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CENTRAL DISTRICT - Part One: 1959 to 1979
Affiliated: SANFL 1959-present (B grade only 1959-63)
Club Address: P.O. Box 10, Elizabeth 5112, South Australia
Home Ground: Hamra Homes Oval Elizabeth (formerly known as NAP Oval, and originally as Elizabeth Oval)
Formed:1959 (B grade); 1964 (seniors)
Colours: Royal blue, red and white
Emblem: Bulldogs
Premierships: SENIORS -2000-1, 2003-4-5, 2007 (6 total) RESERVES - 1971, 1989, 2002-3 (4 total) UNDER 19S - 1970, 1981-82, 2003 (4 total) UNDER 17S - 1966, 1977-78-79, 1985, 1992, 1996, 2004 (8 total) OTHER PREMIERSHIPS - Stanley H. Lewis Memorial Trophy 2001-2-3-4, 2007 (5 total); Foundation Cup/Living Health Cup (minor premiers) 1995-96, 2001-2-3-4-5, 2007 (8 total)
Magarey Medallists: Gary Window 1965; John Duckworth 1979; John Platten 1984; Gilbert McAdam 1989; Paul Thomas 2004 (5 total)
All Australians: Peter Jonas 1979; John Platten 1985 (2 total)
League Top Goalkickers: E.Vidovich (62) 1968; R.Mandemaker (93) 1989; D.Schell (74) 2004 & (81) 2005 (4 total)
Official 'Best Centrals Team 1964 to 2003': Click here
Highest Score: 35.23 (233) vs. West Torrens 4.11 (35) at Elizabeth Oval in round 4 1988
Most Games: 308 by Peter Vivian from 1969 to 1985
Record Home Attendance: 16,029 in round 18 1984: Port Adelaide 15.13 (103); Central District 12.9 (81)
Record Finals Attendance: 46,132 for 1996 grand final at Football Park: Port Adelaide 11.14 (80); Central District 6.8 (44)
Overall Success Rate 1964-2007: 51.7%
During the years immediately following the second World War the population of Australia increased rapidly as a result of the government's policy of actively encouraging immigration from Europe. In South Australia, the city of Elizabeth was specifically earmarked during the 1950s to cope with this mass influx. Situated on the Adelaide Plain some thirty kilometres north of Adelaide the city quickly came to boast a cosmopolitan mix which in some ways prefigured that to be found in the country as a whole some quarter of a century later.
Australian football was totally new to these immigrants, and in most cases their immediate reaction, on being exposed to the game, was negative. The SANFL's acceptance in 1958 of an entry bid from a team based in Elizabeth might therefore be viewed as courageous in the extreme.
The bid was made by the Gawler Football Association which had been in existence since the 1880s. Indeed, a Gawler Football Club was a founder member of the South Australian Football Association (precursor of the SANFL) in 1877, and maintained a sporadic involvement in that competition until 1890.
It was resolved at a meeting of the GFA in March 1958 that its new club should be known as the Central District Football Club (not, as people to this day persist in terming it, Central Districts Football Club), a name which emphasised its links with the whole area rather than just a single town. The chosen colours of red, white and blue were said to have been derived from a cigarette card depicting an English soccer team which a delegate to the meeting was carrying, and this, coupled with the chosen nickname of 'Bulldogs', served to reinforce the club's perceived British connection. Another important early link was with VFL club Footscray which shared both emblem and colours and made a donation to Centrals of thirty long sleeved jumpers and thirty pairs of socks.
At the same time as Central District's application to join the SANFL was accepted a similar application from the Woodville Football Club was also approved. Both clubs were required to spend a probationary period of five years, commencing in 1959, in the seconds competition, before their full admission to league ranks. Centrals' record during this probationary phase was not distinguished, the team collecting wooden spoons in 1959, '60 and '62, with a third place in 1961 proving their best effort. The Bulldogs finished in eighth position (out of ten teams) in 1963 but the year did have one memorable feature in that exciting half forward Gary Window landed the seconds Magarey Medal.
The team's under achievement at seconds level did not augur well for the future, but with the appointment of experienced West Adelaide star Ken Eustice as captain coach and the recruitment of a number of well-credentialed players from interstate there was a fair amount of optimism in the air at Elizabeth on the eve of the club's inaugural league campaign in 1964. Sadly, however, the season developed into something of a nightmare, with Eustice being prevented by clearance problems from taking his place in the side until round 7, and the team failing to record a single victory in any of their 20 league fixtures.
The club's home ground at Goodman Road, Elizabeth was not ready for use until the 12th round, when Glenelg had the honour of providing the opposition. The Tigers won easily, 11.21 (87) to 7.4 (46), but the carnival style atmosphere and large attendance gave promise of better times ahead.
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The Governor of South Australia, Sir Edric Bayston, shakes hands with Centrals acting captain Dennis Barron prior to a game between the Bulldogs and Port Adelaide in 1964. Ruckman Brian Kemp, one of only two ever-presents in Centrals' line-up that year, looks on. |
Centrals' leading recruit for 1965 was highly rated South Fremantle centre half forward Tom Grljusich who gave the team something vital which it had hitherto lacked: a focal point ahead of centre. With a season of league football under their belts the team gradually began to show improvement. Round 2 brought a first ever senior win, albeit only against fellow newcomers Woodville, but even in their losses the team were proving much more resilient and competitive. In round 11 at Richmond Oval Central District finally broke through for a win against an established SANFL club; what is more, they won impressively by 38 points, kicking a club record score of 17.19 (121) to West Adelaide's 11.17 (83).
