Back to Norwood Part 1
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Norwood's 1925 Magarey Medallist, Alick Lill. (Click the image to view an enlarged version.) |
Walter
Scott took over coaching responsibilities from Sid White in 1926 and the
club's position at the forefront of South Australian football was maintained.
With Scott himself at the peak of his playing prowess (see
footnote 13), aided and abetted by players of the ilk of centreman Alick
Lill (123 games and three club champion awards between 1923 and 1931, plus the 1925 Magarey
Medal) and resolute full back Syd Ackland (133 games in ten seasons)
the side enjoyed a 61% success rate over the next five seasons, playing off for
the premiership on two occasions. The 1928 season brought a magnificent 8.13 (61) to 3.2 (20) semi final win over minor premiers Port Adelaide but when
the pressure intensified a fortnight later in the challenge final the Redlegs, inexplicably,
were found wanting. A year later, however, it was Norwood's turn to
benefit from the challenge system when it thrashed the Magpies 16.14 (110) to
10.9 (69) before 35,504 spectators in the premiership decider having earlier
succumbed by just 2 points to West Adelaide in a semi final.
The image of Norwood as a stable, family club does not withstand much scrutiny when one examines its record during the 1930s. During the ten year period between 1931 and 1940 the club used no fewer than ten different coaches, including four in a single season in 1935. Despite this, its on field record was not bad: it qualified for the finals in all bar two seasons, and while there were no further premierships, and indeed only one grand final appearance (see footnote 14), the side was almost always competitive. Among the champion players to don the navy blue and red during this era were centreman Albert 'Pongo' Sawley, the McCallum brothers -1936 Magarey Medallist Bill (who played all over the ground during his eleven season league career, but won the Medal as a centreman) and ruckman Perc, and forwards Tom Warhurst and Bruce Schultz, the latter of whom, in 1941, became the first ever Norwood player to register 100 goals in a season. |
Schultz's emergence, and the arrival at the Parade in 1940 of a young rover from Maitland by the name of Jack Oatey, coincided with something of a resurrection in Norwood's fortunes. Jack Oatey is probably best remembered for his achievements as a coach but he was also a footballer of the highest order, polished, purposeful and precise. He won Norwood's best and fairest award in his debut season, and repeated the achievement the following year when he was also runner-up (by 3 votes) to Glenelg's Marcus Boyall in the Magarey Medal.
| After finishing 4th in 1940
Norwood won the minor premiership in 1941 and was warmly favoured for the flag,
but after putting in a calamitous display against Sturt
in the 2nd semi final (it lost by 71 points) its backers fell away like
dead fleas off a horse's back. A 25 point preliminary final defeat of West
Adelaide restored some confidence but it would be fair to suggest that most of
the 30,742 spectators who turned up at the Adelaide Oval for the grand final
expected to witness a Double Blue triumph. The Redlegs, though, had
learned from the debacle of a fortnight previously and, by raising both their
intensity and skill levels, managed to make their Sturt opponents look subdued,
vacillating, and intermittently inept. By three quarter time Norwood had
the game, and the flag, in their keeping, having established a lead of 11.10
(76) to 5.9 (39), and although the Double Blues managed 5.2 to 3.6 in the final
term the only effect this had was to give the final scoreline a semblance of respectability.
At the final siren the scoreboard read Norwood 14.16 (100) to Sturt 10.11 (71); for the first
time in twelve seasons the premiership pennant would be unfurled at the Parade.
Norwood would retain its position as South Australia's premier football club for another three seasons, but only because the SANFL's administration felt impelled, by the exigencies of war, to place its full scale senior competition into recess. Between 1942 and 1944 a restricted competition took place which involved the eight league clubs pairing off on broadly geographical lines. Norwood joined forces with North Adelaide during this period and the Norwood-North Adelaide combination, decked out in the red and white playing uniforms of the northerners, proved to be the most successful of the four temporary partnerships, with premierships in 1943 and 1944. On this basis, and taking into account the comparatively weak pre- and post-war showings of North Adelaide, a reasonably strong case could be concocted for Norwood being the SANFL club most injuriously affected by the intervention of war. Not that such facile conjecture affords anything more than the most miniscule consolation to the club's supporters. |
Renowned Norwood sharpshooter Bruce Schultz, who all told booted 689 goals for the Redlegs in 124 games at an average of 5.4 goals per game. |
Jack Oatey, having fine tuned his tactical knowledge during a wartime stint with South Melbourne in the VFL, was appointed Norwood's captain-coach in 1945. Aged just twenty-four, Oatey was not greeted with universal acclaim by his team mates, and indeed throughout his coaching tenure at the Parade there were some who persisted in viewing him with distrust. In part this was because Oatey was an immensely self-confident, forthright young man who was constitutionally antipathetic to the 'politics of consensus' by means of which most Australian football clubs of the time tended to operate. Paradoxically, this same forthrightness, when applied to the coaching sphere, was one of Oatey's strengths, and a primary reason for his success.
