Beer O\’Clock
When they hang up the boots, a lot of ex-footballers say the things they miss the most are the thirst for competition and the camaraderie of the clubrooms. Not so for a group of former local football champions, who for a few years now have been filling that void on the bowling greens at Garfield. Steve Bassed, Tom Cleary, Peter Lieshout and Joe Lenders are pennant players with the club – and are joined in their Thursday night and Saturday afternoon ritual by former league president Bill Doherty. These five men have an indelible link – Bassed (1975), Lenders (1977-78), Lieshout (1979) and Cleary (1983-84) all won Breheny Medals as the best and fairest player in the West Gippsland Football League – and Doherty presented each of them with their medals. They are all great mates. Gazette editor GARRY HOWE sat down with the group after a grueling Thursday night training session and the banter kicked off straight away, with Bassed ribbing Lenders about a Lenders-inspired melee after the siren in the 2013 elimination qualifying final between Pakenham and Berwick that landed the Lions assistant coach in a bit of hot water.
Steve
So, Joey, you’re going to be in the paper again. Wasn’t it the year before last that you were on the front page, flat on your back in a pack of Berwick players (laughter all round).
Joey
Yeah, it was just having a bit of a rest.
Tom
Moving right along…
Steve
I can’t work it out. Joey won two Breheny Medals, yet he must have gone to the the tribunal about 48 times. How does that happen?
Peter
Yeah, isn’t it supposed to be for the fairest and best player?
Joey
That’s not right, it was more like 28 or 30 times (before the tribunal).
Doc
You were on a first name basis with (tribunal chairman) Gerry O’Donnell though.
Tom
Yeah, what about the ’83 grand final? ROC coach Peter Chisnell (the former North Melbourne star) told one of his players to whack me at the first bounce. He said Lenders would come in to protect me and he would fix him up. Well, it didn’t work out that way. They missed me and Joey came in and he and Chisnell just went at it, toe-to-toe, for ages. I just sat back and watched.
Joey
Yeah, I went to the hospital after the game, there were all these ROC blokes in the waiting room. I walked in and the staff there ushered me straight through. They were filthy at me again. I got double the whack at the tribunal because it was a grand final. When they read out the charge they said I had landed an uppercut. I said I had to contest that – it was a Dutch upper cut. They asked me to explain and I told them I was holding him up by the hair and punching the top of his head. Another time I went to the tribunal I said to Gerry, or Mr O’Donnell it was then, that I wanted to plead provocation. He said “don’t talk to me like that son,” I don’t think he knew what it meant.
Steve
We could be here all day if we went through all your tribunal appearances. What are we here for again?
Doc
Well men, the reason we are here is that we have worked it out that no other bowling club anywhere would have the winners of six league football medals at the same club at the same time.
Steve
That’s five and a half medals.
Doc
Oh yeah, you tied with Barry Graham that year (1975), but don’t you always say that was worth double because you tied with one of the best players the league had seen? I can’t imagine any other bowling club in Australia with the winners of six medals – or five and a half as you say.
Peter
I suppose not, but I’d be sure there wouldn’t be a club with that many Breheny Medallists. I think it’s safe to say we’ve got that one covered.
Tom
I thought it was still called the Clancy Medal (awarded until the late 1960s) when Steve won his.
Steve
Nearly. I was only a few years off.
Gazette
Doc, these boys won the medal over a 10 year period and you were president of the league for nine years, how can it be that you presented all their medals?
Steve (interjecting)
No, Peter Landy presented me with mine. He came down as a special guest of Viscount and he had some pretty handy promotional girls with him as well. There was a big crowd that night… it was at the old Pakenham Hall.
(At this point, Steve is shown a photo of Doc congratulating him on medal night.)
Yeah, but that was after Peter Landy had already handed it to me. Doc just wanted to get in another photo.
Peter
It was a big promotion for Viscount cigarettes. They had packets of 10 at each table setting. Could you imagine that happening today? It was back in the days when you could smoke inside.
Joey
Yeah, I remember when Bass won the medal someone said we should go up and congratulate him and we said “bugger him, let’s go up and meet Peter Landy and the girls.”
Steve
I was coach that year so I had the chalk (writing up the votes on the tally board). I’d whack another vote on when Barry was getting a bit closer.
Joey
They were both great players – Bass and Graham. I remember playing Pakenham in the home and away round, it was one of the best games of the year. Steve was centre half-back and Barry Graham was centre half-forward. It was different footy back then, a lot of one-on-one duels and I reckon that’s one of the best I’ve ever seen – two quality players going toe-to-toe all day. Steve was all over him and Barry kicked a couple in the last quarter and Pakenham just got up.
Steve
They were the best side in the comp back then and they just got over us.
Joey (to Steve)
What about the day you had the ball running away with that bloke McLean on your tail. You’ve had a bounce, showed him the ball out the back as if to say “catch me if you can”, taken another bounce and put it straight through the middle. A bit arrogant, don’t you think?
