Collingwood and Essendon’s Anzac Day fixture at the Melbourne Cricket Ground has become almost as much a part of the nation’s day of honouring the fallen as the march along St Kilda Rd to the Shrine of Remembrance.
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And while Rochester-born John Williams is no stranger to the MCG, having played more than 200 VFL games with Collingwood and Essendon, he has not attended any of the 28 instalments of the match which was the brainchild of legendary Bombers coach Kevin Sheedy.
Williams regularly played on Anzac Day, but never in an Essendon and Collingwood game on April 25.
He did play in an 18-point win against Melbourne at the MCG on Friday, April 25, 1969. He then played in front of a 50,000-strong Anzac Day crowd on a Tuesday in 1972, when the Bombers lost by 15 points to arch-rival Carlton at Waverley.
He also played on Anzac Day at Glenferrie Oval in 1970.
And it was not strange at all for him to dominate a VFL match during the month of April.
Against South Melbourne only days before Anzac Day in 1970, he took 16 marks and had 29 disposals for Essendon in an 11-point win.
“I remember the day because our coach Jack Clarke was on World of Sport on the Sunday and got into an argument with one of the panellists because he didn’t give me a vote,” Williams said.
The following year, Williams played in a draw against Collingwood in an April 17 match where he was again a star, with 23 possessions and five free kicks in a game where an extraordinary 85 free kicks were paid.
Today, Williams shares his time between his Melbourne home, only five minutes’ walk from Essendon’s Windy Hill, and a holiday home in Bright.
Unless you grew up in Rochester during the 1960s, the name John Williams will not immediately jump off the page, but dig a little deeper into the past and you will uncover the generational connection of he and his family to Rochester.
Williams’ grandparents bought a property at Ballendella in 1929, relocating from Elmore, and John was born at the Rochester hospital in Victoria St in July 1947.
“I was the oldest of four kids. Barry was three years younger and there was Glenys (now Cane, who lives at Bendigo) and Neil (who lives near Swan Hill),” Williams said.
“Glenys worked in the ANZ Bank at Rochester for years.”
Williams’ father Les ran the family farm at Ballendella and the family at one point represented a significant portion of the town’s tennis team, with both parents, John and Barry all part of the team. Glenys and Neil also played with the club.
“Mum and Dad actually moved into Rochester when they sold the farm and Dad was always at the bowling club,” he said.
Williams’ mother Joan (nee Fitzgerald) was born in Rochester and spent the last decade of her life in a unit at the Rochester and Elmore District Health Service’s aged care facility before her death in 2019.
Williams was identified early as a football talent, earning Victoria schoolboy selection as a 13-year-old for a team that competed in Tasmania.
His first coach at Rochester was a Rochester policeman named Con O’Toole and he recalled the constabulary was well represented at the football club, where policeman Clarrie Barnes was a trainer and superintendent Mr Mcinerney was the head trainer.
“I also remember Bluey O’Neill was also a trainer, but he didn’t know too much about injuries,” Williams said
He was driven to and from training and games, from his Ballendella home, by Brian Jones for a couple of years before he was old enough to drive himself.
In the summer he played cricket with Rovers, fondly recalling the antics of electrician and veteran wicketkeeper of the era, Jack Anderson.
Williams was playing senior football with Rochester as a 15-year-old and played his first game of VFL football aged 17 years and 247 days.
In an eight-year stretch from 1958-65, Rochester twice won back-to-back Bendigo league premierships and was beaten in four other grand final appearances. Williams was part of those glory days of the club when, as a just turned 16-year-old, he was a member of the 1963 premiership team.
Aged 17, Williams was working at Dalgetys, where the Moore St op shop is now, alongside two of the men who were chiefly responsible for him being recruited to Essendon.
“Jack Green was at the department of ag. He was a dairy inspector and had started recruiting for Essendon. Gus Hardwick was a wholesale butcher who used to come to Rochester all the time and also had Essendon connections,” Williams said.
“Bill Cookson (Essendon Football Club secretary at the time) and Harry Hunter (a well-known bookmaker and club treasurer) rang to say they were coming up to have a talk and I signed a form four right then and there.”
