There was a buzz around Catani’s Taplins Road base last Thursday night – the home of the Blues was rocking, and this time, it was all for their netball arm. On the footy field, the Blues have been perennial achievers – particularly considering there could be more club members there than people who actually live in the town. But on the netball court, since 1960, it’d been a long tale of heartbreak. That was, until Saturday at Yarragon, where the Blues claimed famous grand final victories in both B Grade (over Ellinbank) and A Grade (over Poowong). Gazette sports editor RUSSELL BENNETT was at Taplins Road for the team meals last Thursday, capturing all the excitement of grand final week, and spoke to club legends Beryl and Angela Banbury for this Beer O’Clock about what that long-awaited grand final glory might mean to them. Two days later, Angela, the B Grade player-coach and club president, would go on to win her first ever Blues premiership after more than 450 games…
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Russell Bennett: Beryl, you, Ronnie, and the Banbury family have dedicated so many years of your lives to this club – and in so many ways. How many years do you think you sewed the numbers on the footy jumpers for?
Beryl Banbury: Probably up until those silky jumpers came in – from 1976, until then. I did that for all the teams.
RB: And you still arrange the shorts and socks?
BB: Yes. If anyone asks me if I’ve got a pair of shorts for them, I say “yes, in the boot -follow me”. Why wouldn’t I keep doing it? It gives me something to do around the club. It’s easy when you love the place.
RB: Yourself and Ronnie have been involved at this place for so long that you’re known as ‘Mr and Mrs Catani’…
BB: Ronnie was the secretary for 22 years.
RB: And he’s been involved here this entire time because of you, hasn’t he Beryl?
BB: Oh yes. When we got married Bunyip wouldn’t give him a clearance! We got married in 1961 and they didn’t clear him for the first six matches. In 1962 he won the best and fairest here, and the rest is history.
We lived on the farm near here.
RB: It would have been within walking distance of here just about, wouldn’t it?
BB: Cut it out! Who’d walk? (laughs). I did enough walking when I was milking cows! It was a mile and bit from here.
RB: Beryl, you could walk that now!
BB: Look, my watch tells me I do!
RB: You two have been intertwined with Catani football and netball for so long, but when you first got involved with the netball it was called basketball, wasn’t it?
BB: Yes. I’ve got my scrapbooks – they’re falling to bits now – but they’ve got all sorts of stories in them, right back from the start. They’re unbelievable. I’ve kept everything that’s been in the papers. What you write up I cut out and put in, and I’ve got a pretty good system now!I’ve kept everything from Cody’s and Chris’ playing days, and (daughter) Angela’s netball too. That’s what it’s all about, and I love it.
Dad did it when he was young too. He was a good athlete – he used to do wrestling, Olympic-style wrestling, and he played soccer at Brighton Tech.
RB: So you got your love of sport from him?
BB: Yes, and I’ve got his journals. He dived off the bridge into the Yarra (River) for a race in about 1920 and he was too quick. He went with the gun, and they made him come back and he got a place.
RB: So when did you first get involved with the netball club, or basketball as it was known then?
BB: I would have been about 16, and I was born in 1938 so you can work that out thank you very much! (laughs).
RB: Maths isn’t my strong suit, Beryl, but that tells me you’ve been involved here since 1954?
BB: Ronnie went to Moe for one year, so I followed him there.
RB: But, overall, we’re talking well over 60 years that you’ve spent here?
BB: Oh yes. What else would I do? I’m not frightened to help.
RB: And obviously yours and Ronnie’s love of sport has rubbed off on Ange, your daughter? Her involvement with the club is just as legendary as anyone’s…
BB: When she was seven she used to peel the potatoes at home while we were milking the cows, and she used to cut them up into chips and come down here to the club and cook them. She was seven years old.
RB: When you look at the netball arm of the club now, and everything Ange has done around the place for so long now, you must just be thrilled with the depth in the club and the success?
BB: Look, Ronnie and I don’t do anything at the netball except watch. When (daughters) Sharon and Angela both played, I’d go over and watch for five minutes and then it was back over to my football! They’ll tell you that! (laughs).
RB: So your first love is the footy, is it?
BB: Of course it is.
RB: But you had an incredible netball career, and you’ve got five netball sides in the grand final on Saturday. Have you seen that here before?
BB: God no. Angela put together the ‘Catani Chatter’ newsletter for the heritage day earlier in the year. It’s fascinating to look back.The last premiership our seniors (A Grade) won was in 1960, so that’s 59 years ago.
RB: And Angela has basically been playing here her whole life and hasn’t won a flag yet either?
BB: I worry about her because it just means so much to her. It will absolutely break her if we don’t win at least one on Saturday. If we win one, she’ll be thrilled.She puts everything into this club.She lives in South Yarra and she works for Fremantle (Football Club) and Netball Victoria, and still comes back here to run the netball club.
