Resource Geelong Football Club history

[footscore]

this footage is absolutely priceless!
Terrific highlights. I could watch hours of this if only they managed to salvage what was left or currently hiding away deep in the ABC/channel 7 sports archives.

They recently found upto 4 minutes of John Coleman footage and restored it, must be bundles upon bundles of rare stuff like this still awaiting to be found.

 

[RogersResults]

this footage is absolutely priceless!
Terrific highlights. I could watch hours of this if only they managed to salvage what was left or currently hiding away deep in the ABC/channel 7 sports archives.

They recently found upto 4 minutes of John Coleman footage and restored it, must be bundles upon bundles of rare stuff like this still awaiting to be found.

Unfortunately there are not "bundles upon bundles of rare stuff still awaiting to be found".
Before television (pre 1956) there were two main companies in Australia that made short 35mm format film "newsreels" for showing in cinemas - the Australian owned 'Cinesound' and the American owned ' Movietone' (20th Century Fox). Both were based in Sydney and treated Australian Football largely in the same category as singing dogs and water-skiing horses - an amusing novelty. Some but not all Grand Finals and a few interstate and Football Council 'carnival' matches were covered as no more than 2 minute items. By the time the newsreels stopped being made in the mid 1960's Cinesound had been taken over by Fox and fortunately most of the the Cinesound and Movietone material has been preserved. All the Australian Football recorded in those newsreels has been catalogued by the National Film and Sound Archive. If there is any that has not made it into the archive then time has or is running out to find it. Up until the early 1950's the 35mm film stock that was used for shooting the newsreels had a nitrate base which over time decomposes. The Football Council also made a number of training and promotional films (the 1937 GF features in one as does the 1955 Collingwood v Geelong PF in another) all of which are extant and are in the NFSA catalogue. There may be some amateur/semi-amateur material surviving like Ted Waterford's film featuring John Coleman and the 1951 and 1952 finals series that hasn't come to light but film and film cameras were very expensive at the time.

When television first started showing football in 1957 it was live. Australian television stations could not afford the new expensive video tape recorders and the only way of recording what was broadcast on television was by pointing a film camera at a television set (telecine). This was rarely done.
From 1962 video tape replays were shown of the two main matches each round with the other matches covered by a single 16mm camera which recorded a few 'highlights'. Video tape was 2 inches wide on reels bigger than dinner plates and expensive. All stations would erase previous recordings and re-use tapes until signs of deterioration appeared and then they were dumped. Most news items were shot on 16mm film and to save costs often previously shot material (like last weeks film of Fitzroy v Footscray) was used as 'spacer' in the editing process before being dumped.

Before the advent of home video in the late 1970's television video recordings were routinely erased and dumped as there was no commercial imperative to keep them. Even then the television stations because of costs of storage and preservation have kept relatively little video material from the 80s.

There is a report that the RAAF filmed the complete 1952 Grand Final for showing to personnel stationed overseas in Japan and elsewhere. Its existence is unknown. Might be in a shed somewhere.

 

[RogersResults]

In case this is not noticed at the time, the August 24 match v Sydney at Kardinia Park will be the 1,000th League match played in Geelong 1897-2012.

(Geelong are currently on 649 wins and 11 draws in Geelong for a combined match/win percentage of 65.85% at Corio Oval (66.04% - 1897-1915, 1917-1940) and Kardinia Park( 65.73% 1941, 1944-2012.)

 

[RogersResults]

I'm confused, in the 1937 video why do the refer to the game in the then VFL as the Australian football league grand final?

Because the name of the game was (and still is) Australian Football. The Australian National Football Council at the time very very keen to get the colonial back-water and rugby hold-out states of NSW and QLD to call the game by its proper name, 'Australian Football' and to discourage the tag "rules" that had been devised by the press in those states in the 19th century and was used in an often condescending and derisory fashion by them (still is).

However, note that the Sydney produced Cinesound newsreel commentary after saying "Australian Football league final"* at the start lapses into Australian "rules" football later in the commentary.

* 'Australian Football' tells the audience in Sydney and Brisbane, to many of whom the spectacle would be as familiar as 43-man Squarmish in Patagonia, what the game is, 'league' infers that it is the League (VFL) in Melbourne.(The title card identifies the event as being in Melbourne.)

It is likely that the narrator and writer of the narration at that time would have had little or no knowledge of what the VFL was. (You couldn't phone directly between Sydney and Melbourne at the time and there were no through trains between the two cities. )

Footnote: The 1937 GF remains the only Grand Final 1898-1923, 1925-2012 where the scores were even at 3/4 time.

