These are my recollections of the
origins of Tabilk Junior Football Club and it’s first year as a club. I don’t
wish to overstate my role but I was there at the start and know a few things
that others may not.
I first joined St Mary’s Junior Football Club
in 1996 and was on their Committee from
1998 onwards. The discussion about forming a new Club often arose. The League
wasn’t interested in forming new clubs and St Mary’s were of the opinion that
if a new club was to be created, it would come from them.
I remember at the end of the 2000 season St
Mary’s feeling pleased that they had won two premierships, as they often did. I
pointed out to them that the league was too small because it only had 5 teams
and the age groups were all wrong.
Everyone agreed that we needed more clubs, not
one but at least two. Nagambie was often discussed as they had previously been
a part of the League. At the end of 2000 the St Mary’s opinion was that they
were enough players in Nagambie but not enough parents to make it work.
The St Mary’s committee was frustrated but on
the look out for opportunities. St Mary’s played a home game each year against
Euroa at Avenel and against Heathcote at Nagambie in appreciation of the
services provided by the boys from those towns who played for St Mary’s.
On June 10, 2001 St Mary’s was playing host
to Euroa at Avenel. I remember having a discussion with St Mary’s President
Bernie Hede and Martin Grimwade. Martin was saying that the need for a new club
was quite urgent and that the current setup was unsatisfactory.
It was at this point that I decided to do
something about it and that when I returned home I would ring Neil Muir (absent
that day) to try to get things moving. In my view Martin Grimwade said the
right thing at the right time and that moment was when Tabilk JFC was
conceived.
I spoke to Neil Muir who was very keen on the
idea. We agreed that he would organize the Nagambie parents, I would organize the Avenel parents
and get St Mary’s to chair the meeting. Neil asked what we should call the
Club. I suggested Tabilk which he thought was a good idea. Jokingly I said “or
Mangalore”. He didn’t think that was a very good idea. We agreed that Tabilk
was in the middle of the two towns with neither town being able to claim ownership.
The following week St Mary’s played Seymour at King’s Park
and beat them easily in all Grades. I remember asking Jenny Wheeler what she
thought about starting a new club, possibly at Avenel or Nagambie. She looked
at me and said “if only”. The football was more one sided than it is now and it
was doing no one any good to have huge wins or in Seymour’s case huge losses.
Soon after St Mary’s played Broadford at
Broadford and that is when the discussion with Terry O’Dwyer came about. Terry
wasn’t aware of the momentum building. We could both see glaring weaknesses in
the way St Mary’s operated – too many boys and little opportunity for out of
towners, unless you were outstanding.
This is where a lot of the philosophy of Tabilk JFC came from. If we were
to build a new Club we would improve the old version (St Mary’s)
St Mary’s
Under 15 coach Peter O’Keefe and myself attended an Avenel FC committee meeting
to try to muster club support. President Trevor Canobie was absent so Graeme
Fellows was in the chair. My recollection of that meeting was while Ian Shiner
was very supportive, most of the Committee thought that while it was a good
idea, they didn’t want to create any more work for themselves. Peter O’Keefe
and myself had some trouble convincing them that the parents would run the
junior club, all we wanted from them was to provide facilities.
My initial contact at Avenel was Jenny
Wheeler. She soon decided that this was men’s business, so from then on my liaison
was with Jeff Wheeler. There were flyers put up around Avenel to gauge interest
to see if Avenel could do it on its own. There wasn’t enough support.
The meeting
of parents eventuated at the end of the football season. St Mary’s President Bernie Hede chaired the meeting. From
memory there were about a dozen people there, enough to run a club. This was an
important turning point because for the first time it was apparent the there
was enough parental support to make a new club work.
Tabilk JFC was formed on October 11, 2001.
There was an evening meeting held at Nagambie Recreation Reserve and chaired by
League President Shawn Woods.
Parents in attendance that night were David
Fitzgibbon, Greg Heathcote, Brian Hutcheson, Warrick Hutton, Tracy Lang, Wayne
Le Cerf, Bryan Milne, Neil Muir, Bill O’Connor, Michael O’Connor, Terry
O’Dwyer, Adrian Scopel, Alan Sykes,
Alan Tranter, Brian Treloar, David Williams and Jeff Wheeler. Ian Shiner was
also in attendance. A steering committee was formed consisting of D Fitzgibbon,
A Sykes, N Muir, B O’Connor, D Williams, J Wheeler, W Le Cerf, T O’Dwyer, A Tranter and W Hutton.
At the following meeting David Fitzgibbon was
elected President, Bill O’Connor was Secretary and Terry O’Dwyer was Treasurer.
The Club was on it’s way. David would serve two years as President, Bill three
years as Secretary and Terry four years as Treasurer. Terry was outstanding as
a fundraiser. He really went on the front foot asking sponsors to get involved
and showing great imagination as to what the club could do to raise funds.