After spending his first season, during which Norwood finished 3rd, tightening his autocratic grip on team affairs, Oatey in 1946 spearheaded his charges to an emphatically memorable premiership. The team lost only 3 times all season, and in both the 2nd semi final and grand final was much too strong for perennial arch rivals and reigning premiers, Port Adelaide. On grand final day, with a record crowd of 53,473 in attendance, the Redlegs never remotely looked in any danger after notching 4 opening term goals to nil. With centreman Blackmore, centre half back Holliday, 5 goal ruckman Dalwood, and the irrepressible Oatey himself all prominent Norwood eventually won by 28 points, 13.14 (92) to 9.10 (64).
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Norwood full back Ron Reimann who played 156 games for the Redlegs between 1948 and 1957, besides winning the club's 1956 best and fairest award. |
As far as most folk at the
Parade were concerned the 1947 season ought to have brought successive flags.
Certainly the Redlegs were by some measure the most impressive team during the
minor round, which they ended with a 15-2 record, 2 wins ahead of Port Adelaide,
and 5 clear of both Sturt and West
Adelaide. A 3 point 2nd semi final defeat of the Magpies was hard
work, but it engendered that all important week's rest, and did nothing to
diminish Norwood's favouritism in most people's eyes. Surprisingly,
however, it was not Port Adelaide which qualified to meet the Redlegs in the
grand final a fortnight later, but the largely unheralded West Adelaide, which
had not participated in the ultimate game of the season for twenty years. Having
already achieved finals wins over Sturt (by 59 points) and Port (by 38 points)
the westerners felt they had nothing to fear, and on a rain-soaked afternoon
they seized the initiative from the start and never allowed
their more highly feted opponents leeway to respond. At the final siren the
scoreboard showed West victorious by a margin of 5 straight goals, 10.15
(75) to 5.15 (45), and while no one at Norwood begrudged their opponents victory
(at least not openly), there was a universal feeling that this was one flag which ought never
to have been let slip. Jack Oatey in particular did not react well.
"There was no worse company than Jack after we'd lost a grand final,"
observed Redlegs centreman Sam Gallagher, "and no better when we won."
(See footnote 15)
Oatey was good company twelve months later after the Redlegs overwhelmed West Torrens by 57 points in the 1948 grand final, thereby avenging a 3 point 2nd semi final reversal and 'coming of age' by securing the twenty-first premiership in their history. Norwood led by 4 goals at quarter time only for Torrens to mount a strong, if somewhat wayward, comeback in the 2nd term to move within 9 points at the long break. It looked to be anybody's game but Oatey rallied his charges during the half time interval and the 2nd half brought almost constant one way traffic with Norwood adding 10.10 to 3.7 to win with consummate ease. Centre half forward Ron Williams, who booted 4 goals, was most people's selection as best afield in an even team display by the Redlegs. |
Torrens achieved a measure of revenge by ousting Norwood from premiership contention at the preliminary final stage the following year but 1950 brought the inevitable Oatey backlash inspiring the Redlegs to pole position prior to the finals. One of the SANFL's perennial underachievers up to that point in the shape of Glenelg had provided Norwood with its sternest challenge for most of the season, ultimately finishing just 2 points adrift of the Redlegs in 2nd spot. Then, in the 2nd semi final, with the stakes at their highest for the season, it looked for long periods as though the Tigers were going to advance straight to the grand final at Norwood's expense. Ultimately, however, it was the Redlegs' greater experience which told as they edged home - scarcely deservedly according to many in the media - by 5 points.