Steve
No, it wasn’t like that. When I had the first bounce the ball didn’t come back right and it just happened that I caught it around the back. Not a bad goal though, hey?
Gazette
Okay Doc, you presented them all with their medals, who was the best footballer?
Doc (smiling)
That’s hard, but I’ll have to say Joey Lenders because he’s a selector here (at the bowls club).
Steve
The team’s already picked – and you won’t be in the side anyway, so you might as well be fair dinkum.
Doc
No, really, to be serious I can’t split them. Anyone who has won that medal is a champion – even if it was only half a medal.
Peter, how old were you when you won the medal – 12? You seem to be getting younger every time you talk about it.
Peter
I was 17.
Tom
How many votes did you get?
Peter
About 13 I think.
Tom
The lowest ever for the league, isn’t it?
Peter
Yeah, but I only played eight games that year.
Gazette
Why was that?
Peter
I had won the Pitt Medal (thirds) the year before and was playing two games of a Saturday. We were struggling a bit at Longwarry back then – they were flogging us – we only won about two games in three years, but we beat Kooweerup one day and I kicked 12-1 – hit the post too. I played full-forward and won the club goalkicking with 56 goals in eight games.
Joey
He’s a bit younger than us. They used to have a Longwarry dance and all us players would stash our grog behind tussocks and that so we could duck out for a drink during the night. When we got there the grog had gone. We didn’t realise until years later what had been happening. Peter and a few of his mates would watch us hide them, then go and knock them off.
Gazette
Okay gents, who are the best players you played with and against?
Peter
The best player against was Trevor McLeish from Tooradin. The best with Errol Ross, our full-back, he was a ripper.
Tom
Nominating a best player is hard – especially with the likes of Murray Payne, Tim Collis and Brendan Faulkner, but the one I used to love playing with was Ken Jose, an absolute gun.
Joey
Best I played with was Tom Cleary – and I don’t mind admitting that. The best I played against is hard. I’d have to split Greg Atkins from Pakenham, John Vandermeer from Tooradin and in the latter years Lachie Hillard from Pakenham. John Vandermeer took the best mark I’ve never seen – I had stop marks all the way up my back.
Doc
I saw Joey take an overhead mark once and six of his team-mates fainted. Did you ever get off the ground?
Joey
Yeah, I took a hanger once, the Gazette took a photo of it. The angle probably flattered me a bit.
Peter
John Vandermeer was a gun – twice as good as me.
Steve
So that would make him four times better than me then (factoring in his half medal). The best footballer I played against was Barry Graham. Best I played with was Kurt Oswald – and I only say that because I never got to play with Ray Biffen (ex-Melbourne champion and Garfield Bowls Club team-mate).
If you had have asked me to nominate the worst footballer, it would be easy – Stan Young by a mile. He went from Pakenham to Rythdale – you’d have to be ordinary to do that. His best work on the field was as a trainer. His brother Daryl got all the ability in that family.
Gazette
Joey, you had a lot of success as a coach too, didn’t you, winning premierships at three different West Gippy clubs – Garfield, Cora Lynn and Pakenham?
Joey
Yeah, it was four clubs if you count the one with St Francis Xavier, but that wasn’t West Gippy. I did get a bit lucky there (on the coaching front).
Doc
Didn’t you start coaching as a teenager?
Peter
No, he was actually born to coach, wasn’t he Bass?
Steve
Yeah, that’s what he says anyway (laughter erupts). Did you, or did you not, say on a bowls trip to Deniliquin that you were born to coach?
Joey (reluctantly)
Yeah, but I had had a few at that stage… and I was taken out of context.
Tom
He was a great coach, Joey. Garfield were perennial finalists under Herb Baptist, but couldn’t go that extra yard. Joey came in and got Bones, Bannana, Barrel and the rest of them all under control and working as a real unit. He was terrific.
Joey
What about the day you got a corky and wanted to come off?
Tom
Yeah, he did get me a ripper and I was in a lot of pain. I said to Joey that I might have to go off. He said, no don’t go off, go and sit up at full-forward.
Joey
Yeah, he kicked seven goals in the second half!
Tom
Seven in the third quarter, if you don’t mind.
Peter
If you kicked seven, how many did Barrel kick then?
Tom
No, the Parasite wasn’t playing that day.
Peter (explaining)
Every time Tom took a mark Barrel was running past wanting the ball. If he had been playing, he would have taken at least five of them!
Steve (smiling at Joey)
As well as a fantastic leader of men, Joey was also a bit of a leader in the fashion stakes. What was that get-up you wore – a kaftan? You looked like that singer who just died, Demis Roussos.
Joey
Yeah, guilty as charged. We came back from a cruise and I bought a kaftan – and all the beads that came with it as well. Not sure what I was thinking wearing it down to the footy club, I suppose I got what I deserved.
