The Sydney Swans have won their 10th minor premiership, after going into the final round of the home-and-away season one game ahead of Port Adelaide and the GWS Giants, and with an unassailable advantage in percentage.
On top of the ladder since Round 9, Sydney could have lost by 100 points to Adelaide at the SCG on Saturday night and still finished on top. Even if the Power, playing Fremantle in Perth on Sunday, and the Giants, facing the Western Bulldogs in Ballarat on Sunday, win by 100 points.
Port and GWS are assured of a top four finish and the double-chance, while fourth-placed Geelong claimed the other double-chance beating 16th-placed West Coast in Geelong on Saturday afternoon.
In what could be a marathon of more than eight hours of football that goes until 9pm eastern time on Sunday, it’s Bulldogs v Giants in Ballarat from 12:30pm, Carlton v St Kilda (13th) at Marvel Stadium from 3:20pm, and Fremantle v Port in Perth from 6:10pm eastern time.
The Swans’ minor premierships have been split over 115 years – 1909, 1912, 1918, 1935-36, 1945, 1996, 2014, 2016 and 2024.
In a two-part series ahead the finals, we look back at Sydney’s previous nine minor premierships. Today it’s the first six of the South Melbourne era.
1909 – The Swans’ First Flag
It was a year that began with something that is impossible even to contemplate these days, with Charlie Ricketts making his VFL debut in Round 1 as a 23-year-old captain-coach and going on to lead the club to their first minor premiership and first premiership.
Having been a star with Richmond in the VFA from 1903-05, he’d played 38 games with South from 1906-08 as Carlton won three flags in a row under the League’s first coach Jack Worrall, prompting Ricketts’ appointment as South’s first official coach.
Having finished fifth in 1908 with a 9-9 record, they started the Ricketts era 5-0 and 9-1, and after a mini-slump mid-season, won their last four to claim the minor premiership on percentage from Carlton at 14-4. It was South 168.9% from Carlton 146.8%.
They beat third-placed Collingwood by 21 points but lost to Carlton by 22 points. Then, exercising their ‘right of challenge’ as minor premiers, they beat Carlton by two points to claim the flag.
Among the premiership side were six 1909 debutants – George Bower, Bob Deas, Jack Scobie, Dave Barry, Alan Pentland and Jack Scobie.
Centreman Bower played 75 games but missed the 1912 grand final due to suspension, and fullback Scobie, who had turned 18 just 10 days before the grand final, went on to play 75 games with the club.
Deas kicked four goals on debut and played every game until he was left out for the second final. He was recalled for the grand final and kicked two goals from centre half forward before going on to become the club’s 14th 100-gamer, totalling 111 games.
Jim Caldwell would have been a seventh first-year premiership player but for a nine-match suspension incurred in the preliminary final. He played 155 games and had his moment nine years later when he led South to the 1918 flag.
Len Mortimer posted the club’s first goal-kicking half-century in his fourth season to finish second in the League to Collingwood’s Dick Lee as George Bruce, George Topping and Ted Kennedy became the 4th, 5th and 6th members of the 100-game club.
1912 – The First Swans #14
It was the first year players wore official numbers on their jumper, and a reunion of sorts at South Melbourne, with 1909 premiership captain-coach Charlie Ricketts and 1909 premiership ruckman Bert Franks back together after they’d been separated for vastly different reasons.
Ricketts had stepped aside in 1910 due to serious illness, leaving Bill Thomas to take the reins for two years, while the athletic Franks had an enforced break.
One of the game’s greats, Franks had a poor disciplinary record due, as legend has it, to a workplace accident in which he was struck by a falling object and knocked onto a furnace. His back was so badly burnt that afterwards he wore thick padding, and at times when he received a hard knock to his back he reacted aggressively.
Franks missed the 1907 grand final through a suspension incurred for striking Carlton’s Doug Gillespie in the first match of a three-match sectional season that year that followed a 14-match home-and-away campaign.
The suspension was scheduled to run until June 1908 but was lifted two weeks before when it was ruled to have been illegal because Franks had been reported by the Carlton secretary rather than the umpire. It had been commonplace prior to 1907 but was not permitted under new Australasian Football Council rules implemented in 1907.
Then, Franks got caught up in the aftermath of a wild 1910 match against Carlton in which spectators invaded the ground to join an all-in melee and South Melbourne half forward Dick Casey was reported by umpire Lawrence Tulloch for striking Carlton’s Jim Marchbank.
After Casey had been unavailable for the usual mid-week tribunal hearing the charge was heard the following Saturday and Casey was suspended for the rest of the season.
Franks had been among a large crowd outside the Block Arcade in Collins Street, where the tribunal was housed, to hear the outcome. When umpire Tulloch left the building Franks allegedly abused him, kicked him in the ankle and, when Tulloch went back inside, he followed him.
After much debate over whether the football body had the right to rule on the matter, it was decided they did. So, more than a fortnight after the original incident, during which time Franks had played two more games, he was found guilty of “insult and assault” and suspended for life. This was later amended to 33 matches, which allowed him to return in 1912.