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Norwood and South Australian all time great, 'Big Bill' Wedding. |
A fortnight later
a completely different scenario unfolded as Norwood had a goal on the board
within 10 seconds of the start and thereafter there was only one team in
it. With full back Ron Reimann keeping Glenelg's
century goalkicker Colin Churchett to just 1.3 for the afternoon the Bays'
major avenue to goal was blocked off, and elsewhere on the ground
players like Tilbrook, Olds, Oatey, Blackmore and Marriott were in
iridescent touch. By quarter time Norwood led 7.5 to 2.2 and
thereafter it was only a question of how great the Redlegs' eventual
margin of victory would be. In the end it was 47 points, but the
really important statistic was that this was yet another premiership to
add to the club's already impressive record.
Few people leaving the Adelaide Oval late that grand final afternoon could conceivably have guessed that they had just witnessed Norwood's last successful tilt at the premiership for a quarter of a century. Not that the demise was a precipitous one. Over the course of the next decade Norwood failed on only two occasions to contest the finals, and went within a game of the flag in 1952, 1955, 1957 and 1960. Overall, the side's success rate of 53% was bettered only by Port Adelaide (which won no fewer than seven of the ten premierships on offer), and West Adelaide. However, increasingly there was a feeling that the side lacked the desperation, toughness and ferocity which had always been synonymous with flag success in Victoria, and which were becoming increasingly vital ingredients in South Australia as well. In hindsight, it is also feasible to suggest that Jack Oatey's departure at the end of the 1956 season represented a body blow from which the club would need a good deal of time to recover. Oatey went to West Adelaide, where he achieved much (though not, alas, a premiership) with limited resources, and thence to Sturt where he eked out a reputation as arguably the greatest South Australian coach of the twentieth century. |
The 1960s would witness a further decline, and indeed would constitute arguably the club's most inauspicious era. In the ten year period between 1961 and 1970 the Redlegs contested just one grand final, and were September protagonists on only two other occasions. In 1968 they ended up last in what by this stage was a ten team competition, arguably the club's most ignominious return in more than 120 seasons of League and Association football.
| That said, the Parade was still home to
many prodigious talents. Both ruckman John Marriott (1951) and defender
Ron Kneebone (1966) won Magarey
Medals, while high-flying Graham Molloy became, in 1969, the first South
Australian state representative to land a Tassie
Medal. Other notable players to don the navy and red included 1961 All
Australian ruckman 'Big Bill' Wedding, who won the club champion award five times in succession, ebullient rover Haydn Bunton
junior,
livewire wingman and triple club best and fairest Doug Olds, the elegant and
versatile Peter Aish (father of 1981 Magarey Medallist, Michael), former
Collingwood goalsneak Ian Brewer, highly skilled but often underrated wingmen
Denis Modra and Peter Vertudaches, and Robert Oatey who, like his father,
was a tenacious and highly skilled rover. Even in the club's darkest hours
during the late 1960s crowds still flocked to watch Norwood in action; indeed,
the club's record verifiable crowd of 20,280 was set in 1971 (see
footnote 16), which would prove to be the sixth season in succession that the
Redlegs failed to contest the finals series.
The following season, however, brought the first step out of the mire. Norwood qualified for the finals in 4th place, and although the 1st semi final against Central District was lost, it would be another twenty seasons before the Redlegs again failed to participate in the major round. During that twenty year period only Port Adelaide would win more premierships and enjoy a better overall success rate. |
The action captured in the above photograph epitomises the team spirit at Norwood as Bob Oatey's perfect shepherd allows teammate Bob Kite ample time to handball to Brian Sawley. (Click the image to view an enlarged version.) |
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13. Scott won the Norwood best and fairest award in 1926, 1928 and 1930 (taking his number of wins overall to six) and was a virtual ever present on the half back line of South Australia's interstate representative teams for whom he made an all time record 39 appearances between 1920 and 1932. Return to Main Text
14. In 1933 Norwood lost the grand final by 23 points against West Torrens. Return to Main Text
15. Quoted in Jack Oatey: Coach of a Lifetime, page 10. Return to Main Text
16. On 18 May 1955 a crowd estimated to be in the region of 21,000 people attended Norwood's home game against Sturt, but this was before the days of precise counting of attendances at suburban SANFL ovals. Return to Main Text