RB: Just how proud of her are you and Ronnie?
BB: We’re extremely proud.
RB: You captained the first ‘basketball’ premiership for the firsts here, didn’t you Beryl?
BB: Yes, in 1958. I’m 81 now – Ronnie and I both are. We’d be lost if we weren’t around the club, even now. Other people go and play bowls or work in the op shops, but we’re here. A lot of people get involved in a lot of things, but some of them suffer. I’d rather do one thing properly, and this is my thing.
RB: Do you look at the success of the football club, and what the netball club might be about to achieve, and see it as yours and Ronnie’s reward?
BB: Not our reward – our thrill.
RB: All except one of the club’s netball sides has reached the grand finals this week, and the other one got knocked out in the prelim?
BB: Yes. We had six in the finals, and five in the grand finals.Back when I played, in 1957 we got beaten by a goal in the grand final. We only had A Grade back then.
In 1958 we won A and B Grade, and in ’59 and ’60 we won in A Grade too so that was three in a row. Over those three years we only had 10 girls that played in our A Grade and we got beaten once, and this was in West Gippsland.
RB: Bez, that’s incredible!
BB: And we only had 10 different girls who played over those three years. The next year we got beaten by a goal in the grand final, again. We could have won five in a row, and in that time we went up to Yallourn for this big tournament and we got beaten by a goal in one grand final, won two, and then got beaten by a goal again!
RB: Why do you think you were so successful back then?
BB: There were some married women, and I was single at the time. They went and had babies, and that’s why they had to change. What happened was that most of the younger girls went to high school at Koowee and they just all fitted in and loved it. Back then there wasn’t much else to do!
RB: This club has always been your connection to the community, hasn’t it? It’s part of the charm of the place…
BB: You do what you love, and it’s fun. I rode two miles to work and back again on a push bike every day, five days a week. I worked there at the grocer’s for six years, and it kept me fit! Everyone did those things though.
RB: What sort of player were you?
BB: Back then Wing Attack was the top player on the opposition side, and I played Wing Defense – against her.
RB: So you took pride in trying to shut down the opposition’s best player?
BB: Yes. I was the captain, and that’s where I put myself. I just did it.
(Netball president Angela sits down after reading out the grand final teams for Saturday’s games)
RB: Ange, Catani – as a club – hasn’t won an A Grade premiership here since Beryl won it in 1960?
Angela Banbury: Yes, that’s right – since mum captained the side. In ’56 and ’57 they lost, then Bez took over as captain and in ’58, ’59, and ’60 they won and ’61 they lost. The 1957 and 1961 losses were both by a goal, and from 1961 we basically made a few finals here and there but I wouldn’t even remember a prelim – it was always a semi, or an elimination final. We won a premiership in 1986 and that was in D Grade, so our under-17s. We made finals since, but never a grand final.
RB: Can you put your finger on why? You’ve got more people at the club tonight than people who live in the town, and you’ve always punched well above your weight in the football side of things. Why hasn’t it translated to netball?
AB: I don’t know, but the club has always been run really well – long before me. I’ve been president for 10 years, but before that we’ve always still been extremely passionate it’s just that we’ve always had maybe four really good players, but not seven (in an A Grade side). In netball you can get found out pretty quickly if you don’t have the depth. We’ve had some great players – like Bec Kinna, who’s gone on to win those premierships at Tooradin. She won bests and fairests for us and won the league medal, and we made a prelim when she was here, but we just couldn’t elevate ourselves to the next level. We had a few great players, but we just couldn’t get seven at the one time. Now it’s not just seven – we’ve got nine in A Grade. I’ve even got 11 kids in the under-13s – we’ve been really lucky.
RB: Ange, I’ll say this because you, Ronnie, and Bez won’t – between the three of you, you are quintessentially Catani. You’re three of the first few people anyone thinks of when the name ‘Catani’ is mentioned…
AB: Along with ‘Snags’ (Brad McDonald), ‘Chops’ (Luke McFarlane), and Owen (Fitzpatrick) and their families. That’s probably why people, even if they do leave, always speak fondly of the place. We want to recruit good people.
In terms of netballers, Rach Ronaldson is our captain and I met here in Melbourne five years ago. I’d coached a team there, and she was part of it. I just asked her what she did on Saturdays and asked if she was interested in footy netball.
Thing is, I told her the club was just past Pakenham! (laughs).
She was living in Burwood at the time, and she turned up to the first night at training and came over and said “Ange! This is not just passed Pakenham!”. But to me, if it’s just 20 minutes up the road, it’s just passed Pakenham.
She’s now the backbone of our club – the captain of A Grade, she’s coached juniors, she umpires on a Saturday, and some of her best friends are here now. That’s what happens here. We consider all of these people Catani people, despite where they live.
But then you’ve got two girls – the captain of B Grade, and the other one an A Grade player – and they’ve both reached the 100-game milestone this year. This is Hannah and Sara Russell – they both drive from Cheltenham every week.
