KANGAROOS (Hotham/North Melbourne) - Part Two: 1916 to 1972

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Because of the war, the VFA chose to suspend operations in 1916, and when it resumed two years later only six clubs were in a position to field sides.  One of these was North Melbourne, which by securing another unbeaten premiership effectively made it three VFA flags in a row.  The teams played a reduced minor round of just 10 matches in 1918, with only Brunswick offering more than a token challenge to the northerners.  However, when North and Brunswick clashed in a semi final there was only one team in it, with North's eventual winning margin of 48 points scarcely doing justice to its rampant superiority.  The final against Prahran was similarly one-sided, with the irrepressible 'dynamic trio' of Syd Barker, George Rawle and Charlie Hardy once again the major driving forces behind North's win.   The game was as good as over by quarter time as North Melbourne led 6.2 to 0.2.  By the long break the margin had swelled to 60 points, and although North took the foot off the accelerator to some extent after half time the final margin was nevertheless an emphatic 93 points, 18.13 (121) to 3.10 (28).

For most of a 1919 season that saw the VFA return to its full, pre-war complement of ten clubs, North's supremacy looked set to continue to go unchallenged.  At the end of the minor round the club occupied its customary place at the head of the ladder, having won all 18 matches played, 6 more than semi final opponents Brunswick.  The Magpies, however, who always seemed to reserve their best for meetings with the northerners, inflicted North's first defeat since July 1914 with an ease that was as discomforting as it was unexpected.  Only poor kicking for goal prevented Brunswick's winning margin from being more than 9 points, but at least North Melbourne had the comfort of knowing that, as minor premier, it enjoyed the right of challenge, which it duly implemented against the winner of the final, which rather surprisingly proved not to be Brunswick, but Footscray.  Alas, the form which had so mysteriously and signally deserted North in the semi final against Brunswick continued to prove elusive, and the Tricolours led at every change in securing a 22 point victory.  Again, were it not for some tawdry kicking for goal by the Footscray forwards, the margin could well have been considerably greater.

North Melbourne's era of VFA dominance, and arguably the greatest period in the club's entire history, had come to an end.  Such achievements inevitably generated ambition within the club, and in 1921 an audacious bid to enter the VFL by what might be termed 'the back door' was launched.  Midway through the season, on 30 June, the club announced that it would be disbanding, and seeking to amalgamate with established league power Essendon, which was being forced to abandon its home ground at East Melbourne. The new combination, which would boast the best players from both merger partners, would have its headquarters at the North Melbourne Recreation Ground.  For a time, the proposed deal actually looked likely to gain the rubber stamp of the Essendon committee, but when Essendon procured the use of the Essendon Recreation Reserve for 1922 the agreement collapsed, and the North Melbourne Football Club found itself once again, just as in 1907, in limbo.  With the same resilience it had displayed fifteen years earlier, however, in 1922 the club once again rose, Phoenix-like, from the ashes, this time via an ostensible merger with the Essendon Association side, which after a period of dominance prior to World War One, had fallen on hard times.  In many ways the arrangement was similar to that which would later occur between the Brisbane and Fitzroy Football Clubs, whereby one, immeasurably stronger partner effectively absorbed the other - hence the use of the term 'ostensible'.  Although the Essendon Association team enjoyed nominal representation on the new club's committee (just as Fitzroy would with Brisbane), to all intents and purposes the North Melbourne Football Club which resumed in the VFA in 1922 was the same one as had disbanded the previous year, with the Essendon Association Club in all practical senses defunct. 

Sadly, however, it was a false dawn, for on the whole North Melbourne's first decade in league ranks proved to be a disaster.  In 1926 the side plummeted to the wooden spoon when it managed to avoid defeat just once courtesy of a come from behind round 13 draw at Hawthorn.  Further wooden spoons followed in 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934 and 1935, by which time the club was in abject straits financially, and in dire risk of going under.  In 1936, a deal struck with the Melbourne City Council and the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve committee, and which involved the cricket club as well as the football club, helped ease the financial worries; the arrangement involved the Council taking over liability for the new grandstand, and the Recreation Reserve committee agreed to pay an annual rent of £175 and to release 80% of net revenue to the clubs.

On the field, however, North Melbourne continued to struggle, although the emergence of high calibre players like John Lewis, Charlie Cameron, Charlie Gaudion, Jack Smith, Ted Ellis, Wally Carter, Keith McKenzie and Roy Deller gave the supporters something to cheer, and laid the foundations for the winning culture that was to emerge in due course. 

