Chris Hercock makes the Mona Lisa of Australian Football

[Harry the Horse]

You read it here first. The late 70s and early 80s big fella from the Bay is in the print celebrating 150 years of the game!

Hint: So is Michael Gregg

[rogernumber10]

The 150 years of australian footy painting was unveiled today. Brief spiel was that the aim was to record Australian football and how it has influenced Australian life. The images were to not only recognises key moments in history, but connect everyone involved in football with families and volunteers all depicted.

[rogernumber10]

If it's a bit small to see, because it had to be shrunk, the themes and images represented are:

Chapter 1: From the outside looking in

1. The game starts with an image based on the match that is generally acknowledged as the first game of Australian football, between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College on August 7, 1858. It was played on Richmond Paddock, the area just north of the MCG, which is now Yarra Park. The fact that this game was played on a paddock, not a trim and tidy cricket ground, was a fortuitous starting point in developing Australian football as a game for all classes.

The players were distinguished by their caps, red for Scotch and blue for Grammar. According to artists’ impressions of early games, players moved in roving mauls. From these mauls Australian football took to the skies, and by the 20th century the high mark was the highlight of the game. One of the first high-flyers was Dick Lee, the champion Collingwood full-forward whose most famous mark, depicted here, provides one of the game’s enduring early images.

In this game Lee soars over the sons of early settlers while Richmond’s Royce Hart and South Melbourne rover Bob Skilton await the crumbs. Darren Jarman, the 1990s Adelaide match-winner, storms in from the modern era.

And who’s that scouting in a Fitzroy jumper? The artist Jamie Cooper played 26 games for the Roys in the mid-1980s. Since then, he’s been dedicated to capturing through his art the spirit of football and its influence on our nation.

2. Many administrators have made their marks over 150 years, but few have had the impact of (from left) Tom Wills, Allen Aylett, Henry Harrison and Ron Evans.

Wills’ letter to the sports newspaper Bell’s Life on July 10, 1858, in which he suggested forming football or rifle clubs to keep cricketers fit during winter, provided the impetus for the first football matches. It was his later insistence that the young colony needed a game of its own, rather than a game from England, that was vital in the codification of Australian football.

Aylett was president of North Melbourne when the club rose from the cellar to premiership success in the 1970s. As president of the VFL, he oversaw the change in football from a battle of suburban tribes to a corporate game.

In 1866 Harrison drafted the rules that established the main features of the game: no offside; kicking forward; the mark; running with the ball, provided it was bounced every five or six yards; no hacking of shins; no throwing. He was on the first VFA executive, in 1872, and he was the first chairman of the Australian National Football Council. He also served as president of the Melbourne Football Club.

Evans was the Essendon president for five years, overseeing the club’s move to the MCG in 1992. As chairman of the AFL Commission, he oversaw construction of Melbourne’s Docklands Stadium and rises to record levels in club membership and television audience.

3. Footy is not all deadly serious. One of the game’s more unexpected moments occurred in the 1982 VFL grand final when Helen D’Amico ran on to the ground wearing nothing but a scarf and courted the affections of Carlton defender Bruce Doull. The bemused Doull wanted nothing to do with D’Amico, but 25 years later time and art have healed the wounds. Footy and fun should go hand in hand.

4. The game spills across to a ground where cars line the fence and gums trees provide a classic Australian backdrop. The crowd in the foreground is from Geelong’s Corio Oval in 1912. The cars are in the background are drawn from several eras. Spectators watching the game from behind their steering wheels greet their team’s goals by beeping their horns.

5. In the 19th century, the well-to-dos watched the footy from their horse and buggy, peering over the heads of the rank-and-file near the fence. Here, the well-to-dos find themselves parked next to a 21st century Toyota ute whose occupants, in these more egalitarian times, enjoy the same lofty vantage. Two knockabout fans watch the match from the ute while their roguish mate, in cut-off flannelette shirt, offers a can of beer to a bonneted lady. The rogue’s offer suggests footy’s ability to break down social barriers. In this instance it cuts through the ages as well.


