When I began to write about the Saints, the players, and the club, my intention was to tell stories about the Saints as I remembered them. In doing so I may have given you, the reader, some of my memories of the Saints. As a result the best thing that has happened to me is the many readers, supporters and past players who have contacted me to share their memories. In doing so they have enriched me with a greater understanding of the true meaning of being a “Saint for Life”.
This story is about the supporters.
A couple of years ago I wrote about “Jackie Mac”, Jack McKenzie who had followed the Saints all his life.
He stood on the same terrace at the Junction Oval with my father Bill Grant and his uncle and cousins the Boase clan. Alongside them stood the Caferella brothers, Carlisle St. greengrocers who lived and breathed the Saints. Invariably with them stood Ronnie Anderson, Saints fanatic. They all lived in or around Carlisle St and Camden St, East St Kilda and they were there at every game in the bleak fifties.
Up in the stand was the Boase boys' brother in law Jimma Bayliss who would invariably lose his false teeth into the milling crowd below as he reacted to some percieved injustice from umpire and opposition.
It was not unusual to see the crowd make a space below Jimma for any such eventuality. Not far away in the stands sat my mother with her baby, nursing him and bottle feeding him as the game progressed. At 4 years of age that baby would progress to standing on the terraces at the feet of his father and the assembled fanatics.
All of them had formed connections within the club. Bill Grant had been co-opted on to the 3rds committee by legendary club man and supporter Len Stephenson, another Camden St resident. Number 41 if I remember rightly.
Len’s wife Mel seemed to wash all the club jumpers as her washing line was always full of the revered Red, Black and White. This is hard to imagine, she didn’t have a washing machine, I don’t think anyone in the street did in the early fifties, all things were washed in a boiling copper and the clothes were washed by using a large pole to make sure the jumpers were “agitated”. This was back breaking work and she did it every week for the love of the club. This was a Saints household through and through. Max their son went on to play a few games for the Saints.
My writings over the last few years have brought these memories flooding back. Two of my greatest memories are my interactions as a child with Brian Gleeson and Neil Roberts. I have written of them before but they are important in understanding how these two legends of the Saints were seen by the supporters. We were not a succesful club but Brian and Neil had brought success to the Saints through their winning of the Brownlow medal. They had legitimised the Saints as an entity in the VFL. Many supporters had lost heart during the barren winters of the fifties but the arrival of Allan Killigrew combined with the success of Gleeson and Roberts had created a new energy in the club. Leading that energy were the regular supporters on the terraces.
I had been taken into the rooms to meet Neil Roberts following my destruction of the radio following an assault on Roberts by legendary Footscray bad man Charlie Sutton. Confined to home with the measles I was unable to contain myself as Sutton broke Neil Roberts nose. The new radiogram did not stand up to my 6 year old right hook. I don’t remember any severe punishment and later when I had recovered from the spotty disease Len Stephenson took me into the rooms to meet Neil Roberts who took me to meet all the players explaining in some vivid detail how I had beaten up Charlie Sutton. An endearing memory that goes back over 50 years.
In 1957 Brian Gleeson won the Brownlow and Len Stephenson organised for me as a mascot to lead the Saints out hand in hand with Brian Gleeson in the night series. A memory that will never lose its shine. It was this memory that drove me to write my story titled “The Boy from Berrigan”; my tribute to Brian Gleeson.
There are so many stories about amazing Saints supporters it is impossible for them all to be told. Many people write to me to comment on my stories, offer advice or correct my memories and mistakes. I value them all. Many of them tell their own stories of life as a Saints supporter and I hope to be able to write about some. There are so many great Saints characters out there.
A long time Saints supporter wrote to me recently about regularly standing next to Lindsay Fox’s mother at the Junction Oval. Apparently she was never backward in her support for the Saints and of course for her son as he played his heart out for the Saints. Those who remember will tell you that he may not have been blessed with enormous football talent but he couldn’t be matched for heart. Undoubtedly a personal quality that held him in good stead in business.