 

[footscore]

thanks Roger
incredibly informative as usual.

 

[RogersResults]

​

1951 and 1952 Premiership players John Hyde (82), Terry Fulton (82), Geoff Williams (81), Russ Middlemiss (83), Ron Hovey (80), Norm Sharp (78) and Jim Norman (84) at the 16 August 2012 launch of the book, Classic Cats - The Story of Geelong's Premiership Years 1951-1952.​

​

(If you want to save on postage for your copy and you are in Geelong, the Cats Shop at Kardinia Park should have some copies for sale by next week.)​

 

[Cursed Cat]

This post is a placeholder for me to remember to watch these videos. Never seen footage from '51 before!

I'm the same as Copernicus; in awe of that '51 footage, as well as the '37 & '63 clips; thanks SJ !

Great thread all-round, I make a motion to have it 'stickied' !

 

[Hot Tin Roof]

*bump*

1882 GEELONG FOOTBALL CLUB VISIT TO SYDNEY​

​

http://nswfootballhistory.com.au/1882-geelong-football-club-visit-to-sydney-2​

The Geelong club visited Sydney in 1882, just after the fledgling NSW Football Association had begun and played a series of games at the ground, most of which against individual clubs: East Sydney, Sydney and a combination Petersham side. They also played a combined team representing NSW on 15 July which they easily defeated 6.21 to 2.1 before an estimated crowd of between 2-3,000.​

[Photo: Taken in front of the now demolished members stand at the Sydney Cricket Ground]​

http://nswfootballhistory.com.au/1882-geelong-football-club-visit-to-sydney-2​

 

[RogersResults]

*bump*

1882 GEELONG FOOTBALL CLUB VISIT TO SYDNEY​

​

http://nswfootballhistory.com.au/1882-geelong-football-club-visit-to-sydney-2​

The Geelong club visited Sydney in 1882, just after the fledgling NSW Football Association had begun and played a series of games at the ground, most of which against individual clubs: East Sydney, Sydney and a combination Petersham side. They also played a combined team representing NSW on 15 July which they easily defeated 6.21 to 2.1 before an estimated crowd of between 2-3,000.​

[Photo: Taken in front of the now demolished members stand at the Sydney Cricket Ground]​

http://nswfootballhistory.com.au/1882-geelong-football-club-visit-to-sydney-2​

​

The photo is reproduced in The Road to Kardinia: The Story of the Geelong Football Club by Russell Stephens published in 1996. Above is the caption to the photo. The book is out of print but copies are held in a number of public libraries. Your local library can arrange an inter-library loan if you are interested to read it.​

 

[Hot Tin Roof]

Thanks RR! Great info once again

 

[SJ]

Edward Goderich "Carji" Greeves, Junior

Geelong 1923-1931, 1933 - 124 Games, 17 Goals
First Brownlow Medallist
1925 and 1931 VFL premiership player

 

[SJ]

http://www.sen.com.au/audioplayer/Audio/Col-Hutchinson-Part-1/7944
http://www.sen.com.au/audioplayer/Audio/Col-Hutchinson-Part-2/7943

SEN hour with Col Hutchinson, AFL statistician and has attended almost every Geelong game for 50 years.

 

[footscore]

unbelievable looking at that 1882 team photo, 130 years ago and captured in time forever.

 

[Partridge]

Before the advent of home video in the late 1970's television video recordings were routinely erased and dumped as there was no commercial imperative to keep them. Even then the television stations because of costs of storage and preservation have kept relatively little video material from the 80s.

There is a report that the RAAF filmed the complete 1952 Grand Final for showing to personnel stationed overseas in Japan and elsewhere. Its existence is unknown. Might be in a shed somewhere.

This is not unlikely in my opinion RR. Slightly off-topic, when the Who reissued Who's Next in 1995 (originally released in 1971) there was a ton of unreleased studio and concert material added that no one knew existed. It transpired that tapes were just sitting on a shelf and in a skip (headed for the bin) before someone took a closer look. We'll never know how much rare footage like this is around.

 

[Partridge]

http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=priority picks&pb=shd&pb=sag&pb=age&pb=smh&dt=enterRange&dr=1month&sd=01/01/2004&ed=01/01/2005&so=date&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=200&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=AGE040916KS5LI7F4391

http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=priority picks&pb=shd&pb=sag&pb=age&pb=smh&dt=enterRange&dr=1month&sd=01/01/2004&ed=01/01/2005&so=date&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=200&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=AGE040916KS5LI7F4391

What an amazingly perceptive article. Well before any premierships were won too.

