Vic Team of the Century

VICTORIAN TEAM OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Interchange Bench

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Interchange - Reg Hickey (Geelong)

Arguably Geelong's most famous son, Reg Hickey served the club he loved with distinction as both player and coach over a total of 26 seasons.

As a player Hickey was a tough, highly skilled and always scrupulously fair defender who twice won Geelong's best and fairest award and was a key figure in the Cats' 1932 and 1937 premiership sides, the latter as captain-coach. A VFL representative on 18 occasions Hickey was one of the most revered figures in Victorian football during his playing career, and 11 seasons as non-playing coach of Geelong only served to reinforce that reputation as he presided over the Cats' greatest ever era, including back to back flags in 1951-2.

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Interchange - Leigh Matthews (Hawthorn)

Popularly referred to as 'Lethal' there was nothing delicate or fancy about the style of Hawthorn champion Leigh Matthews. However, unlike in 'sports' like gymnastics, diving and synchronised swimming, Australian football scores do not derive in any directly assessable way from perceived aesthetic merit. Efficiency and expediency are paramount in Australian football, and Leigh Matthews possessed both attributes in abundance.

Which is only to affirm that, in Australian football terms, he was a highly skilful player. In 332 VFL games over 17 seasons with the Hawks he was 8 times adjudged his club's fairest and most brilliant player - quite an awesome accolade when you consider that his career coincided with arguably Hawthorn's greatest ever era. He also topped the club goalkicking list on no fewer than 6 occasions in amassing a career total of 915 goals (and, in the process, highlighting another reason for the aptness of the 'Lethal' epithet).

Matthews' failure to secure Victorian football's highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal, is perhaps not too surprising given his relentlessly vigorous style of play, but participation in the Hawthorn premiership sides of 1971, 1976, 1978 and 1983 will no doubt have afforded more than adequate compensation (if such were needed).

Further details on Matthews' VFL career can be found in the entry on Hawthorn.

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Interchange - Frank Johnson (Port Melbourne & South Melbourne)

Frank Johnson holds the distinction of being the only VFA representative player to achieve selection in two All Australian teams. Johnson was selected after the 1953 Adelaide and 1956 Perth Carnivals. He later also represented the VFL with distinction.

Adjudged Port Melbourne's best and fairest player on a record 5 occasions the high leaping Johnson was also a Liston Trophy winner in 1952. He played in 8 consecutive VFA grand finals with the Borough, albeit for just one win. His success continued when, in 1960 at the age of 29, he moved to South Melbourne and immediately won that club's best and fairest award also, edging out the great Bob Skilton in the process.

Standing just 185cm in height Frank Johnson was by no means the tallest knock ruckman going around but he more than compensated for this with his excellent judgement, tremendous spring, and all round athletic prowess.

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Interchange - Harry Cumberland (Melbourne, St Kilda, Sturt)

Playing at a time when football, paradoxically, had a much more universalist flavour than has latterly become the case, the recent emergence of a nominally 'national' competition notwithstanding, Harry Vivian Cumberland epitomised the spirit of his era by eking out an auspicious 3 decade football career in 3 Australian states plus New Zealand. When he finally retired from top level football in 1920 he was, at 43 years of age, the oldest player ever to have appeared in the VFL. He was also one of the best.

That said, his greatest achievements came not in Victoria but in South Australia where, during a 3 season 39 game career with Sturt as one of 'Dempsey's immigrants', he won the 1911 Magarey Medal and was a member that same year of his adopted state's victorious carnival team.

Born in Toorak, Victoria, Cumberland's early senior football was played across the Bass Strait in Tasmania where he soon caught the eye with his skill, endurance and tremendous marking ability. Between 1898 and 1901 he played 50 games for Melbourne before going on to the first of 4 separate stints with St Kilda, where all told he participated in a total of 126 premiership matches, including the losing 1913 challenge final against Fitzroy. On two occasions, in 1904 and 1913, he was adjudged the 'Outstanding Footballer of the Year' by Melbourne's leading football writers. Interspersed between his stints at St Kilda were the periods in New Zealand and South Australia previously alluded to plus time spent abroad on service duty during World War One.