He not only played with both the Bombers and the Magpies during an 11-year stretch from 1965 until 1976, but he finished equal-third in the Brownlow Medal, won All-Australian selection and played in front of a then record crowd of 116,000 in the 1968 grand final.
It could have been different, though.
A Melbourne supporter as a kid, mainly because of the Demons’ four premierships from 1955-59, Williams regularly had stars in his eyes when dual Melbourne VFL premiership captain Noel McMahen arrived in town to coach Rochester.
That re-affirmed his support of the Demons, with McMahon guiding Rochester to four successive grand finals and two premierships between 1958-61 before returning to coach South Melbourne in the VFL.
McMahen was a businessman in Rochester and a favourite of Williams’ father.
The Demons actually arrived at Dalgety’s to talk to Williams about his football future a day after the Essendon contingent had secured his signature.
Williams played six matches on permit in 1965, three in the senior team that was coached by the legendary John Coleman.
Essendon won the premiership in 1965, but Williams had knee problems and didn’t even play many games for Rochester that season.
Williams played mainly as a ruckman at Rochester, standing at six feet two inches (189 centimetres), but made his name in the big league as a centre half-back.
He remembered playing on legendary St Kilda hard man Carl Ditterich in just his third game, when he kicked two goals.
Goals were few and far between, though — his 161 games for Essendon were rewarded with just 14 goals and he booted eight goals from 35 games at Collingwood.
Despite missing most of 1965, Essendon did invite a teenage Williams to watch the grand final.
The very next year he spent a lot the season in the ruck, but an eye injury to premiership centre half-back Ian “Bluey’’ Shelton meant he went to the key defensive post in 1967.
Bluey’s spot, because he injured his eye. That is how I got to centre half back. In 1967 I went to centre half back
In 1968 he played in front of a then record grand final crowd of 116,000 people who saw the Bombers lose to Carlton by three points.
“It was very windy, but I remember the crowd,” he said.
A renowned mark, Williams caught the attention of those casting the votes in the prime of his VFL career.
He twice finished second in the Crichton Medal for Essendon’s best-and-fairest to close friend and half-back flanker Barry Davis and his 1972 season brought further accolades.
He represented Victoria at the 1972 Australian National Football Carnival and was named at centre half-back in the All-Australian team at the end of that carnival.
Among his opponents was South Australian legend Barry Robran, who he had the better of as the Vics won by 10 goals.
Among the names in the All-Australian team were Malcolm Blight, Leigh Matthews and Alex Jesaulenko, while West Australian Mal Brown was captain.
That season, Williams twice pulled in 13 marks and had more than 25 possessions and ended up polling 18 votes in the Brownlow Medal, finishing equal-third with Melbourne’s Gary Hardeman in the year Collingwood ruckman Len Thompson won the honour.
Only days after the birth of his daughter, Sophie, on September 22, 1972, he ran a lap with that pair and runner-up Greg Wells, as was tradition during the 1970s.
At the end of the 1973 season, second-year Essendon coach Des Tuddenham was on the hunt for a ruckman and Williams was involved in a unique “player for player’’ trade that saw Ian “Jerker’’ Jenkins cross to Essendon and Williams go to Collingwood.
“Collingwood had been at me a couple of years to go across to them and the head of a supporters group told me that if I ever wanted to shift, I would be welcome,” Williams said.
“They got Jerker Jenkins and I went to Collingwood in a direct player swap.”
Williams’ time at Collingwood came via the short-lived 10-year rule, but the same knee problems he experienced as a teenager limited his effectiveness.
Collingwood lost to Hawthorn in a 1974 semi-final by 50 points, but only two weeks earlier Williams had 25 disposals, took nine marks and was awarded six free kicks.
He surrendered his centre half-back post in the Collingwood line-up to the legendary Billy Picken after finishing third in the 1974 Copeland Trophy for Collingwood’s best-and-fairest, but his knee problems returned and in his last two years at Victoria Park he played just a dozen games.
“I ended up playing as captain of the reserves side and in my last game in 1976 we won the grand final,” he said.
Collingwood beat North Melbourne in that match and Williams kicked six goals from centre half-forward as a young Rene Kink wreaked havoc and kicked four himself.