Dick Mullaly, a centreman recruited from Leopold, was among the 1909 debutants and the first player to wear the #14 jumper that would become famous via Bob Skilton and Paul Kelly, and now Callum Mills. Mullally went on to play 65 games.
Les Rusich played 54 games and Harry Saltau 50 games, while fullback Les Abbott grabbed a slice of history with his debut in Round 14, becoming the first player to wear the colors of five clubs.
Originally from VFA club Port Melbourne, he’d played one game at Collingwood in 1904 and one with Carlton in 1905. After five years with Brunswick back in the VFA he rejoined the premier competition with Richmond, playing 31 games in 1910-11. He transferred to Melbourne to play Rounds 3, 4 and 6 in 1912, and after a mid-season move to South he played Rounds 14-16.
The only other five-club players have been Les Hughson, who split 73 games between Collingwood (1), Hawthorn (4), Carlton (12), St Kilda (41) and Fitzroy (15) between 1927-37, and Dale Kickett, whose 181 games from 1990-2002 covered Fitzroy (15), West Coast (2), St Kilda (21), Essendon (8) and Fremantle (135).
Bill Thomas, Vic Belcher and Casey posted their 100th games for the club in 1909 as they started 8-0 and 9-1, and at 14-4 took the minor premiership on percentage from Carlton despite losing twice to the Blues in the home-and-away season.
But September didn’t go to plan. After South lost to third-placed Essendon in the first final and Essendon eliminated Carlton, South had to exercise their challenge as minor premiers for a chance to win the premiership. They did, but lost by 14 points.
1918 – Welcome Home Bert
Bert Howson, a member of the very first South Melbourne VFL side in 1897 after playing with the club in the VFA and captain in 1906, returned as coach in 1918 as the competition returned to eight teams after it had been six teams in 1917 and four teams in 1916 due to World War I. Melbourne were the only club still in recess.
Jim Caldwell was the new captain as South went 13-1 through the home-and-away season, losing only to St Kilda at Junction Oval by five points in Round 4 after a ‘different’ preparation.
The match was played on the King’s Birthday holiday Monday after the South players had spent two days enjoying the hospitality of a club patron at his home in the Dandenongs. Champion rover Mark Tandy recalled years later “some of the players were wobbling at the knees when they walked from the St Kilda tram to the St Kilda oval.
Gerald Ryan, in his second season at the club, was the No.2 goal-kicker in the League with 32 goals behind Carlton’s first-year player Ern Crowley (35), while Chris Laird, among 12 South debutants and later to play 59 games, was tied for fourth in the goal-kicking with 24. Other notable debutants were Tom O’Halloran (62 games), Chip Turner (66) and Tammy Hynes (57).
After South’s first final was delayed by a week due to heavy rain they battled to beat Carlton by five points in their first final. But as vice-captain Vic Belcher became the first player in League history to play 200 games in the grand final they beat Collingwood by five points after trailing at each change. Belcher, moved from fullback into the ruck in the second half, was a colossal force before Laird soccered the match-winning goal off the ground in the square inside the last minute.
1935 – Watch out for the …. Tram!
It was the year of football’s most famous tram accident. On the eve of the grand final, after having kicked 100 goals for the third season in a row, champion full forward Bob Pratt was hit by a brick truck alighting from a tram on grand final eve and missed the ‘big one’.
The Swans, having won the 1933 flag and lost the ’34 grand final, opened the 1935 season with a two-point loss to Collingwood at Victoria Park before 12 wins in a row ensured they were right in the mix again.
With Jack Bissett in the third of his four years as captain-coach, they enjoyed a 16-2 home-and-away record, including 9-0 at Lake Oval, to finish a game ahead of Collingwood on the home-and-away ladder, and a game and a half clear of Carlton.
Their only other home-and-away loss was in Round 15 after a three-week break due to a split round and an all-teams bye. During their time off they sailed up the east coast and played exhibition matches against Collingwood in Brisbane and Newcastle. Without the injured Pratt and Jock McKenzie, they lost by 41 points. Still they beat the Pies by 21 points in the first final but lost the grand final without Pratt by 20 points.
West Australian wingman Jim Reid debuted at 21 and banked a 19-2 record, losing only his first game in Round 1 and the grand final. He polled 11 votes in the Brownlow Medal to head the Swans count and finish equal 9th behind Fitzroy rover Haydn Bunton, who polled 25 votes to pocket his third medal. But after two years and 36 games at South, Reid returned to WA to play 10 years with Claremont.
Also debuting for South in Round 1 was Roy Moore, a utility forward known for his torpedo punt who played 19 games and kicked 52 goals, including two in the grand final deputising for Pratt at full forward. He went on to play 66 games for the club.
The other standout debutant of 1935 was ruckman/utility Jack Graham from Red Cliffs, near Mildura. Known for his place kick, he played 227 games over 15 years, including grand final appearances in 1936 and 1945 and two top 10 finishes in the Brownlow. He was the father of ex-Geelong player and Tasmanian football stalwart Ricky Graham and grandfather of Cats 200-gamer turned NFL punt kicker Ben Graham.