6. Legendary Sydney full-forward Tony “Plugger” Lockett, whose 1360 goals is the VFL/AFL record, holds Brisbane Lions’ Mal Michael at bay while Paul Kelly and Michael Voss, the standout captains of the AFL’s northern expansion clubs, await the outcome in a game that is always evolving.

7. Who knows whether these five larrikins perched atop their handlebars were too poor to buy a ticket to watch the game, or they just preferred the taste of stolen fruit? Regardless, they encapsulate the spirit of every fan who’s been desperate to see a game.

8. The match moves onto a clearing in the jungle in Papua New Guinea during the Second World War. From the Boer War to the Iraq War, Australian soldiers have organised scratch matches to lend themselves a taste of home. The importance of footy as a cultural glue is reinforced.

9. The green of the jungle turns to the red earth of Central Australia, where Aboriginal communities play flat out on desert clearings. Here, Michael Long’s Essendon takes on the club from which Long came, St Mary’s in Darwin. The Green Machine, as St Mary’s is known, is the most successful team of the Top End, having won a premiership every second year or so since its inception in 1952. So many indigenous players have made the journey from sacred ground to hallowed turf, and our game is all the richer for it.

10. The timeline continues across to the MCG, Australia’s most famous sporting stadium, which is lit up for another blockbuster. We have come full circle from the paddock at top left to the stadium of today.

11. In this image, the timekeeper is in the Victorian town of Port Fairy in August 1927, when a game ended in darkness because the Terang team missed the train and the match started late. While the timekeeper has lit a match so that he can see his clock, headlights from the parked cars enable the game to go on. The rustic lighting offers a marked contrast to the stadium lights of the MCG.

Chapter 2: Spirit of the game

12. In no other game in the world is there anything like the high mark. Players get a thrill like no other from taking them. Spectators get a thrill like no other from watching them being taken. The high mark is unique but every one is different. Here’s six.

a) This majestic leap by 18-year-old South Fremantle forward John Gerovich in the 1956 WAFL preliminary final wasn’t mentioned in newspaper reports of the game. A small photograph of the towering grab was run the following Wednesday. Fame, however, did come. In the 1960s, the mark featured in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in a mural at a Fremantle service station. Since 2006, a statue of the mark has stood outside Fremantle Oval.

b) Not a brilliant high mark, nor a spectacular athlete, Peter Hudson relied on his acute judgement to take mark after mark near goal, with Hawthorn and in his native Tasmania. The greatest of many magnificent Tasmanian footballers, his legacy is in no small way responsible for the Hawks’ modern involvement in the Apple Isle.

c) Gary Ablett snr was the greatest raw talent to play Australian football. In almost every one of his 242 games for Geelong, he kicked improbable goals and took breathtaking marks, such as this one over Collingwood’s Gary Pert in 1994.

d) Originally a self-conscious kid from Melbourne suburb Oakleigh, high-flyer Warwick Capper was marketed as a glamorous exhibitionist by Sydney as it tried to win over NSW fans after the club’s shift from South Melbourne. This mark, taken over Chris Langford of Hawthorn in 1987, certainly helped.

e) Australian football’s most famous image captures Alex Jesaulenko’s astonishing grab for Carlton during the 1970 grand final. His leap, watched by the code’s biggest crowd, 121,696, helped inspire the greatest grand-final comeback victory. Even Mike Williamson’s commentary of the moment – “Jesaulenko, you beauty!” – is legendary. Throughout the 1970s a generation of children jumped on each other’s backs in their attempts to take what they called “a Jezza”.

f) Graham Cornes says he played footy in large part because of the “thrill of the leap”, exemplified by this audacious effort for Glenelg against Norwood in 1977. The lure of the high mark helped make him into a South Australian football institution.

