Vale Cyril “Bill” McMaster

[cats_09]

The Geelong Football Club will remember a pioneer of our game, Cyril “Bill” McMaster OAM who sadly passed recently aged 94.

McMaster was a dual premiership winner in 1951 and 1952, playing a total of 61 games and kicking 75 goals from 1951 to 1954.

He later returned to Geelong as a coach in 1971 for two seasons before becoming Football’s first ever full-time recruiting officer in 1973, a role he held at the Club until his retirement in 1994.

 

[Tony Barber]

He started everything we see today.

 

[iameviljez]

Genuinely an underappreciated figure in the shadow of Stephen Wells.

His recruiting helped significantly to pull the Cats out of the 1970s/80s bankruptcy era into a list that, with a bit more luck, should have won a flag.

 

[Gordon Farkas]

A true legend of the club. No other club had one like him, we were amazingly lucky to have him.

Famously recruited GAS from Myrtleford in 1983, amongst many other things. Wells was his protege, who learned at the feet of the (Mc) Master - kind of like Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker.

 

[My Tilly]

Ripping bloke!
Always up for a chat.

RIP Bill.

 

[Pollywaffle]

Interesting reading this stuff. I just remembered him as a coach who got very little from what seemed to be a serviceable team on paper.
Granted I knew much less about his exploits before or after. Clearly an important figure at the cats over a long period..
Good innings…

 

[Gordon Farkas]

The story of McMaster's greatest recruiting achievement, brilliantly told by James Button in "Comeback: The fall and rise of Geelong" (page 71):

"In 1984 the great champion finally came, once again from the bush. The previous year, recruiter Bill McMaster had got a phone call from Greg Nichols, a former Geelong player, now coach of Myrtleford. Gary Ablett's story, and that of his heirs, would shape the club for nearly 30 years.

"Nichols said he had a player who was better than any he had ever seen. Recruiters hear this stuff in the supermarket every day but McMaster trusted Nichols. He and his offsider Bill Dalziel got in the car. 'He kicked a goal from the centre of the ground', Dalziel told me. 'The ball travelled so far it landed in a tobacco patch.'

"Sceptical about this claim, I detoured with my family on a holiday to visit the Myrtleford ground. We saw tobacco sheds and, beyond them ,the craggy slopes of Mount Buffalo. A magpie cawed, the bark of a faraway dog carried on the thin mountain air. Behind the southern goals was a field that, with a flight of imagination, might have been tobacco in 1983. Whatever the truth, on this dreamy ground, Gary Ablett, aged twenty-two, performed such wizardry one winter afternoon that McMaster knew Nichols was right. McMaster walked into the rooms and introduced himself. 'Gary, how would you like to play VFL again?' Ablett's eyes lit up. 'Oh yes Bill', he said, 'I would love to.'"​

 

[Tony Barber]

His brother coached me. Such a nice guy. I cant even remember his name. I bet his brother was the same.
All he was about was attack. The fastest runners played.

Bloody hell, we are talking 83'.

Let's not forget that he taught Wells about having networks.

 

[Tony Barber]

Well, I cant find a pic with me and Bills brother in it.
But I found T McMaster. His Brother.

Nepotism in action too His son was captain the next year.