“I’ve only got one instruction for you. You go everywhere number seven goes. You go everywhere number seven goes and he’ll teach you how to play footy.”
They are the words of South Melbourne captain Ron Clegg, spoken to a young Bob Skilton in only his second match for the club.
The number seven he referred to was Essendon’s Bill Hutchison.
So Skilton obeyed his captain’s commands and made his transition to league football by following his opponent around, learning how to read the play from the best.
It wasn’t such a bad idea for the young recruit, a child of the 1940s and 50s, who rarely got a chance to see the best players in the flesh.
“I’d probably seen four games of league football, even though I lived in Port Melbourne, before I actually played with the seniors,” Skilton says.
“When you meet guys for the first time, you’re in awe of those guys.”
Suddenly thrust into a world where he ran alongside his childhood heroes, he says learning from his opponents was a vital part of his development. It was a lesson he continued to apply throughout his career.
Former Hawthorn champion Peter Hudson says focussing on the next stage, as opposed to a long-term dream, is important for young players.
“As you grow up, and I’m sure this applies to any era, first up you want to get a game in your school footy team. If you stand out, you know you’ve made it and you know you can handle that. But then you look at the next level,” he says.
“When they’re drafted, then they’ve got to make the team. All those things are a very important part of your development and at that stage you’re not really thinking about playing for the Big V or anybody else.
“You’re hell-bent on getting to the next stage.”
Skilton says as an aspiring player, there’s nothing like somebody from where you grow up “really making it”.
“I think football in Sydney, for instance, would absolutely boom if a Paul Kelly or a Barry Hall or an Adam Goodes came out of Sydney.
“It’s unfortunate for football in Queensland in some respects that [Nick] Riewoldt didn’t play for Brisbane.
“One minute he’s playing for Southport, the next minute he’s in a premiership side for Brisbane. And there’s a chance that every kid will say ‘if only I could do it’.”
Tasmanian-born Hudson, who played against Riewoldt’s uncles in his youth, is quick to mention that the Apple Isle also has a claim on the St Kilda champion.
Regardless of that debate, it’s clear that Skilton and Hudson agree on one thing: showing young players the pathway to success encourages them to believe in their talent.
“When I was say 14 or 15, to think that you’d ever play for an AFL team or a VFL team, let alone play for Victoria, was a boyhood dream,” Hudson says.
“As a Tasmanian, to play for the Big V was like walking on the moon. I can’t understand how anyone wouldn’t want to do that.”