13. Nicky Winmar lifting his St Kilda jumper and pointing to his black skin is among the most poignant images in Australian football. The incident happened at Collingwood’s Victoria Park early in the 1993 season. After playing in front of a hostile Magpies crowd, which had showered him with racist putdowns, Winmar celebrated St Kilda’s upset win by lifting his jumper and pointing to his belly. It was a gesture that forced football’s white majority to examine its attitude to race. It also steeled the resolve of the AFL’s Aboriginal players to stand up against racism.

14. Families are the backbone of any football club. At AFL level, the romance and importance of family in footy is recognised through the father-son rule. At local level, many clubs would fold if families failed to get stuck in to the chores.

a) The O’Halloran family has been the backbone of Tasmania’s Irish Town Football Club since the 1920s. In the 1950s Irish Town teams included up to eight O’Hallorans. In this image, there are canteen workers, committeemen, coaches, trainers and players. All are members of the O’Halloran family.

14 b) The Hawthorn of Peter Crimmins’ era provides another view of family — not family by blood, but family by blood, sweat and tears. Crimmins was the Hawthorn captain before being stricken by cancer at 28. After the Hawks had won the 1976 VFL premiership, the players — his second family — rushed in to see their former teammate in hospital with the premiership cup. Crimmins died three days later.

15. It could be a soaring mark, a freakish goal, or pat on the head as a player leaves training. For whatever reason, kids develop idols, and they do anything to be in their idol’s orbit. At Collingwood in the early 1950s, young Magpie fans got close to their idols by untying their bootlaces after a game. At Essendon in the same era, they flocked to John Coleman. As long as kids seek to go on and emulate their heroes, the game is in good hands.

16. Football is a man’s game. It demands that its gladiators be hard and unrelenting. But football also has an element of theatre.

a) Brent Crosswell was one who understood football’s theatre. Crosswell, who’s shown here exchanging views with umpire Kevin Smith, took his theatrical shenanigans to a peak in the 1977 grand final rematch, a game in which other than taking a glorious specky, waving the ball over his head, and then kicking a point, he played little part. Until the last quarter, that is, when he was ordered to leave the forward line and go to defence to play on Peter Moore. Crosswell made such a show of moving from one end of the ground to the other, bumping opponents and getting in their faces, that he changed the mood of the match in favour of the Roos.

b) Former Hawthorn captain Don Scott also knew about conflict and drama. Sometimes he appeared to lose his head, but he maintained he was always in control, and that his excesses were a tactic designed to unsettle his opposition. Here we see him trying to unsettle Collingwood great Len Thompson.

17. Jonathan Brown flying for a specky over Matthew Richardson: could there be any better ad for a national game than a Victorian who plays for Brisbane battling against a Tasmanian who plays for a Melbourne club? The image is taken from the Hall of Fame Tribute match in May 2008.

18. Former country champions have as much right as those who play at the highest level to be considered guardians of the game. Through their deeds, the spirit of football is kept alive at country and suburban grounds all around Australia.

a) Most footballers wish they could play forever. Ron “Bluey” Gribble from Yarram in Victoria almost did play forever; he came out of retirement to play his final game at 71. His one kick dribbled over the line for a behind.

b) At 52, having played the season at full-back for the Boolarra reserves in Victoria, Peter Rennie he won his first best-and-fairest award. At 56, he resigned as club secretary to concentrate on his playing career. Playing footy for Rennie was like breathing, only more vital.

Some players achieve such greatness that they become ambassadors for the game for the rest of their lives. They carry the torch of excellence.

19. Ron Barassi took on the tackler, crashed through and moved the ball quickly. This image of him withstanding the tackle of Essendon’s Bob Suter during Melbourne’s 1957 VFL grand final win is a signature image. He approached every game and every contest with intensity.

20.Barrie Robran is considered South Australia’s finest footballer. For a time in the late 1960s and early ’70s, he was probably the nation’s finest footballer. Robran was fast, agile and dynamic in the air. He was unstoppable.

21. In the ball-shaped badge at the heart of the canvas, we see two captains perform a ritual that is important in upholding the spirit of the game: shaking hands before the opening bounce. A new Sherrin lies at their feet. One captain is from that game in the paddock in 1858; the other is a player from 2008. A faint map of Australia, the game’s homeland, sits behind them.