Just 7 years after retiring as a player Cumberland died tragically in a motor cycle accident.

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Interchange - Len Fitzgerald (Collingwood & Sturt)

The Australian football landscape of half a century ago was considerably different to that of today. In particular, there was no equivalent of the Australian Football League. While the AFL has in recent years been systematically manufacturing a 'history' for itself which derives from an imaginary contiguity with the old suburban VFL the truth is that, prior to the re-location of South Melbourne to Sydney in 1982, the VFL was a state competition pure and simple. Granted, it was by some measure the strongest state competition in Australia, and this strength had tended to magnify as more and more elite non-Victorian players entered the League. However, whereas nowadays it would be reasonable to suggest that nigh on 100% of the very best footballers in Australia ply their trade in the AFL, this was very far from being the case in the old, suburban VFL.

A classic case in point is Len Fitzgerald. His move from Victoria Park to Unley in 1951 after 96 games with Collingwood was indicative of the fact that, even to an elite player at what was then Australia's most illustrious sporting club, football was not the prime controlling influence in life. Football players did not depend for their livelihood on the game and so when Sturt managed to secure more lucrative employment for Fitzgerald than the Magpies had been able to arrange for him in Melbourne the result was that the balance of football power between South Australia and Victoria shifted ever so slightly in favour of the former.

If Len Fitzgerald had been a prominent player at Collingwood he soon developed into a veritable champion with the Double Blues. After a relatively slow start to his SANFL career 'Fitzie' - who took over the Sturt coaching reins midway through his debut season - gradually went from strength to strength. In 1952 he won every media award going, together with Sturt's club champion award and the first of his 3 Magarey Medals. The 1953 season brought interstate selection for South Australia at the Adelaide carnival, followed by selection in the inaugural All Australian team. The second Magarey Medal followed in 1954 but Fitzgerald declared himself more concerned by Sturt's late season loss to wooden spoon side Glenelg which cost the Double Blues a place in the finals.

Matters were rectified somewhat in 1955 as Sturt reached the preliminary final but the club's failure to honour a verbal pledge to bestow a £50 bonus upon its coach induced Fitzgerald to start an immediate search for pastures new.

The next 3 seasons saw Fitzgerald starring for and coaching Benalla in the Ovens and Murray League but he returned to Sturt purely as a player in 1959 and won another Magarey as the Double Blues reached the finals for the first time since his departure.

Nagging injuries blighted Fitzgerald's final couple of seasons in League football but nothing should mar the memory of a supremely adaptable footballer with lightning reflexes, excellent ball handling skills and, perhaps above all else, an awesome strength which was exhibited both in body on body clashes with opponents as well as when taking seemingly miraculous marks in pack situations.

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Interchange - Paul Salmon (Essendon & Hawthorn)

There have been taller players than 205cm ruckman/forward Paul Salmon (though not too many) but arguably none who have managed to use extreme height to such potent effect, whether pursuing the ball around the field in the traditional role of knock ruckman, or providing teammates up field with an imposing marking target in he goal square.

A highly accomplished junior player, Salmon was a key member of Victoria's 1981 Teal Cup winning side, claiming the Larke Medal for fairest and best in the competition.

During the initial phase of his his senior career, Salmon was Essendon's leading goalkicker on 7 occasions as well as forming a formidable ruck partnership with Simon Madden. A regular Big V representative (14 appearances) he won the Tassie Medal at the 1988 Bicentennial Carnival.

On moving to Hawthorn in 1996 after 209 games and 509 goals for the Bombers Salmon seemingly gained a new lease of life and was instrumental in the Hawks' return to prominence after a number of lean years. He won his first ever club best and fairest award after his first season at Hawthorn and repeated the feat the following year. He also gained selection in the 1997 AFL All Australian team exactly a decade after the first of his two selections as an old style All Australian.

Salmon retired at the end of the 2000 season after 285 senior games only to be tempted out of retirement a year later by his old mentor Kevin Sheedy who was anxious to bolster Essendon's big man strength. After one last season in the 'big time', however, Salmon finally decided to hang up his boots for good.

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