Tom Hafey came to Collingwood as coach in 1977, after the Magpies finished the 1976 season dead last.
Williams knew Hafey respected him as he had regularly kept Tigers legend Royce Hart under control in several years playing on the high-flying Tiger during Hafey’s coaching tenure.
“I always played well against Royce (Hart) and Tom was coach in that time, but I was getting on a bit when he took over,” he said.
“They said I could stay if I only played for match payments, but I chose to finish.”
Williams said his three years at Collingwood were the most financially beneficial of his career.
“What I got paid in three years at Collingwood was a lot more than the nine years I spent at Essendon,’’ he said, recalling a time when five senior Essendon players refused to play in protest of the pay conditions and he ended up being approached by then-president Allan Hird (grandfather of James Hird and the first in a four-generation Hird dynasty at the Bombers) to captain the team that day.
Williams said the five had insisted the other Bombers players represented the club on the day as all agreed on their stance against the club’s payment structure.
Williams said he looked back fondly on his Essendon days and has visited the Hanger, where his name sits proudly on the number 22 locker now owned by former Seymour boy and midfield livewire Sam Durham.
After finishing at Collingwood, Williams spent one season in the VFA, where he captained Brunswick. He turned down several approaches to coach in the country to continue his work with Dalgety’s.
After leaving Rochester he was able to maintain his professional connection to Dalgety’s, where he worked as a stock agent for 50 years, and managed the Newmarket saleyards for an extended period.
Later, he and Nola ran an accommodation business at Bright.
He doesn’t frequent Rochester as much now, since his mother’s death, but both his parents and grandparents are buried at Rochester cemetery.
“My wife and I come up and see our friends every now and then,” the former Ballendalla Primary School and Rochester High School student said.
His final game of football was a first semi-final loss for Brunswick against Coburg.
As for Anzac Day, Williams is yet to sit in the MCG stands, despite being offered tickets on a regular basis.
“I’ll get there one day. I get two tickets from the 200 club,” he said, recalling his induction to the club alongside St Kilda’s “Cowboy’’ Neale and John “Sam’’ Newman.
“With the business, Anzac weekend was always a busy one. I’ve had the opportunity to go, but just haven’t taken it up.”
He said the Collingwood and Essendon Anzac Day match was a great idea by Sheedy, who Williams played against and alongside in state teams during his VFL career.
Williams had two uncles involved in World War II, but his father had been too young to serve.
“One of those uncles lived at our place on the farm,” he said.
Williams had a “close call’’ of his own in regard to national service.
“I got my nose smashed at a night game at Albert Park and was balloted out for Vietnam,” he said.
“I was put in hospital for two days and went home to where I was boarding and there was a letter waiting for me to say I had been balloted out.
“A lot of fellas I knew went to Vietnam.”
Williams said he continued to pick Collingwood and Essendon every week and maintained strong friendships with the likes of former captain Ken Fletcher — father of 400-gamer Dustin — and several others.
He and Nola are grandparents to five, with son Lachlan a pharmacist and daughter Sophie a lawyer and economist.
Williams retired from Dalgety’s 10 years ago and the couple now regularly travels, catching up with Rochester friends David Wileman, Garry Charnas, Geoff Elliott, Bob Batty and Warren Thomas on a semi-regular basis.
Williams was speaking to us while on holiday in Japan with his wife of 55 years, Nola. He fondly recalled not only the glory days of his football career, but also the connection he has maintained with Rochester.
He will continue that when he is one of two guest speakers interviewed by host Brad McEwan at the May Rochester Football Netball Club Supporters Group function at the Royal Melbourne Hotel on May 19.
Williams said his role at the 2023 Rochester Football Netball Club Supporters Group function in Melbourne came about by accident, as a result of him attending a Rochester Bowling Club fundraiser for the Moon family.
That event was also hosted by television personality McEwan, who is originally from Lockington.
This Anzac Day, I have a feeling Williams will be barracking a little more strongly for Essendon, where he is a very familiar face.
Only five years ago he celebrated his 70th at the Bombers’ traditional home, Windy Hill.
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