KALGOORLIE RAILWAYS
Affiliated: Hannans District Football Association (HDFA) 1900; Goldfields Football Association (GFA) 1901-7; Goldfields Football League (GFL) 1908-19; GFA 1920-25; Goldfields National Football League (GNFL) 1926-87; GFL 1988-present
Club Address: P.O. Box 126, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia 6430
Home Ground: Kalgoorlie Oval
Formed: 1900
Colours: Red and black
Emblem: Panthers
Premierships: 1903-4-5, 1911-12, 1919-20, 1929, 1931, 1939, 1945, 1952, 1958, 1960, 1963-4, 1966, 1971, 1973-4-5, 1978-9, 1983, 1987, 2000, 2002, 2006 (28 total) Western Australian State Premierships - 1903 & 1912 (2 total)
League Fairest and Best Awards: Charlie Tyson senior 1906; George Tyson 1909; Jim Gosnell 1931; Robert Ferguson 1948; Harry Western 1951; Kevin Higgins 1956-7; Arthur Freeman 1960; Alec Stack 1966; Ted Robinson 1970; Neville Brierley 1972; David Tasker 1973; Ron Brown 1981; Russell Thomas 1985; Fabian Dawson 1994; D.Mason 1999-2000; J.Cox 2001; James Langley 2007 (17 winners/19 wins)
| MINI-BIOGRAPHIES: | Jack Diprose Allan Ebbs Jim Gosnell Dean Kemp Steve Marsh 'Brum' O'Meara Ted Rowell Tom Sullivan Charlie Tyson junior Charlie Tyson senior George Tyson |
Kalgoorlie Railways may not have the best record in the GFL in terms of premierships won, but the club has nevertheless enjoyed consistent success, and for a time at least could certainly lay claim to boasting one of the strongest senior line-ups in the land.
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The precise origins of
the club are not known in any detail, but it seems likely that it emerged
out of an team known as Locomotives which played a number of social games
in 1899. The following season saw the first ever Kalgoorlie Railways
combination spring into action as a member of the goldfields region's
primary football body of the time, the Hannans Districts Football
Association, and it was not long before the newcomers began to emerge as a
power. In 1903, in fact, Railways managed arguably the most
noteworthy achievement in goldfields football history by not only winning
the flag, but also downing the supposedly all powerful East
Fremantle side in the first ever contest to determine the West
Australian state premier. In what was a tough, closely fought
encounter, players like 'Snowy' Jarvis, Mick Kenny and Charlie Tyson
(shown left) were instrumental in enabling Railways to keep their noses in
front during the hectic closing stages en route to a 7.6 (48) to 5.11 (41)
triumph.
Kalgoorlie Railways ultimately proved to be the only successful goldfields club during the two decade existence of the state premiership (see footnote 1), and they managed the feat not once, but twice, after downing Subiaco 8.12 (60) to 7.9 (51) in 1912. |
Over the years, and most notably during the pre-World War One period, goldfields clubs played host to some of the most illustrious names in football history, including, in the case of Railways, a veritable (if purely hypothetical) 'team' of such champions:
| Backs | Ernie Jones (a former North Adelaide player from the 1890s) | Colin Hickman (later of South Fremantle and Subiaco in the 1950s) | Jack Smith (a brilliant back pocket of the early '30s) |
| XX | |||
| Half Backs | Charlie Tyson junior (a top defender who excelled in the VFL during the '20s with Collingwood and North Melbourne) | Norm George (powerful and popular centre half back during the '30s) | Joe Slattery (a strong-running member of WA's 1914 carnival team) |
| XX | |||
| Centres | Tommy 'Tit' Marsh (christened 'the human hare' in the 1920s - father of future Railways junior Steve Marsh) | Jack Diprose (a great pre-World War One centreman who later played for West Perth and Subiaco) | Jim Gosnell (had two stints with Railways, and in between won the 1924 Sandover Medal with West Perth) |
| XX | |||
| Half Forwards | James 'Brum' O'Meara (a lightning fast half forward from East Perth who was a member, in the '30s, of South Melbourne's famed 'foreign legion') | Charlie Tyson senior (a WA rep. in 1904 and '08 who also starred for East Fremantle) | Jack Anderson (a former top forward for St Kilda and West Perth, he played for, and later coached, Railways in the '30s) |
| XX | |||
| Forwards | Jack 'Snowy' Jarvis (a sturdy and pacy rover who came to the goldfields from Adelaide in 1904, and represented WA with distinction) | Ted Rowell (one of the game's true early greats - Victorian Champion of the Colony with Collingwood in 1902, and top VFL goal kicker the same year) | Walter 'Poet' Smith (a pre-World War One champion who represented WA in 3 carnivals) |
| XX | |||
| Ruck | Mick Kenny (a great follower who was a member of WA's first interstate touring party in 1904) | Dean Kemp (a Subiaco and West Coast star of the 1980s and '90s) | Jack Langsford (a top rover in the early 1900s - known as 'the slippery one') |
| XX | |||
| Interchange | Billy Sullivan (a key member of Railways' 1912 flag-winning team who went to the Sydney carnival with the WA side in 1914) | A.J. Aldridge (a long-kicking player who was a regular GFL rep. and also played for WA at the 1911 Adelaide carnival) | 'Gus' Ferguson (A Dillon Medallist - the GNFL's fairest and best award at the time - in 1948) |
| Joe O'Dea (a former South Adelaide rover who went to the 1908 carnival in Melbourne with the WA team, but then controversially elected not to return) |