David as President was pretty laid back, providing stability and guidance as to
what sort of club Tabilk was to be.
St Mary’s didn’t have to do anything from then
on nor did the League. They were very fortunate that it all just happened and
there was no further input required from them. St Mary’s lost their Secretary
(Bill O’Connor) who was the only parent with experience of running a club. To
the League’s credit, they saw fit to donate $1,000 to Tabilk as the 2002 season approached. St Mary’s also donated
$700 but Tabilk returned it when Howard Lack donated $5,000, an unbelievably
generous gift.
St Mary’s lost the following players – John
O’Dwyer, Andrew Green, Anthony Haysom, Grant Hateley, Trent Muir, Nick Hart,
Dennis Saunders, Troy Schwab, Brent Le Cerf, Jackson Hutton, Tyrone Muir, David
Moran, Dominic O’Connor, Emmett O’Connor, Joseph O’Connor, Seamus Traynor,
Jonathon Guerra, John Green, David Aiken, Danny Haysom and Tom O’Connor.
Seymour JFC lost the following players –
Jackson Wheeler, Lachlan Woods, Chris Lemke, Ben Ure and Vince D’Andrea
The 2002 coaches were John Hilton – Under 15,
Wayne Le Cerf – Under 13 and Jeff Wheeler – Under 11.
The launch of Tabilk JFC was on April 14,
2002. By request Tabilk played St Mary’s, fitting in that Tabilk came mainly
out of St Mary’s. The day was launched by former Essendon star Ian Shelton. It
was an exciting day for all, one that the committee had been planning all
summer. A lot of people not connected with the club were present. Don Simpson’s
loud speakers played the team songs as each team ran on to the field and the
Tabilk boys looked very impressive in their brand new Nike jumpers, generously
donated by Carlton Football Club.
Apart from the above mentioned parents, others
who made important contribution in 2002 were Russell Haysom and Alan Tranter –
Assistant Coach’s, John Thompson (Avenel) and Tracy Lang (Nagambie) – canteen,
Garry Green – team manager, Sue Hutcheson
- trainer, Brian Hutcheson – team manager, John Plant - trainer, Shane Lemke -
trainer, Charlie Miller - umpire, James Kealy - umpire, Ken Comi – goal umpire,
Eddie Shields - runner, Richard Mensfeld - timekeeper, Brad Bruce – goal umpire,
Carl Ure – assistant coach, Geoff Hateley - runner, Mary Nolan, Greg McGowan,
Dean Saunders, Russell Bell. Sue Hutcheson
was the backbone of the trainer’s arm of the club of several years.
In the first year the Under 13 side did well,
were the best side all year but fell away in the Finals. The Under 11 and Under
15 sides really struggled. The Under 11 side was one of complete beginners.
Anthony Haysom and Trent Muir were the only Under 11’s who had played football
previously. All other sides had half a side who had played the previous year.
Jeff Wheeler was tolerant and encouraging in coaching the Under 11 side.
Well into the season they had their first
win. The boys were ecstatic and mothers were crying. (Dads were proud). It was
worth being in the rooms to hear the squeaky little voices sing the team song. Adrian Scopel had to hold up the sign because the
boys didn’t know the words. Young Mark Hutcheson was absent and furious that he
missed the big win. For the record, the first goal kicked for Tabilk JFC was by
Alex Fitzgibbon (coincidently Alex is the son of 2002/3 President David
Fitzgibbon)
Also well
into the season the Under 15 side enjoyed their first win against Heathcote.
They has been going close against a few sides and going into time on in the
last term, ruckman Tom O’Connor drifted down to take a big mark at the tip of
the goal square. He goaled and we thought we had one a Premiership.
The following week the Under 15 side won
again by beating their masters St Mary’s, and again after the siren. This was
particularly satisfying as both sides knew each other well and St Mary’s has
taken to calling Tabilk “St Mary’s
seconds”.
I remember leaning against the boundary fence
with Neil Muir, both thinking that this is all right, that we’ve created
something worthwhile.
This is my version of what happened up to
2002.Others might like to contribute from then onwards.
Bill O’Connor.
Re foundation of
Tabilk JFC
You may have to
get a few other peoples recollections and collate them to make a narrative.
Anyway, my memory
of the Tabilk story is this.
In 2001 there was
about 15 or so boys from Avenel and Nagambie playing for Seymour Teams in the
Seymour Junior District Football League. A couple of the teams had upwards of
35 boys vying for a game. Often because the Nagambie and Avenel kids
hadn’t gone to primary school in Seymour,
there football ability was “unknown” and as a consequence, particularly in the
lower levels, they were relegated to the interchange bench. There was a the odd
occasion where the team may be winning by 20 goals and a couple of interchange
kids had their first run for the day in the last
10 minutes and
were dispatched to the back pocket to twiddle their thumbs. I remember
speaking to Bill O’Connor, who was secretary of St Mary’s Junior Football Club,
and saying kids will never enjoy footy or learn the skills if they
spend most of match day sitting on the pine. Bill’s response was “why
don’t we start a new club”.