After that, the floodgates opened, with the Bulldogs securing 6 further wins during their 9 remaining matches for an 8-12 win/loss record and 7th position on the premiership ladder. Even more excitingly, Gary Window's career reached another pinnacle when he won the League Magarey Medal to go with the seconds Medal won two years earlier. The general consensus was that the club had now genuinely arrived, a view which was still being expounded well into the following season:
Centrals have gone past the 'give them a bit of encouragement' stage. They need none. Rival teams do. Centrals have developed into a combination which no other side can even start thinking about lightly. They have height, strength, speed and will-to-win, and if ever a side looked a final four prospect they do. [see footnote 1]
In hindsight, such optimism seems almost ludicrously misplaced. In successive seasons from 1966 to 1969 the Bulldogs finished 9th, 9th, 8th and 8th, only once (in 1967) managing more than 4 victories for the season. Quite simply, apart from Eustice, Grljusich, Window and one or two others the team lacked quality players, and when confronted by the likes of Sturt and Port Adelaide they sometimes appeared totally out of their depth.
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Eustice and Grljusich, in fact, departed Elizabeth at the end of the 1967 season, Eustice to re-join his former coach Neil Kerley who was now at the helm at Glenelg, and Grljusich to return to South Fremantle in the WAFL. Window meanwhile missed the whole of the 1967 and 1968 seasons while coaching East Gambier in the South Australian country, and after his return to league football in 1969 only rarely recaptured his Magarey Medal form. Central District during these years was, in essence, a team of battlers, possessed of nuisance value and little more. Nevertheless, club spirit was developing all the time, and in a number of intangible ways the foundations were being laid for a dramatic upswing in on field fortunes. In 1966 the club's Colts (precursor of the Under 17s) side won a premiership, the club's first at any level. Another triumph of sorts came a year later when full back Terry Phillips won a televised competition to find the champion kick in South Australia, and then went on to surprise everyone by defeating vaunted interstate opposition from Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania to claim the national title. In 1970 the Bulldogs experienced a similar end to the season as five years earlier, including at one stage a club record 4 wins in succession. A win/loss record of 7-13 gave them 7th place on the premiership ladder, and as in 1965 there was talk of Centrals having 'arrived'. This time, though, it was to be no false dawn. |
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Despite a slow start in 1971 it gradually became clear that the Bulldogs were developing into an accomplished side. Once again, the team really hit its straps during the run home and, with 12 wins and 9 defeats in the home and away matches, managed its first winning return in eight seasons in the SANFL. Much more importantly, however, the team had made the finals for the first time by displacing Norwood from fourth spot late in the season, thereby booking a first semi final date with reigning premiers, Sturt.
In the eyes of most observers Centrals had done enough for the time being simply by reaching the finals. The aim now should be to consolidate on that achievement by going a step or two further in 1972. The Bulldogs, however, had other ideas, despite being confronted first up by a side which was bidding to equal Port Adelaide's SANFL record of six consecutive premierships. What is more, Centrals had never managed to defeat Sturt in 16 previous meetings, and indeed had never even got to within 3 goals of the Double Blues.
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The match was tight for three quarters with the Bulldogs
enduring everything the Double Blues could throw at them to go into the lemon
time break just 5 points adrift. Then, with the breeze at their backs, and the
majority of the 36,400 crowd roaring them on, they quickly gained the initiative
in the final term thanks largely to a dominant on ball unit to run out
comfortable victors by 27 points, 13.13 (91) to 8.16 (64). That on ball unit
included rovers Barry Norsworthy and Robin
Mulholland, the latter an Irish
convert from Gaelic football, Western Australian ruck rovers Phil Haughan and
Tony Casserly (shown above, right), and 206 cm ruckman Dean Farnham, one of the tallest players ever
to play senior Australian football. Elsewhere in the team there were sterling
contributions from Lyndon Andrews, Peter Nicks (pictured left), Lyle Skinner and Peter Vivian.
With 5 goals during the final quarter Mulholland won unanimous acclaim as best player afield, and the press and media were equally unanimous in declaring this Central District's finest ever moment. Almost a quarter of a century later, recent premiership successes notwithstanding, it would still be hard to think of more than a handful of finer ones. The Bulldogs of 1972 showed still further improvement to manage 14 wins out of 21 during the home and away season before comprehensively accounting for Norwood in the first semi. Now coached by Casserly, Centrals once again met their match in Port Adelaide on preliminary final day, but not before giving the Magpies a real fright. Leading by 21 points at three quarter time the Bulldogs looked to have a grand final berth in their grasp, but in a heart stopping final stanza their inexperience under pressure proved their undoing as the Magpies clawed their way to a 7 point triumph. |
Consecutive third places remained Central District's best ever sequence for over two decades.
From 1973 to 1975 the Bulldogs were a middle of the road combination capable of upsetting the best but equally capable of disappointing when pitted against the League's strugglers. Gary Window replaced Casserly as coach in 1976, but when the Bulldogs plummeted to their first wooden spoon since their debut year a season later he gave way to Daryl Hicks.
Hicks, a wingman in each of Sturt's five successive grand final wins from 1966 to 1970 had inherited his former mentor Jack Oatey's ideals on the game, and it was not long before an improvement was shown. In 1978 the Bulldogs missed the finals but in '79 they swept all before them in securing a first ever minor premiership, generating unprecedented finals fever in the northern suburbs as a consequence. However, in a pattern that was to become all too familiar they were then unceremoniously bundled out of the flag race with finals losses in successive weeks against Port Adelaide.
Vietnam veteran John Duckworth became Centrals' second Magarey Medallist in 1979 after a barnstorming debut season with the Dogs. Duckworth was the latest in a series of outstanding West Australians to represent the club, and although he only played a total of 42 games over two seasons at Elizabeth his impact on the club as well as on the game in South Australia in general went well beyond this.
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Footnotes
1. 'The South Australian Football Budget', volume 40, number 9, 14 May 1966, page 12. Return to Main Text