The grand final loss brought a sad end to the outstanding 147-game career of wingman Harry Clarke, who in 2003 was named in the Swans Team of the Century. Having played in the 1934 grand final loss Clarke had enjoyed 14 wins in a row until the premiership decider.
1936 – Heartbreak Times Three
Having suffered back-to-back grand final losses in 1934-35 after their magnificent 1933 flag, South Melbourne reappointed Jack Bisset as captain-coach. It was done amid much consternation which didn’t improve when Bissett, a noted gambler, didn’t turn up until five minutes before the first bounce for the Round 1 clash with Melbourne at Lake Oval. Having been delayed at Ascot Racecourse, he was banned from playing as South won by 21 points after the club told the press Bissett was unwell.
In a 12-team competition of 18 home-and-away matches, South won their first eight games before a Round 9 loss to Richmond at Punt Road. But after a 52-point MCG hiding from Melbourne in Round 12 they claimed the minor premiership with a 16-2 record and a percentage of 118.5 that was fifth best in the League. Collingwood were second at 15-3 with the best percentage of 135.6.
In Round 10, Maurie Johnson became South Melbourne player #500. A 109-gamer at Carlton who had skippered the Blues in 1934, Johnson had a falling-out with coach Frank Maher after six rounds and changed clubs. In his first game when 2nd-placed South took on ladder leaders Collingwood he kicked four goals in an 11-point win.
In a year in which Herbie Matthews finished 3rd in the Brownlow Medal in his 5th season, Bob Pratt kicked 64 goals to rank 4th in League goal-kicking and Eric Huxtable and Mickey Crisp joined the 100-game club, other standout debutants included Reg Richards (117 games), Keith Smith (93) and Rex Ritchie (89).
South led Collingwood by 13 points at three-quarter time in the semi-final at the MCG but lost by 13 points after Brighton Diggins had his jaw broken. They beat Melbourne by 26 points in the preliminary final as Bob Pratt kicked five goals to earn a crack at the Pies in the grand final.
South trailed at every change in the ‘big one’ and by 21 points at halftime, but when Johnson goaled early in the final quarter the margin was a solitary point. But when Phonse Kyne kicked a steadier for the Pies it was three grand final losses in a row.
It was the last game for Bisset, Dinny Kelleher, Lindsay Richards, Jim Reid and Syd Dineen.
1945 – The War is Over
It was Saturday September 1, 1945. As people young and old around the globe celebrated the end of World War II, South Melbourne celebrated their sixth minor premiership when they beat Hawthorn by 36 points at Junction Oval.
It was the longest home-and-away season in history, stretched to 20 games for the first time as the League looked to make up games lost during the war, and as it turned out it cost a Swans side coached by West Australian Bill ‘Bull’ Adams after he’d replaced Joe Kelly.
Carlton had been outside the top four 19 weeks in a row and as low at 9th with a 3-6 record at Round 9. They beat third-placed Footscray by 53 points in Round 20 to sneak into the finals, and four weeks later they beat South by 28 points in the grand final.
South welcomed two recruits who went on to become all-time greats. In Round 2, Billy Williams, a brilliant rover, played the first of 124 games in a career in which he was club champion in 1946, 1947 and 1950. And in Round 3, Ron Clegg, a star at centre half back and centre half forward, played the first of 231 games before going on to win the 1949 Brownlow Medal, finish second in 1951, claim the club championship in 1948, 1949 and 1951 and captain the club from 1953-54 and 1957-60 to earn selection in the Team of the Century.
They also welcomed the return of champion full forward Laurie Nash, who had quit the club in acrimonious circumstances in 1937. He’d played four years with VFA club Camberwell but only RAAF representatives games from 1942-44. He was almost 35 when he played his 83rd game after his 82nd game at 27.
While most clubs had returned to their traditional home grounds, South continued to share Junction Oval with St Kilda as Lake Oval was still being used for war purposes.
South won their first six games, but struggled at times with supposedly lesser opposition, going down to North Melbourne when they were 6th, Carlton when they were 9th and, after a narrow loss to 3rd-placed Collingwood, fell to 7th-placed Fitzroy. They lost top spot on the ladder at Round 13 but took it back the next week and finished first at 16-4, a game clear of Collingwood (15-5), with North (13-7) and Carlton (13-7) making up the top four. It was North’s first finals appearance.
After Carlton eliminated North by 26 points in the first semi-final, South accounted for Collingwood by 11 points to go straight into the grand final ultimately against Carlton after they ko’d Collingwood by 10 points in the preliminary final.
A capacity-plus crowd of 62,986 packed Carlton’s Princes Park for the decider, which became part of football folklore after it erupted into a series of wild brawls after Carlton captain Bob Chitty flattened an 18-year-old Clegg. Spectators threw bottles onto the ground as Carlton’s Fred Fitzgibbon, unavailable due to suspension, jumped the fence to get involved.
Carlton won what became known as the ‘Bloodbath Grand Final’ by 28 points as Herbie Matthews, Nash, Keith Smith and Ted Whitfield retired in what would be the Swans last appearance in a premiership decider for 51 years.
There was no Brownlow Medal awarded, but Jack Graham was club champion.