Sometime after
the conclusion of the 2001 season, there was a meeting to discuss the formation
of a combined Avenel and Nagambie team – I wasn’t at the initial meeting, so
you would have to ask Bill O’Connor about who organised that. I was at the
second meeting, held at Nagambie, where the President of the Seymour and
District Junior Football League addressed the meeting and he was very
encouraging. Around about this time, Neil Muir had a word with Roy Williams,
who was managing “Chatsworth
Park” Tabilk. At that
time, the property was run by Amanda Elliott, whose husband, John was President
of Carlton Football Club. Neil suggested that Roy
ask John if Carlton
would donate some footy jumpers. Mr Elliott acquiesced and Carlton Football
Club sent 75 top quality Nike Football jumpers. It was never really considered
to call the new club Avenel/Nagambie or an amalgam of the two names – it was
more or less confirmed at the next meeting that we would call the new club the
Tabilk Blues – someone suggested why Tabilk, and not Mangalore. The response
was if someone from Mangalore had given us $7500 worth of jumpers, maybe we
would have considered it. Tabilk lies between Avenel and Nagambie and it seemed
a good compromise name. Interestingly, the one footballer to attend Tabilk State
school and play league football was Alf Baud who played with Carlton.
In the process of
creating the new club, one thing was clear – the new footy club would try to
give kids as much game time as possible – the goal was every kid should play at
least a half game
And there
position on the ground would be rotated. The club was created to develop
football skills and involve kids in a team game, where winning at all costs
wasn’t the imperative. In early 2002 a committee was formed with David
Fitzgibbon President, Bill O’Connor Secretary and myself treasurer. The
committee member names I can’t remember - they would be shown in minute
books. We had a meeting with a representative from the Victorian Country
Football League, and the league was peeved that we wouldn’t be playing in a
jumper with the VCFL logo on it – they suggested we use the Carlton
jumpers as training jumpers and buy new Guernseys
from them! We were to receive no financial assistance from the VCFL.
It was decided to fund raise ourselves – I enlisted the help of John
Hurley, who was a vet at Collingrove (now Swettenham Stud). John did the rounds
of horse studs in the area and was able to gather a tidy amount of donations to
help the formation of the new club. The Tahbilk and Mitchelton wineries were
generous in their support as were a number of other individuals and businesses
to numerous to mention.
The player
registration day was held in early 2002 and there was long queues of likely
footballers waiting to sign on. The registration day was held at Nagambie
recreation Reserve and Barry Connolly, President of the Goulburn Valley
Football league addressed the parents and players. Afterwards Terry Wheeler (
ex Footscray player and coach) had a skills session with the footballers.
On the eve of our
first match, a very generous individual, Howard Lack (an ex Avenel resident)
made a very generous $5000 donation to the new club. Howard had spent some
years in Sydney
and seen aimless youths wandering the streets and thought that TJFC would be a
great focus for young boys in the Avenel and Nagambie district. It was decided
that the main training session would be held at Avenel Football Club on a
Friday night and Allan Sykes received the generous support of Wren’s Bus lines,
and drove Nagambie kids to Avenel on a Wren bus in 2002.
Coaches were
appointed and from memory John Hilton, assisted by Russell Haysom coached the
under 15 and halves, Wayne Le Cerf coached the under 13 and a halves, and I
think Adrian Scopel coached the
under 11 and a halves (check). The first match was against St Mary’s at Avenel.
There was a big crowd and the club was officially opened by Bluey Shelton
- an Essendon legend.
From memory, the
President’s son, Alex, kicked the first goal for Tabilk and the under 13and a
half’s had a good win. The Tabilk Junior Football Club from time to time bought
in coaches to improve skills – notably Xavier Tanner (coach of the Murray
Bushrangers) and Mick O’Dwyer (coach of the Goulburn Valley Under 15’).
Highlights over the years – 3 memorable ones – the Under 15’s first win for the
year against Heathcote in 2002 – it was like a grand final victory as the team
had some thrashings during the year. The 1point win by the under 15’s against
Broadford in a preliminary final in 2003 and the first flag in 2004 (under
15’s). The real highlight is the number of kids who played football, who may
otherwise never have had the opportunity. The low light the tragic death of
inaugural Tabilk footballer, Scott Kanters, a lovely enthusiastic young man
Hope this is of
some use - if you have a query let me know
This is my
recollection
Regards
Terry O’Dwyer.