With no real concessions, either financially or in terms of recruiting, being afforded by the league, it was perhaps no surprise that North Melbourne, Footscray and Hawthorn endured such prolonged periods of mediocrity following their admission to the 'big time'.  In North Melbourne's case, it was a full twenty seasons before the side even managed to record more wins than losses for the year, but this achievement - 10 wins and 8 losses in 1944 - signalled better times just around the corner.  Indeed, the 1945 season could be said to herald the start of North's first genuinely auspicious era since entering the league - its 'coming of age', if you will.  With former Richmond player Bob McCaskill in his second season as coach the side overcame a slow start to earn a club record (in the VFL) 13 home and away wins from 20 matches, good enough to secure 3rd spot on the ladder and a first ever foray into the finals.

Because of the unavailability of the MCG the finals in 1945 were played at Carlton's home ground of Princes Park, a state of affairs that cannot have helped finals novices North who found themselves fronting up to the Blues in the 1st semi final.  As so often seems to happen when an inexperienced side makes its major round debut, the Shinboners were psychologically emasculated by the occasion, and did not really start to play until the last quarter, by which time Carlton was already 10 goals to the good.  In the end, North at least managed to put some respectability into a scoreline which saw the Blues emerge victorious by 26 points, 14.10 (94) to 8.20 (68).   Undoubtedly helped by playing the finals in their own back yard, Carlton went on to become the first VFL club since the inception of the Page-McIntyre finals system in 1931 to win the flag from 4th position on the ladder.

As far as North Melbourne was concerned, the proverbial monkey was off its back in terms of securing the respect of the other eleven league clubs.  No longer could a game against the Shinboners be pencilled in by the opposition as an easy victory, and although the side failed to contest the finals in each of the next three seasons, the days of perennial flirtation with the wooden spoon were well and truly over, at least for the time being.

In 1949, with former champion Wally Carter at the coaching helm, and with a nucleus of young, predominantly untried players, North made another significant breakthrough by not only qualifying for the finals, but doing so as minor premiers.  Unfortunately, the intense atmosphere of finals football once again got the better of the team, and it capitulated in straight sets to Carlton (by 18 points, after leading by a goal at the last change) and Essendon (by 17 points).  Important lessons had been learnt, however, and in 1950 the side, boasting a new nickname of 'the Kangaroos', went as close as it would go to a premiership for a quarter of a century.

In truth, the side could be considered somewhat unfortunate to have been forced to play off in the preliminary final after a remarkable game against minor premiers Essendon in the 2nd semi final the week before.  After Les Foote, on winning the toss, had made the somewhat surprising decision to kick into the breeze in the opening term, North found themselves on a hiding to nothing almost immediately, with Essendon rattling on 5.5 to 0.3 by the 1st change.  However, Foote had either known precisely what he was doing, or else was blessed with amazing good fortune, for thereafter it was the Kangaroos who dominated affairs completely.  By half time, the margin had been reduced to just 7 points, and when North kept pace (3.2 to 3.3) with the Dons while kicking into the breeze in the 3rd quarter the odds of an upset victory appeared high.  Twenty minutes into the final term the Kangaroos took the lead for the first time, but in a frantic conclusion to the game they proved unable to add to their score.  Essendon meanwhile whittled the margin back from 5 points to 4, and then shortly before the siren a behind from John Coleman reduced the deficit to just 3 points.  With thirty seconds left to play, the difference remained just 3 points, with the Dons attacking relentlessly, and North battling grimly to stay in front.  With the ball bouncing harmlessly towards the boundary line North's normally ultra reliable full back Jock McCorkell made a costly and wholly uncharacteristic error of judgement.  Rather than seeing the ball over the line, he elected to keep it 'live' by punching it back into play, whereupon the most dangerous player on the Essendon forward line, John Coleman, pounced on it and delivered an inch perfect pass on to the chest of Ron McEwin, who goaled easily.  There was no time left for North to concoct a response, and the siren went with the scoreboard showing Essendon 11.14 (80) having defeated a gallant, and undeniably unfortunate North Melbourne 11.11 (77).

During the 3rd quarter the wind changed direction but any advantage to the Kangaroos was undermined when heavy rain began to fall, and it was the Dons in fact who assumed control, extending their lead at the final change to 20 points.  North tried everything - not all of it strictly legal - in the last term in an effort to get back into the game, but Essendon proved too accomplished, and ran out comfortable if bruised victors by 38 points, 13.14 (92) to 7.12 (54).  Follower Les Foote, 2nd rover 'Tim' Robb, half back flanker Ted Jarrard and centreman Kevin Dynon were among the more prominent contributors to North's effort.

