By David Nagel
One of the all-time great players and characters of West Gippsland football is Tom Cleary.
The athletic ruckman, still involved with the Bunyip Football Club, was the pre-eminent big-man in the West Gippsland Football League from the late 70’s through to mid-80’s
He built his enviable reputation on fair play, a huge leap, and having the cleanest pair of hands in the business at both the Bunyip and Garfield footy clubs.
Fittingly, this Saturday, the two arch-rivals will lock horns in battle for the Tom Cleary Cup at Beswick Street in Garfield.
The now 66-year-old was born in the second week of January, 1957, right in the heart of West Gippsland, at the West Gippsland Hospital in Warragul.
The Cleary family home was a busy one, with Tom the fifth of eight siblings with Genevieve, Ted, Mick, Angela, Tom, Bernard, Eleanor and Jim making up the clan.
Tom Cleary’s first taste of football was an exhilarating experience, watching superstar full-forward Jim ‘Frosty’ Miller kick goals for fun for Garfield through the 1960’s.
“I remember Garfield won a premiership in 1963 and I was chewing some gum when I got home from the grand final,” Cleary recalled.
“Mum said ‘Where did you get that from?’
“I said, ‘Frosty Miller gave it to me’…I remember the three-quarter-time huddle of the grand final I was holding his hand and he gave me his chewing gum.
“I reckon I chewed that gum for four days straight (laughs)…he was everyone’s hero.”
The Cleary family moved from Garfield to Bunyip while Tom and his brother Ted were playing thirds football.
Being a boarder at St Bede’s in Mentone, Ted was unable to attend a compulsory Sunday training session at Garfield and wasn’t selected in the thirds team for the following week.
“Dad thought Ted had a reasonable excuse not to train so he packed us all up, like the Beverly Hillbillies, and we all headed off to Bunyip,” Cleary says with a chuckle.
Three of the brothers, Mick, Bernard and Tom, would all subsequently win senior best and fairest awards at Bunyip.
Mick’s win came in 1974, and Bernard’s three-peat in 1977, 78 and 79, the perfect precursors to Tom’s three-consecutive awards from 1980 to 1982.
The senior team at Bunyip would become home for Cleary for nine years, playing at the club from 1974 to 1982…with the club never really threatening to break a premiership drought that extended back to 1945.
“We didn’t play finals and I remember at times we were quite uncompetitive,” Cleary remembers.
“Bunyip and Garfield almost combined at one stage, but that fell through, and then Bunyip joined the Ellinbank and District Football League in 1982.”
Cleary would stay on for the 1982 season – winning his third best and fairest on the trot – before Garfield came knocking!
“A good friend of mine, John Giblin, he played at Garfield, we went to school together, and he was the one who first floated the idea of moving across to Garfield,” Cleary explained.
“At first I said ‘don’t be so bloody stupid.’
“Joe Lenders was coach at Garfield at the time and even he told John that he would never get me to leave Bunyip.
“I had a good think about it and decided to go.
“At the Bunyip pub the barman would say, ‘Why don’t you go down to Garfield and drink with your mates down there.’ It was pretty good natured…but they weren’t very impressed that I left.”
“My first game was against Drouin at Drouin.
“We were in front at half time and the president, Chris Soumilas, came up to me and gave me some encouragement.
“We won and he came back to me after the game and said ‘How was that, Tom?’
“I said I’ve played against Drouin for 13 years and never played in a winning side.
“He looked me straight in the eye and said ‘Welcome to Garfield.’
“From that moment on I felt welcomed at Garfield.
“It was just the way he said it, the way he looked me in the eye…they were exactly the right words at the right time.”
Cleary and Garfield would both have a magnificent 1983 season, Cleary winning the first of back-to-back Breheny Medals while Garfield would shake the monkey off its back by winning the premiership under the inspirational leadership of Lenders.
Cleary would add a second Breheny Medal in 1984, before moving to Mulgrave in 1986.
He now loves the serenity of his home-town Bunyip, the friendliness of the town, and also the Garfield Bowls Club where he looks forward to spending most Saturday’s during summer.