22. In 1995, with just weeks to live, E.J. Whiten sat in the back of a car with his son, Ted jnr. It was a state-or-origin game between Victoria and South Australia at the MCG. The car hugged the boundary. The crowd stood. Ted pumped his fists, he waved, he cried, his head fell into the arms of his son, and we, the crowd, wiped the tears from our eyes. One of our greatest footballers was saying goodbye. In this image, with his arms raised, it’s as if he’s holding up the spirit of football.

23. In 1916, Australian soldiers from the Western Front played an exhibition match at the Queen’s Club, London, before a crowd of 3000. The Combined Training Units team, in the maroon guernsey, took on the boys of the Third Division. Those who played in that game in far-off London fought for freedom.

24. They helped create a country where kids of all colours could kick a footy to each other across racial and religious divides, as these two boys are doing in this image.

25. Somehow Australian football and Gaelic football find a way to weave themselves together; an oval ball is forced into a round hole and what emerges is a something more muscular than the Irish game and yet swifter and leaner than the Australian version. And so you have International Rules. In this image, Shane Crawford sets off towards the Australian attack.

26. The informality of Australian culture comes shining through in this image from the 1955 VFL grand final in which the line between players and spectators has disappeared. Collingwood captain Neil Mann and Melbourne rover Ian Ridley emerge from the crowd to help a policeman with his inquiries. The policeman’s fellow officer captures the mood of the occasion by sprawling on the grass and enjoying the show.

27. Agony and ecstasy is felt by all footballers in the aftermath of every game at every level. In this change-room scene, Sydney defender Tadgh Kennelly contemplates the loss to Brisbane in the 2003 preliminary final while former Hawthorn great Dermott Brereton despairs after the Hawks have capitulated to Essendon in the last quarter of the 1984 VFL grand final. But the mood of change-rooms can reflect more than winning and losing. Here, the player in the Swans jumper slakes his thirst after a job well done, while two teammates slump exhausted and muddy against a wall. They’re happy simply to have played the game.

28. West Australian ruck icon Merv McIntosh had a storied career, but is most famous for the last of his 217 games for Perth, the 1955 grand final. In front of a record crowd, playing hot favourite East Fremantle, McIntosh almost single-handedly preserved his team’s lead in the final minutes. He was known as a humble champion. . The McIntosh CV includes three Sandover Medals, a Tassie Medal, three Simpson Medals, and he was Perth’s best-and-fairest player seven times. Above all, he was an unselfish champion.

29. A bearded bloke from the bush tosses the ball back into play on an oval that is as wide open as the sky. Magically, the ruckmen who contest for the ball are two of the game’s immortals, Polly Farmer and Big Nick. Farmer came from an orphanage in Western Australia while Nicholls grew up in central Victoria. All our legends started on a paddock somewhere.

30. Every football club has its unsung heroes who work behind the scenes. Jenny Wiltshire has been helping to keep Townsville club Thuringowa together for 30 years. After the match she scoops up the jumpers and towels and does six loads of washing. She also acts as Thuringowa’s team manager. Bulldogs players call her Aunty Jenny.

Chapter 3: From the inside looking out

Sometimes a footy crowd can appear to be a single organism, with a heart that beats in time with fortunes on the field. Other times, a footy crowd can be fractured, with spectators at odds over players and each other. The crowd in this chapter includes supporters of all clubs that have played in the VFL or AFL. In so many ways, a footy crowd represents “the face of Australia”.

31) Women’s involvement in footy is represented here by AFL goal umpire Chelsea Roffey, who signals full points after a snap for goal goes through during a women’s footy match. In 2006 Roffey wore a pink shirt and waved pink flags during the Pink Lady Game, which was a promotion for breast cancer awareness. The AFL’s enormous reach makes it an ideal vehicle for promoting many worthy causes.