There are numerous other supporters who have written to me. I first heard from Douglas Stewart via E-mail when he wrote to me regarding my series of stories on players who have worn specific numbers at the club. I am currently in the process of writing the “Number 4” article. Douglas specifically wrote to discuss his teenage hero Jack Kelly who I had named in the “For the love of the jumper” Number 1 team. Jack also wore number 22 and 7 and Douglas was writing to check his memory of his great hero wearing the Number 7.
Douglas and his father, a Real Estate Agent in Fitzroy St, never missed a game in that era until 1942 when Douglas went into Military Service. He spoke with some authority on Jack Kelly, recalling him kicking a bag of goals at the Junction in one particular game.
Douglas remembers the Sporting Globe writer Hec DeLacey criticising Kelly for not passing off to other players. Douglas has a lifetime of memories of his beloved Saints. His recollections of the players he formed friendships with in the great 1939 side are very clear. He has a very strong memory of the 1939 sides magnificent win in the First Semi final when Kelly and Rayment on the wings dominated and Fountain and Garvin in the Ruck put paid to the Tiger’s followers led by Captain Blood Jack Dyer.
Douglas still has a passion for the Saints of today and although he lives in Queensland he still keeps up with the Saints via free to air and pay television and of course the internet.
Douglas writes that his passion for the Saints is matched by his daughter who has maintained and added to the collection of memorabilia that Doug started after he returned from overseas service following the war. Based at Victoria Barracks until 1946 Douglas was a regular at Saints training and games armed with his camera and a love for photography which was a growing hobby. He began by taking photos at training and after showing some shots to Bob Wilkie and Sam Ramsay he progressed to sitting on the boundary beside coach Fred Froude taking shots at home games.
His photo album compiled in that era is still kept in his memorabilia collection now looked after by his daughter.
There are many Saints, passionate supporters, who have collected and maintained fantastic collections of Saints memorabilia. I have been fortunate enough to see some collections. I never fail to be amazed at the passion supporters have in not only collecting this material but taking such pleasure in looking after it and keeping it for following generations of family.
The Stewart family is obviously a Saints household. Douglas’s mother was a cousin of Saints legend Wels Eicke, and like me, Doug as a baby was taken to every home game and bottle fed in the stands. Perhaps he and my father stood side by side on the terrace at the high point beside the race. I must ask my Dad if he ever noticed the bloke with the telephoto lens.
I clearly remember Wels Eicke who seemed to have a real affinity with those blokes on the terraces as he was often there beside the fanatics engaged in earnest conversation about his beloved Saints. Wels was on the losing side in the debate about the shift from the Junction to Moorabbin and this disengaged him from the club at that crucial time in the mid Sixties. He was an old man then and I was still at school. I have no memory of what eventuated for this great player and supporter in the post Junction Oval years.
Douglas Stewart moved to Canberra in 1957 but still kept up with the Saints. He was there in 1965 but unable to get there in 1966, something I could sense from his note disappoints him greatly. My Dad couldn’t get tickets either. Two supporter legends of the terraces were unable to get there on that great day, but I know they rejoiced in the win, there or not.
Many of these supporters who graced the terraces in the fifties are no longer with us but many like Douglas Stewart and Bill Grant are still following their beloved Saints, through failing eyesight and the trials of old age. They and the many like them still follow the Saints as passionately as the did in the Fifties. The terraces have now gone, replaced by comfortable lounge chairs but the Red, White and Black is prominent in their homes whether they be in Melbourne or Queensland or overseas.
C’mon Saints, let's do it this year for the supporters who have followed you through thick and thin. Its time to reward the faithful supporters from the terraces. Go Saints this is our year. Do it for Douglas, Bill, the Boase Clan, the Cafarella boys and all the legendary supporters out there “on the terraces’ and by the way, Do it for me!!!- Go SAINTS
Allan Grant
takeitforgranted@hotmail.com