Although in purely statistical (not to mention business) terms the 1960s proved to be a miserable decade for North (see footnote 13), the team continued both to produce and to recruit players of the highest order although, along with Hawthorn, it remained unable to provide a Brownlow Medallist (see footnote 14).  Apart from the aforementioned Aylett and Teasdale, there was the awkward looking but highly effective and versatile John Ibrahim, strong marking centre half forward Bernie McCarthy, lightweight but brilliant wingman Laurie 'Twinkletoes' Dwyer, dashing defender Peter Steward, and redoubtable key position player John Dugdale.

Despite its consistently poor recent form, North entered the new decade with considerable confidence.  For one thing, it had recruited Barry Cable, arguably the finest rover in Australia at the time, from Perth, and thoughts of his potential partnership with Sam Kekovich, who some judges rated as the most exciting ruck-rover in the game set many a Kangaroo supporter's pulse racing.  Moreover, players like Steward, Dwyer and Dugdale were now at the peak of their effectiveness, and could realistically be expected to propel the club up the ladder from the promising 8th position it had secured in 1969.  

Star Kangas of the '60s [Images are clickable]
Noel Teasdale	Bob Pascoe	Barry Cheatley	John Waddington	John Ibrahim	Barry Goodingham

In theory, all of this sounded fairly persuasive, but before the season had even properly got underway the 'Roos had lost several major pieces of their jig-saw after Kekovich, Dugdale and Dwyer were all sidelined, the first two players with serious injuries, and Dwyer with a debilitating attack of glandular fever.  Both Steward and Cable (4th in the Brownlow voting) performed heroics, but they had too few friends; North finished an emphatic and demoralising last.

With former playing hero Allen Aylett now spearheading the club's administration as a radical and forward thinking president, in 1971 North Melbourne audaciously announced a 'Five Year Plan' to secure a VFL premiership.  Such pronouncements frequently backfire, but Aylett was careful to ensure that the club took drastic and meaningful action with which to back it up.  Every aspect of the club's operation came under intense analysis with a view to trimming the fat and maximising efficiency.  Nevertheless, it is doubtful if such measures alone would have been sufficient to propel the team which won just 1 game in 1972 (earning an inevitable wooden spoon) to a remarkable four consecutive grand finals for two flags between 1974 and 1977.  For all its consistent lack of success, the North Melbourne Football Club was nothing if not opportunistic, and the old saying 'give a dog an even break' was seldom better exemplified than in 1972, when the VFL unintentionally provided North with a luxury ticket to a hitherto only hazily imagined world.

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Footnotes

9.  Brunswick got the ball rolling by tabling a formal application to join the VFL at a meeting of the League held on 22 August.  Thereafter there were applications or pledges of interest from Camberwell and Prahran as well as the three ultimately successful parties.  Return to Main Text

10.  The precise origins of the nickname are uncertain, although the most likely possibility seems to be that it hinged on the fact that many of the club's players tended to work in the meat trade.  Another possibility is that the name was an oblique reference to the Irish sport of hurling, which was extremely popular in the North Melbourne area during the nineteenth century, and which all too often gave rise to highly disagreeable shin injuries.  Return to Main Text

11.  In addition to North's win in round 6, and the Dons' victory in the 2nd semi final, Essendon had defeated North by 8 points at Windy Hill in round 17.  Return to Main Text

12.  In 1995 the AFL, which had taken over responsibility for the governance of the game from the ANFC, decided to award a retrospective medal to Ted Whitten, who had initially lost to Aylett on a countback of votes.  Return to Main Text

13.  The side did not enjoy a single 'winning' season in the 1960s, and never finished higher than 7th on the ladder, besides which it twice ended up with the wooden spoon, as well as twice finishing in 11th place.  On a more positive note, the side was twice successful in claiming the premiership of the VFL's night series, which was a post-season competition contested by the 8 clubs which had failed to qualify for the finals.  In 1965, North beat Carlton 14.13 (97) to 9.3 (57), and the following year it overcame Hawthorn 20.12 (132) to 12.7 (79).  On the business front, the club made a disastrous decision in 1964 to re-locate to Coburg City Oval the following year.  The chief reason for the move was that North wanted to manage its own ground, an arrangement which was never possible at Arden Street.  Players, officials and supporters alike never managed to settle in their new surroundings, and in 1966 the club returned to Arden Street.  Return to Main Text

14.  Noel Teasdale's retrospective 1965 Brownlow, awarded by the AFL as part of its blatant campaign, begun 2½ decades or so later, to re-manufacture the game's history in accordance with its own bloated image of itself, can scarcely be regarded as counting.  Return to Main Text