time he was back home.
Henry Johnson and Harold Wellington rode their bikes from Markwood to Myrtleford, played a good game, then rode their bikes back again.
In 1926 the independent tribunal was formed, consisting of three men, Robert Marks, C C Johnsonand W Smith.
Field umpires
In the Chronicle dated 17/8/1904 there was to be a challenge match to be umpired by a Melbourne umpire. A little later on Mr Tom Simmonds told me that Moyhu won three premierships under Melbourne umpires. Another popular umpire was Mus Maroney of Carraragamungee. Other umpires at the time were Joe Boulds, Beatty, Bob Marks, Alex Murdoch, Crawford McAliece, Percy Mason and Bill Walker. J M Woods told me a story about Joe Mason, who was to umpire a match between Whorouly and Moyhu but both teams objected to him as the umpire. Mason sat on the ball in the middle of the ground until they paid him his umpire’s fee of ten shillings.
Mr Milne’s history goes to record interviews he had with some of the players of early days
The following anecdote refers to a game played after Tarrawingee had earned a reputation for being too rough.
George Connor of Byawatha, who had two brothers playing in the Tarrawingee teams, said a Tarrawingee player A A Farthing thought that the remarks made by Mr Charles Hutton were too pointed, and he said “Mr Hutton, would you mind addressing the other team now, please.”
Artie Rundle was another player Milne interviewed. In 1893, Rundle was captain of the under 18 Wangaratta Rainbows team, so called because of the variety of sweaters and colours. He played with Wangaratta in their first year in the Ovens and King. Mr Rundle closed his chemist shop so that he could play in the special challenge match against Tarrawingee referred to directly above.
Les Brown of Milawa told me the dates of the first meeting from an entry in his diary of 6 June 1903.Les Brown played for the Rainbows under 18 team in a junior association consisting of Albury, Rutherglen, Barnawartha, Corowa, and Beechworth United. He was captain of the first Milawa team when it entered the Ovens and King in 1903.
Bill Hickey of Wangaratta played with South Melbourne in the VFL in the middle of his career with Wangaratta Ovens and King side. He told me of the special challenge match against Eldorado.
Mr Tom Simmonds of Moyhu was captain of the Moyhu team which won three premierships in a row from 1909 to 1911. He retired after 1911 but he told me that Melbourne umpires umpired those three grand finals.
Harold Walker, who later became a Davis Cup selector, was an Eldorado boy who played for Tarrawingee in 1903 and was in the team for the challenge match against the Rainbows.
Jack Keogh, who was one of the early presidents in the Ovens and King, played for Tarrawingee in the 1890’s and was later an auditor on the Ovens and King for 25 years, retiring from that position in 1952.
Duke Gardner of Milawa played his first football in 1900. He never played in a premiership team, although he played for 26 years, of which 25 were with Milawa and one with Eldorado. In that Eldorado team he missed out on his footballing ambition as Wangaratta defeated Eldorado by two points in the grand final. Duke Gardner was a past master of the place kick as was his step-brother, Colin Gardner, who later played with St Kilda in the VFL.
Among the many personalities who stood out in the Ovens and King is Mr Charles Butler, who became the first life member of the Ovens and King. Charles Butler, a school teacher at Eldorado in 1925, joined the Eldorado club as secretary and became a delegate for his club for two years. Being promoted to Myrtleford State School in 1929, he was made president of that club which, at his suggestion, successfully sought admission to the Ovens and King. At the annual meeting that year, Charles Butler was appointed secretary and in six years, mainly as a result of his efforts, the Ovens and King Association blossomed forth into the Ovens and King League, the governing body of football in the north-east. He later held the important position of a member of the Appeals Board which dealt with cases of appeals from tribunals of all leagues as far south as Donnybrook.
The second person to become a life member of the league was Mr Ray Barker, a delegate for Wangaratta, who was president of the league from 1941 to 1953. He became a member of the North-East Council of the VCFL and later became District Commissioner. He became president of the Umpires’ Board and held that position for over 27 years.’
So concludes snippets from Jim Milne’s history. The league is so fortunate to have had someone, many years ago, to have written down this history of the Ovens and King.