Steve
We all thought you must have bought a few magic mushrooms back as well to give that a run.
Tom
He was a footy fashionista, a bit like Don Scott and his man bag.
Peter
My mother made Don Scott his first man bag. He came to Longwarry one day with (Hawthorn champion) Peter Knights and mum made him the bag while he was here.
Gazette
Peter Knights, now there’s a champion local product. That period you all won the medal – the mid-70s to the mid 80s – that must have been a golden era for the league.
Peter
It really was. A lot of people say that the best era of West Gippy footy was from the ’60s to the ’90s – and that would be pretty much on the mark.
Joe
Yeah, but we’re all orphans now though (given the demise of the West Gippsland league). Where are the records? Where is our home? We are no-where; our history is lost.
Steve
Yeah, but we’ve moved on.
Tom
I played one year in the Ellinbank league and one of our players split his head open on a car bonnet – the ground didn’t have an outside fence! The next year I got approached to play in the West Gippy for Garfield and I didn’t look back. I loved it.
Peter
Tom won seven best and fairest medals, you know – at Bunyip, then Garfield and he went on to win one at Mulgrave.
Joey
He should have won three straight Breheny Medals too, but went missing the year after he won his second one, just disappeared.
Tom
I was busy.
Doc
Bass, you had a crack at coaching too. How old were you when you took on the job at Garfield?
Steve
I was only 21. Bill Gilmour appointed me in the shower. He said the club couldn’t get anyone to coach and asked if I would give it a go. We beat Catani the first game, we were up and about after that, but we didn’t have a lot of success.
Joey
You did all right though – you won the club goalkicking from centre half-back.
Peter
The next year you went to have a crack at the VFA with Dandenong. You’ve got to tell them about the grand final that year – the big blue, when Allan Harper decked (champion Port full-forward) Fred Cook in the square. How many players were in the melee?
Steve
How many on a footy field?
Peter
Well, there were no wings in the VFA back then, so it would be 34.
Steve (smiling)
Well then, there were 32 players in the blue.
Peter
Who stood out?
Steve
Yeah, that’s right. I was standing next to Billy Swan when it broke out. We just looked at each other and he said, ‘should we wrestle or something?’ We decided just to watch. It was a massive game. There were nearly 40,000 people there that day at the Junction Oval. It was tough footy, the VFA, back then. Those blokes had tattoos when tattoos were tough.
Peter
Did you get a kick?
Steve (smiling)
(Champion ex-Garfield forward) Frosty Miller was still playing then. Billy Thompson would get it in the back pocket, kick it to me, I’d have three bounces, then kick it to Frosty. Sometimes though I’d have another bounce and kick it myself.
Doc
They’re a modest lot! Every time they tell a story the kicks get longer, the marks get higher and the goals get better.
Joey (to Steve)
What about your year at Hawthorn? How many games did you play there?
Steve
Only about 15 or 16 – all in the seconds. I was a country boy at heart and not really cut out for it. I might have stuck at it if they had the Monash back then, but I spent too much time on the road and didn’t want to live in there. It was the year (champion forward) Peter Hudson flew in by helicopter to play. He’d be back in Tasmania before I got home to Garfield!
Gazette
So we’ve heard how good all you blokes were, what about this bloke (pointing to Doc). How was he as an administrator?
Peter
He was great, couldn’t fault him.
Tom
Nar Nar Goon (Doc’s home club) did all right though, didn’t they Doc?
Doc
You must have got that from (long-time Garfield delegate) Laurie Marsh. I remember one year, just when the new hall was opened, Nar Nar Goon got to host the first semi-final, the medal count and the presentation night. One of the other delegates made the mistake of saying at a meeting that the Goon had done all right that year and Marsh, without even looking up, said “Yeah, and if Doherty gets his way they’ll have the Lang Lang Rodeo there as well!” He was a real character Laurie. Another time he was playing up a bit at a meeting, so I gave him a bit of a dressing down. I told him he was not only letting himself down by his behavior, but letting down his club and the league. He nudged (Catani’s) Colin Hodson, who was sitting next to him, and muttered, “I thought bloody Hitler was dead!”
Gazette
What about on the bowling green – are any of you any good at the caper?
Steve (pointing to the honour board)
Look over there, see club champion column – can you count to seven? I had to give the footy away early – played the last couple of years in a knee brace – and took up bowls in 1983 and won the club championship that year. I was 28.
Gazette
What’s the asterix mean?
(Groans all around the table)
Steve
That meant I went on to win the champion of champions title – that’s the best of all the district champions. Lieshout is up there too. Cleary’s on the other board (across the room). Where’s your name Lenders?
Joey
I love this. The bowls is fun, but the banter’s even better. We all get stuck in to each other a fair bit.
Doc
Where else would you want to be?