 

[SJ]

Looks like this new website (still in its infancy) might end up being a good one: http://pivotonian.org

 

[SJ]

Henry Young

A 90-year old obituary recently republished on AustralianFootball.com: http://australianfootball.com/articles/view/The+death+of+Henry+Young/424

The death of Henry Young
In January 1923, Cover-point in The Herald (reproduced in the Daily News), reported on the death of Geelong champion, Henry 'Tracker' Young, aged 49.
Few better all-round athletes have ever been produced in this country than Henry Young, Geelong's champion, who died from heart failure yesterday morning after having his daily swim at the Eastern Baths.
When only a lad Young showed promise of being a great sportsman. He was a powerfully built boy, and had no difficulty in holding his own with others of his own age at all manly sports.
'Tracker," as he was fondly called, first took the field with Geelong as a footballer when he was quite, a lad. He served the Geelong Club for 21 years on the football field, and won distinctions that few footballers have gained. For 12 years he captained and coached the Geelong team with a firmness that some people were apt to consider haughtiness. His football was characterised by a determination that was the despair of many a strong opponent. Being some 6 feet in height and turning the scale at over 14 stone, he was a very powerful ruck man, who could use his weight fairly, and to advantage.
When Hughie James first played with Richmond, Young was in his prime. James attempted to bump Young down on the Richmond ground; but the Geelong skipper turned round quickly and hurled Hughie about four or five yards away in the mud.
In 1908 Young captained the Victorian carnival team, which was successful in defeating South Australia, West Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, and New Zealand. He was nearly 40 years of age before he ceased to play nine years ago.
Favorite of the "Old Brigade"
'Tracker' was a great believer in every player keeping himself in the best condition. Although a hard and firm captain,, he was kind in his actions, and would help any willing youngster. He was mainly responsible for making Alex Eason the brilliant rover he is today. Eason told me that he had never seen such a powerful player take knocks and give them like Young.
With the older brigade, he was very popular, and whenever a Melbourne League team visited Geelong there were always several former players and officials who found time to get round to the Britannia Hotel, of which he was licensee, and talk over the "good old days." I had occasion to speak to him not long ago, and he told me that if a man lived a clean life he could not go far wrong on either the football field or in everyday life.
As a swimmer Young was good, and although he was never very fast in the water, his powerful frame and constitution enabled him to move well and swim for long distances without tiring. With the oar he was also an able man, and for 30 years, he was a member of the Como Bay Rowing Club. So highly did the Geelong College people think of him as a man and an oarsman that they chose him to coach the school crews for the Head of the River races some years ago. At boxing, too, he put up some fine performances against skilful opponents.
Truly, a great sportsman has gone.
Footnotes
Title: An old-time champion."Tracker" Young's career. Author: "Cover-Point" in the "Herald" Publisher: The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882-1950) Date: Thursday, 18 January 1923 (Third edition), p.2 (Article). Web:http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/82513384

 

[jim boy]

Trailer for a doco on our first captain and club founder

 

[Jhye Clark 13]

​

The photo is reproduced in The Road to Kardinia: The Story of the Geelong Football Club by Russell Stephens published in 1996. Above is the caption to the photo. The book is out of print but copies are held in a number of public libraries. Your local library can arrange an inter-library loan if you are interested to read it.​

I own that book. Great read.

 

[Grin]

Hi Catters

Just a trivia history question:

Was it Geelong that Essendon tried to prevent from rejoining the VFL after the first World War?

If so, does anyone know the story of what happened?

 

[SJ]

The Corio Oval Tribe: A Prosopographical Perspective of the Geelong Football Club in the Nineteenth Century: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/56949/2/56949.pdf

Fascinating read about the early days of the club, often overlooked.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Hi Catters

Just a trivia history question:

Was it Geelong that Essendon tried to prevent from rejoining the VFL after the first World War?

If so, does anyone know the story of what happened?

Geelong played in 1917 and 1918, so I don't think so.
But I don't know anything about it other than that.

 

[candiehappy]

Geelong played in 1917 and 1918, so I don't think so.
But I don't know anything about it other than that.

were you at those games Fred?

 

[manboob]

were you at those games Fred?

Filling in the record here.

 

[thejester]

The Corio Oval Tribe: A Prosopographical Perspective of the Geelong Football Club in the Nineteenth Century: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/56949/2/56949.pdf

Fascinating read about the early days of the club, often overlooked.

That's a great find SJ. Have often wondered about the way Geelong's early history shaped that of the club.