Tom Hafey (left) led Shepparton to GVL glory, but it could have been so different.
Here’s one that escaped me.
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I’ve been reading Tom Hafey’s book The Hafey Years and in it, he reveals he applied for the coaching job at Tongala Football Club in 1960.
That was news and a first for me because in all of the years that have passed since, I never got wind of it happening.
But the Hafey snub was enormous when reflecting on what transpired in those times.
Hafey also went for the job at Ganmain in the Riverina in the same year, but in hindsight surprisingly got neither.
Hafey claimed Tongala didn’t even reply to his application and history shows he may have missed out on a flag with the club as Alan Murphy, who got the job, took the Blues to flag glory in 1961.
It was one of the Blues’ four flags it won in its Goulburn Valley League days.
Hafey said in those days the Sporting Globe advertised the coaching positions available at country clubs and applicants were asked for job preference and the remuneration they wanted.
At that time VFL (now AFL) coaches and players were only getting 10 pounds a game – or 200 pounds a season – so it wasn’t a hard decision to make and the reason why so many well-credentialled ex-VFL players found their way to the country to coach and play back then.
Legendary Shepparton Football Club president Jack Edwards got a sniff about Hafey’s interest in the Tongala job and with his club looking for a coach acted swiftly with his renowned persuasive ways.
Edwards made the trip to Melbourne to suss out Hafey at his Richmond milk bar at the time, and came home with his signature.
He had offered the former Richmond defender 800 pounds to take the coaching job at Shepparton – and the rest is history.
Hafey also secured work with McPherson Newspapers at its printing works in Shepparton, so everything fell into place with the appointment of the now household football name.
Three successive premiership wins from 1963 to 1965 were legacies Hafey left at Shepparton, with all three flags coming at Kyabram’s expense.
That didn’t go down too well in Bomberland I can assure you.
Even an effigy of Hafey swinging by the neck hung in Allan St outside the former Albion Hotel in the lead-up to the 1965 GVL grand final because there was so much feeling between the two clubs at the time.
But even that couldn’t inspire a Bombers win in the 1965 GVL season showdown, with Shepparton winning an epic duel in the famous Ross Dillon heartbreaking poster incident in the dying moments of the game.
That was the last time Hafey was to haunt Kyabram as he was appointed coach of Richmond in 1966 and went onto steer it to four flags in a 10-year golden era for the club.
Dick Clay
And in those four flag wins was Kyabram’s champion Dick Clay, who comfortably took the massive rise from country champion to Hall Of Fame and Immortal status in his 213 games with the Tigers.
Shepparton made it four GVL flags in a row in 1966 under its new coach, former Western Australian Kevin McGill, who had roved to the great Polly Farmer.
Hafey also had coaching stints at Collingwood, Geelong and Sydney after his Richmond days.
The Dick Clay saga of how and why he ended up playing with Richmond gets a lot of space in the Hafey book, which is an interesting read, particularly when it was so close to home.
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