32. Women’s footy match depicts one of the growth areas of the game. In 2000 Victorian Women’s Football League consisted of seven teams. In 2008 the league has 26 teams over three divisions. Similar growth is evident in Queensland and Western Australia.

33. During the 1930s football became an escape from the struggles of the Great Depression. Yet no matter how keen people were to leave their troubles behind, they never forgot those around them who were doing it even harder. This image shows fans tossing loose coins into a blanket being carried around the boundary line at the Punt Road Oval. The blanket fundraiser has continued to take place at country and suburban ovals.

34. Journalists report on the footy in comfort at modern AFL stadiums. But in days past, they battled poor conditions just like the spectators. In the VFL, half a dozen journalists squeezed on to two wooden benches in the press box at South Melbourne’s Lake Oval. The journalists’ word for it was “intimate”.

35. Whether footballers are faced with oppressive heat during the Wet Season in the Top End or snow in the centre square in an alpine league, the game goes on. And no matter how difficult the conditions, a crowd gathers to watch. Here, fans in the outer at Footscray’s Western Oval early in the 1953 season tough out one of the heaviest downpours seen in Melbourne. It’s doubtful that the spectators could see much but, in the tradition of diehard fans, they’re not going anywhere. They’re staying to the end.

36. Country and suburban footy clubs throughout Australia need voluntary boundary umpires. Not all are in great shape. Some are in no shape at all. But they can run fast enough and hurl the ball with enough force to keep the game going. This image is based on Ron Turner, the boundary umpire at Tasmanian club Winnaleah for 40 years. Ron is haring around the boundary to help a fellow umpire make a report.

37. Most southern staters think of Jason Dunstall as the Hawthorn goal machine. But if you’re from up north, chances are you think of Dunstall as the solid kid from the Coorparoo Football Club who became the first Queenslander to enter the AFL’s Hall of Fame. You may even recall him slotting a lazy eight for the Queensland-Northern Territory team in its 34-point win against Tasmania in 1993.

38. Peter “Crackers” Crackers was as tough and hard-working as any player on the field, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying the game’s lighter side. Here, Crackers is attempting to prevent the umpire from reporting him, by refusing to turn around and show his number. That trick never works.

34-35, 37-38. Against a well-established world trend, there continues to be no divide between player and spectator in Australian football. On the rare occasion of a “pitch invasion” you can be guaranteed that the offending person will carry no weapons, no malice, and, usually, no clothes.

39. In the Michael O’Loughlin image, it is the 2006 qualifying final. The Sydney veteran runs right up to the fence, puts his face within inches of the frontline of Eagles supporters, and unleashes a primal scream. The Eagles fans are animated. They love the byplay.

40. Also in this image, O’Loughlin is shouting encouragement at a group of young Aboriginal fans behind the West Coast fans. He’s urging the youngsters to follow his example and, through football, fight to make a better life.

41. Further along, James Hird makes a mockery of the distance that some sports put between player and fan. Early in the 2004 season at Melbourne’s Telstra Dome, Hird celebrated a match-winning goal in the final seconds against West Coast by throwing his arms around a Bomber fan in the front row of the crowd. The two held each other as if they were partners in a winning Lotto ticket, as if there was no boundary, as if they had been working together for this moment for years. Which, in truth, they had.

42. Watching over all of this is Kevin Sheedy, who late in the 1993 season responded to an Essendon victory over West Coast by ripping off his black and red jacket and waving it manically above his head. Within two more games between these two clubs, it had become a tradition for the victors’ supporters to do the same.

In this instance, Sheeds is also waving his jacket in support in O’Loughlin and indigenous Australia. Sheeds has always understood people on both sides of the boundary.

43. Jason McCartney was one of many Australians caught in the Bali bombing in October 2002, suffering burns to 50% of his body. The good will of the nation was behind McCartney when he took the field against Richmond the following season, in June 2003, with a protective burns suit on under a long-sleeved jumper. After kicking the match-winning goal to get the Roos home by just three points, he announced his retirement.