Your postcode or your address doesn’t have to say Catani for you to be a Catani person.
RB: How proud does that make you feel, Ange? Clearly those people don’t have to be here…
AB: No, why would you travel that far? (laughs). I mean, I do, but I’m from here! I’m buggered if I know why they do it. They’d drive past at least 70 netball clubs on the way out here.
One of the girls is a VNL player – she could be getting money anywhere she wants, but she’ll line up on Saturday for us.
But then you’ve got the beautiful story of Steph Lee, who lives just around the corner and has played netball since she was nine.
RB: Tell me more about Steph…
AB: We got her to play when she was nine because we were low in numbers. Her mum doesn’t know a thing about netball – which is perfect! – and she’s now captain of the 17-and-under side, won the league best and fairest, plays VNL and A Grade, and lives two kilometres from the club. I get text messages from her nearly every Monday night saying she’s shooting goals at the court. It’s just awesome. She’s a beautiful 17-year-old girl who’ll play two games on Saturday.
That’s the beauty of this place, Russ. Hayley Haysom is another girl on that team. Her sister is a life member, and so is her mum and her aunty, and none of them ever got to play in grand finals. She’s the first of the family, but her grandfather is a life member of our football club, and her father and brother are premiership players for us, but she’s the only girl from the family who’ll have played in a grand final and her mum played over 400 games. They’re the stories I love.
RB: Looking back over this season – you’ve got all but one of your netball teams in grand finals on Saturday, and your other one made the preliminary final stage. Has something happened to cause that over the past 12 months?
AB: This has been four years in the making – making sure our junior program is right, making sure we’ve had two coaches for every junior team, because we wanted to make sure if I was stuck at work, there’d be someone here. Leeanne, our A Grade coach, coaches B Grade for me (when I can’t). She’s a major reason why I can do what I do with work, as she steps in on game day and some training nights. I’m not sure anyone else would understand or allow what I do, but she does and is just awesome.
RB: And just on your work – tell me about it… you’ve got your position with Netball Victoria, you’re with the Melbourne Vixens on game days, and you do statistics for the Fremantle footy club in the AFL?
AB: Yes. I live via a spreadsheet! (laughs).
I’ve got to make sure that all the jobs are delegated, and the girls are brilliant. The committee has just been fantastic.
We’ve also made sure that the girls who coach have their accreditations and are senior players, and are teaching the younger girls the basics so as they go through we’re not just babysitting them – we’re teaching them, and developing them the right way.
I’m not saying we haven’t done it in the past, but we’ve improved it over the past four years. It’s harder to change technique and bad habits than it is to teach them the right technique to start with.
Our A Grade coach is also our 17s coach; I’m the B Grade coach and also coaching the 13s; and Hannah, the captain of B Grade, is the 15s coach.
RB: With all your netball and football commitments, what can a day look like for you on a Saturday?
AB: I’ll get to Catani at 7.30am or 7.45 after leaving South Yarra at 6.30. I’ll get to Catani, help set up, coach the under-13s, and I might then umpire the under-15s or under-17s, and then I’ll go back into Melbourne to work with the Vixens or Fremantle. I’ve also been known to come back out for functions after that. This year we had our biggest function was on when Freo played in Tassie, and the plane was delayed, so I got to the club at midnight.
RB: And talk to me about your feelings for the big day on Saturday, just finally…
AB: I just want to be like them, for once (pointing to the footballers who’ve won premierships before – in many cases, multiple times over). I’m envious of them, I am. I’ve always wanted to win an A Grade premiership, so I’m on the A Grade list for Saturday – despite not playing a game all year. It’s just that the girls know how much of a dream it is for me.
I’ve been crying since the second semi-final. I’m a sobbing mess! (laughs)
It just means so much to me. I know it’s a game, and the sun will always come up the day after, but it just means so much.
I started playing here when I was seven. Aunty Nancye (club legend, Nancye McDonald) told me that I shouldn’t – that I was too young. That’s the hardest part – not having her here to experience this with us. It’s so hard.
RB: Talk me through your career…
AB: I had two ankle reconstructions at 14 and had a year off, and I had one year up in Brisbane for work. I’ve played 475 games here – actually there could be more than that. Some of our records aren’t complete, so I might’ve reached 500 by now but I’m not sure. I’m at 475 games, and I’ve never won a flag.
I played in an under-15s grand final in 1990, and another one in B Grade in 1995. They’re the only two.
On average I’ll miss five games a year through work, but this year I missed more because of injury – one of them because I thought I was 24, not 42! (laughs).
This year I’ve only played five games, so I’ve only just qualified for finals.
RB: Say things go according to plan for you on Saturday, do you think that might be it for your playing career?
AB: No, I’ve got to make it to 500 officially – plus I have to go back-to-back!
