SA Footy

I've been reading both "Knuckles" and "Knuckles II" over the past few weeks and while the latter acknowledges that the former had a number of key errors in it, it talks about the best Port players that Neil Kerley saw. Among them was Jeff Potter, who talks about Fos Williams' pre-match addresses, and how once, before a state game, he hid in the toilets to avoid hearing one again from Williams, who was the state coach.

It also mentions about how some players were very inspired by them and others, like John Halbert were "irritated by the ranting and developed the ruse of putting his index fingers in his ears to block out the noise."

I don't recall ever seeing any archival footage of any of his addresses and am way too young to have seen one otherwise. What can any posters here say about what he was like in the pre-match etc? These stories are by no means the first I've heard and read about his style and am curious to know more about a coach that is one of the more legendary in SA football.

I recall seeing footage of a 3/4 time address in a Grand Final, and every second word was censored

And FYI, Knuckles II had its fair share of errors as well unfortunately.

He was an interesting one Fos. I heard quite a few of his addresses to players before games (in the days when they allowed people into the rooms before games) and at half time (when I could find a vantage point near a window outside the rooms). He was certainly intense. And he wasn't always easy to understand. Maybe it was years of exhortations that took a toll on his voice but it was sometimes hard (for me at least, as a teenager) to make out exactly what he was saying.

I remember him prowling the rooms at Richmond as players warmed up barking at them to 'run through the ball'. This was about keeping your body centred over the line of the ball. If you imagine a vertical line down the middle of your body, he wanted you to keep that line over the middle of the ball so you were harder to knock off the line and remove from the contest. They practised it at training by having balls placed below punching bags suspended from frames (representing bodies), so players had to run through, take the bag out of the contest with their body and grab the ball at the same time. I still find myself calling it out when I see a player not do it. It was really good advice.

I can also remember one day at Adelaide Oval in the 70s and it was freezing and pouring and there was only a small crowd, but it was being televised by one of the networks and so he kept saying to the players as they warmed up, "100,000 people watching. There's 100,000 people watching you today."

In '76 after Thursday night training before the Elimination Final (I'm pretty sure it was then), remembering we hadn't played finals since 1969, he commented that a lot of the players wouldn't have played finals before and that they wouldn't quite know what to do with themselves at work on the Friday. He advised them to put their feet up whenever they got a chance, and rest their legs. That's what intrigued me about him, he urged his players on to be extremely physical but also came out with little things like that that he thought would make a difference.

After we lost the '77 Preliminary Final I remember in the rooms at Footy Park he very warmly thanked the players for their efforts over the year, and encouraged them to go and enjoy themselves that night. Famously he didn't mix socially with the players because he thought it would affect his judgment on selection night.

Mark Williams once told Fos in his lattter days as coach at West Adelaide when they just kept doing circle work and useless and irrelevant competitive drills - "when are we going to do some decent drills?" Fos was fuming.

Only Choco could have gotten away with that

Source - Geoff Morris 2009

is there any truth to the stories i've heard that fos went to a couple of other clubs first & got knocked back or is that just an urban myth ?

bayman wrote:is there any truth to the stories i've heard that fos went to a couple of other clubs first & got knocked back or is that just an urban myth ?

Glenelg

leftlegger wrote:

bayman wrote:is there any truth to the stories i've heard that fos went to a couple of other clubs first & got knocked back or is that just an urban myth ?

Glenelg

Yeah but we went for three West brothers as opposed to one West player - The Taylors who got us into a GF straight away and then third.

At the time could hardly be seen as a poor decision.

am Bays wrote:

leftlegger wrote:

bayman wrote:is there any truth to the stories i've heard that fos went to a couple of other clubs first & got knocked back or is that just an urban myth ?

Glenelg

Yeah but we went for three West brothers as opposed to one West player - The Taylors who got us into a GF straight away and then third.

At the time could hardly be seen as a poor decision.

i wasn't going to mention the club