44. In this image, a 1950s cameraman captures James Hird’s embrace. From the moment footy was shown on television in 1958, viewers have been hungry to see footy in their loungerooms.

45. Every footy club needs those who work to bring in the money. At Seymour in Victoria, Charlie Diorria sold raffle tickets at every home game for almost 20 years. During the second half of these games, he walked the boundary holding up a blackboard denoting the winning ticket.

46. Here is an image of an old scoreboard that could be seen at any local footy ground. On this occasion, it has the score from the famous Goalpost Final in Tasmania.

47. The match that became known as the Goalpost Final was held at West Park, Burnie, in 1967. It was that season’s state final between Wynyard, the premiers from the north-west competition, and North Hobart, the southern premiers. North Hobart was a point behind when full-forward David Collins lined up for goal with seconds remaining. It was then that some Wynyard fans removed a goalpost, as you can see in this image, while others poured on to the ground. Collins was unable to take his kick. The match was declared void.

48. As Australians, we like to think of ourselves as a casual mob. Young fans at country games like to back up their ute or panel van and watch from their wheels. In recent years, perhaps in response to the increasing comfort of AFL stadiums, some fans at local games have made themselves comfortable by bringing along armchairs and Eskies. In this image, the epicurean fan on the left watches the footy while nibbling on bickies and dip.

49. The image of the two battered players on the interchange bench is taken from a scene at Maldon, in central Victoria, in 2002. The bandages and ice bags suggest a torrid time in the service of their club. But, as the players look across the years to an Army recruiting officer, they know their sacrifice for their club pales when compared to the sacrifice of young men for their country.

50. Many thousands of Australians died in battle in the early years of the Great War. In 1916, with enlistments at a trickle, the Army was forced to go wherever young men assembled in an effort to recruit more soldiers. So where to go? The footy was an obvious choice. The footy has always been an obvious choice for anyone wanting to reach a large body of Australians, from all walks of life, from all levels of society.

[Harry the Horse]

Solid work Rog, but no mention of Chris Hercock at 12f ... or the Redleg he's dropping his screws into.

[rogernumber10]

Michael Gregg - one of the greats from the '75 flag. Doctor, amateur who refused match payments for all or most of his career, bike-rider to training, often did the warm-up lap on his own when the team ran out and, memorably, once ran into the goal post during a warm-up lap and played a limited role in the match. Man who should be commemorated in a painting.

[Adelaide Hawk]

Michael Gregg, the galloping hat rack. He was so ungainly that at times you forget just how skilled he was as a footballer. He won a McCallum Medal, was a premiership player for Norwood, a state representative, and also won a best & fairest for West Adelaide.

I recall with a smile his antics when standing the mark, but my favourite memory of Gregg was one match against Glenelg. The brilliant Peter Marker won the ball and burst away from the centre. He ran towards Gregg, all he had to do was handball over the top to a team mate, but Gregg just stood still and began waving his arms around like the robot in Lost In Space .... "danger, danger!!!"

Marker appeared perplexed and proceded to handball straight to Gregg who set up an attack for Norwood. Gregg could entertain in many ways, both with the ball and without it.

[Harry the Horse]

What a bubble-headed booby

[nickname]

I can certainly remember seeing him arrive at training on his pushbike at Richmond Oval. Gave us great service while he was with us. One of the few times a good player moved from Norwood to West - the traffic was usually in the opposite direction.

[Wedgie]

Fantastic painting, love it, the attention to detail is unbelievable, well done to all involved!

[Benchwarmer]

I think I may be one of the first West Aussies to find this news out ... haven't heard anything about this or seen this before seeing this thread just now!

[Dogwatcher]

C'mon BW, you're only a couple of hours behind us, not weeks!

[Benchwarmer]

Not on the TV or radio news that I saw/heard, it was not in the West Australian (unless it was in the front half) ... unless it was only in the Footy Record, but being a Carlton supporter I only go to Subiaco once or twice a season.

Then again, our Premier goes off an calls an election and uses the Olympics to smother the campaigning and the press probably decided to overlook it or overlooked it themselves.