| XX | ||
| The discovery of gold at Coolgardie in 1892 and Kalgoorlie the following year, at a time when the rest of Australia was in the throes of a major economic depression, precipitated a period of pronounced and sustained economic growth on the West Australian goldfields, and football was one of the main beneficiaries. By the time of Railways' formation in 1900 the genuine 'boom' years were over, but the region was still sufficiently prosperous to prove an attractive stopping point for many of the itinerant young men of the era whose lives consisted of a more or less constant search for work. Football, of course, was in no way a professional concern at this time, either on the goldfields, or anywhere else, but what football clubs could often do, through the aegis of rich patrons and supporters, was procure decent work for players that they wished to sign. During the early 1900s, Kalgoorlie Railways managed to do this so successfully that there is little doubt that, albeit admittedly for only a very brief time, the team was almost certainly among the strongest in the land. In addition to the state premiership win alluded to earlier, the club won three successive premierships between 1903 and 1905, and when the first ever official West Australian interstate touring team was selected in 1904 it provided the side's backbone with four players: Ted Rowell, Mick Kenny, Charlie Tyson and 'Snowy' Jarvis, all of whom were footballers of the very highest order. That same year saw Railways lose the state premiership to East Fremantle, but any doubts as to the overall prowess of the side were laid to rest with an emphatic 13.10 (88) to 9.14 (68) defeat of a WAFA representative team in Perth, a victory to which the great Ted Rowell contributed 7 goals. |
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The immediate pre-World War One period saw all three of the GFL's power clubs - Railways, Mines and Boulder - engaged in a continual and often enthralling battle of supremacy. In 1911-12 Railways, with players like 'Poet' Smith, Joe Slattery, and three of the six Tyson brothers (see footnote 2), George, Charlie and Sam to the fore, rose to the top of the tree in fine style. However, in 1913, despite a great effort from 'the Poet' in kicking 4 goals in the premiership decider against Boulder City, the side had to accept second billing. It was a similar story in 1914 and 1915, the last two seasons before the GFA suspended operations because of the war, but in 1919-20 Railways returned to the premiership rostrum in emphatic style, with the club's playing ranks having been bolstered by the acquisition of Jim Gosnell from West Perth, and the emergence of top quality youngsters such as Tommy 'Tit' Marsh, 'Nugget' Jones and Charlie Tyson junior.
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With Gosnell returning to the Cardinals
and Tyson (shown left) heading east to the VFL' Railways' playing stocks
were depleted during the early '20s and the club took the better part of a
decade to recover, with its next premiership, courtesy of a nail-biting 5
point grand final win over Boulder, not arriving until 1929. Two
consecutive grand finals against Kalgoorlie
City followed, with the Kangas winning the first, but Railways gaining
revenge in the second to the tune of 9 points. Thereafter, despite
the club being home to such noteworthy players as Norm George, Jack
Anderson, Jim Gosnell (who resumed with Railways in 1929 after winning the
1924 Sandover Medal),
Jack Williams, Allan Ebbs (later the first ever winner of the Simpson
Medal), Wally Carlisle and Jim Mills (ex-South
Fremantle) most of the 1930s proved something of a struggle. It
was not until 1939, under captain-coach Anderson, that the side again
broke through for a premiership, but the prospect of any further progress
was ruined by the intervention of war.
During the post-war era goldfields football underwent a gradual decline in profile, but Railways continued to win premierships with creditable consistency, and remains a stalwart of the competition to this day. The era of national significance for the GFL may be well and truly over, but to ignore, belittle or distort the history and traditions of clubs like Kalgoorlie Railways is effectively to transform the game of Australian football into something immeasurably less than the sum of its parts. |
Since the year 2000 the Panthers have contested four grand finals for three flags. The most recent of these came in 2006, courtesy of a fighting, come from behind win over Boulder City. Railways eventually won by 9 points, 11.10 (76) to 10.7 (67), after trailing by 6 points at half time, and by 13 points at the last change. A year later the Panthers again contested the grand final, but went down heavily to Mines Rovers.
Recommended further reading: Gravel Rash: 100 Years Of Goldfields Football by Les Everett (published by the GFL in 1996).
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Footnotes
1. The WA state premiership was actually contested a total of twelve times between 1903 and 1924. Return to Main Text
2. All six brothers (the other three were Will, Jock and Eddie) played for Railways at various times, including at least one season together. Return to Main Text