Bill Eason
Jock McHale
Kevin Bartlett
Norm Ware
John Longmire
Warren Tredrea
by Leonard Colquhoun
|
Bill Eason |
Jock McHale |
Kevin Bartlett |
Norm Ware |
John Longmire |
Warren Tredrea |
In
round 21 this 110th V/AFL season, barring injury or loss of form, Port
Adelaide’s Warren Tredrea was to have completed an AFL picture: with
Fremantle’s Shane Parker having made 200 premiership games in 2005,
Tredrea’s 200th would have ensured that Port Adelaide was no longer the only
V/AFL club with no 200-gamers, discounting University, whose VFL membership
spanned only the seven seasons 1908-14. Tredrea’s
pre-season injury makes this now unlikely for this season. (Note: Port has up to
seven foundation players on track for 200 games by season 2007.)
200
one-club premiership games is challenging aspiration and a defining benchmark.
It means that such a player is, above all else, consistently worth his place. He
may not be a star, he may not take a speccie a week nor lay on a bone-crunching
shirtfront every game, nor kick the goal-of-the-round, but his club has found it
in its interests to pick him for almost every round over a ten-season period or
longer.
It’s
easier now to attain this benchmark, and has been since 1970, for one simple
numerical reason: 22 H&A games a season, instead of only 17 (1898-1907) or
18 (most years up to 1967). In the League’s first four calendar decades, 1897
to 1939, only 33 players managed it. Counted
by the years of their first seasons, there were seven whose careers began in the
new competition’s 13-season first ‘decade’,1897-1909, only two who began
in the 1910s -
a historical disaster called the Great War was a significant factor here
- and twelve each in the 1920s and
the1930s. Significantly, almost a
quarter -
eight of them -
wore the Black ‘n’ White of the [then] Mighty Magpies.
Now, at last count, there are 267. (Note: this is quite distinct from the
official AFL “200 Club”, the criteria for which include non-premiership
games such as pre-season and International Rules matches.)
Two
other important factors in reaching this accomplishment are mutual trust,
respect and loyalty between club and player, and a club history of premiership
success, or, at least, finals participation. It is not a surprise, therefore,
that, in the AFL era, West Coast and Brisbane (see footnote 1) already have ten
and eight respectively in their 19 seasons to date (whereas the Crows have only
six in their 15). By way of contrast, the three1925 expansion clubs, Footscray,
Hawthorn and
Further evidence of success breeding loyalty lies in the figures for the comparative club totals for 200-gamers. Among the Founding Eight clubs, with more than 100 (see footnote 2) premiership seasons each, the correlation is quite clear: Carlton -64 finals series, 16 flags, 29 200-gamers; Essendon - 61 finals series, 16 flags, 24 200-gamers; Collingwood - 73 finals series, 14 flags, 21 200-gamers, and Geelong - 48 finals series (but only six flags) with 22 200-gamers.
By way of contrast,
look at St Kilda’s and
Hawthorn’s history
illustrates both finals failure and success. For its first 30 seasons, 1925 to
1954, with not even one final (It’s best finish was 5th in 1943), it had just
the one 200-gamer. Its next three 200-gamers coincided with the transition era
of its first three finals, 1957, 1961 and 1963. Then, from the late 1960s,
twenty 200-gamers played for the Mighty Hawks in a period of sustained success
that was the envy of every other VFL club. In the years 1979 to 1983, Hawthorn,
in hindsight (see footnote 3), had 12 or 13 on their lists every season, a
wealth of experience unmatched by any similar period at any other club, although
There are also interesting differences among the clubs in the spread of 200-gamers.
Some, like Hawthorn’s mentioned above, are concentrated in specific, especially recent eras: Carlton and Geelong – the 1970s and the late 1980s to recently; Essendon – from the late 1970s to now; the Bulldogs just recently; North Melbourne – the early 1970s to the present; and Richmond – the 1970s and 80s. Other clubs have theirs more evenly spread, with Fitzroy, Melbourne and Collingwood being the mostly even-spaced of all, with only five or six on the lists in any season.
Here are the totals for
the long-standing clubs, with premiership players in ( ):
So, who was the player who has the honour of first beginning a career of 200 premiership games at one club?
He is W (Bill) Eason,
Geelong, 1902-15, 220 games, recorded in Russell Holmesby and Jim Main’s The
Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers [5th edition] as “the first Geelong player to
notch 200 senior games in the VFL (in the fifteenth round of 1914)”.
Bill should be honoured far beyond the confines of the extended
In 1903, the VFL’s seventh season, there began the extraordinary career of the boy from Botany Bay, James F McHale, known to even the most Magpie-phobic as “Jock”: 261 games as player from 1903 to 1920 (except 1919), and 714 as coach for 39 seasons 1912-1939 - and even with such accomplishments and to the eternal hostility of Magpie fans, he still didn’t make the V-AFL’s Team of the Century!
Less well-known (except in Shinboner circles) would be John Blakey, whose 224 games for North (including two premierships) took only ten seasons, 1993-2002, at an average of 22½ games a season - a paragon of consistency if ever there was one. Not forgetting Hawthorn’s record-holder Michael Tuck, at 21.3 games a year over a twenty-season period: he and Tiger Kevin Bartlett each had not one but two 200-game careers.
Some tallies of exactly
200 games -
they include those of Carlton’s M Sexton, Essendon’s G Hawker,
Bulldog N Ware, Geelong’s R Neal and Roo
J Longmire -
hint that clubs saw fit to honour club stalwarts with a bit of
“positive discrimination”. Surely few would naysay this - Richmond’s appearance of dumping Matthew Rogers to the VFL instead
of playing him for the four games he needed in 2004 for his 200 had a bad look
to outsiders. Depriving
And the likely latest members of this worthy group, in season 2006?
Richmond’s Darren Gaspar, North’s Brent Harvey and St Kilda’s Andrew Thompson each begin the season on 194 games - we wish them luck, and are sure no-one would wish on them the final one-club career tally of such fine players as Richmond’s B McCormack, Footscray’s B Royal, and Geelong’s S Hocking and B Sanderson (see footnote 6):199 games (see footnote 7).
But it’s 199 more
games than I played, or was ever likely to.
Which goes for 99.99% of us footyheads.
Note: the writer sees no reason to cringe to foreign usages of the word “football”.
Where now?
or
1.
2.
Total seasons for each of the Founding Eight vary because some clubs were in
recess in some of the Great War years 1914-1918, and
3.
Of course, it was only in the latter parts of their careers that
these players were literally “200-gamers”. Back
4.
Carlton’s 100% premiership-winning 200-gamers is unique; Lance
Whitnall’s possible 200th late this season may, given the Blues’
post-Elliott difficulties, become the first exception to this. Back
5.
Strangely, Fitzroy selected only two players from this era of success in its
Team of the Century.
6.
Sanderson’s final AFL tally was 209 games including ten with other clubs
7. At the time of writing (on the eve of season 2006) there were 27 players who had made it to the 190s for their clubs; Bulldog Royal must have one of football’s hardest of “hard luck” stories - he broke his ankle in what was scheduled to be his second last game. Back