As he leapt in the air with a victory shout, he thought he could hear the buzzing of blowflies. But they weren’t flies. The sound was the screaming and cheering of all the families and spectators around the ground as Ronnie became the first Blowfly outfielder to catch a batsman out. When he eventually came off the field, Ronnie raced up to Mark in great excitement. As Mark swung his wheelchair to face the young player, he said, ‘You’re a hero, lad.’
‘You too,’ replied Ronnie.
A king with a common touch
by Drew Morphett
AFTER LANCE ARMSTRONG’S fall from grace, cycling desperately needs heroes. So it’s nice to know an Australian is doing his bit to make sure the sport is moving in the right direction. Businessman Gerry Ryan allowed my wife, Kaz, and me into the inner sanctum of the 2012 Tour de France. It was a historic event, with Aussie rider Cadel Evans defending the title he won in 2011. British rider Bradley Wiggins spoiled Evans’ hope of back-to-back wins but, importantly for Australia, the Tour also saw the debut of the team Gerry helped put together: Orica-GreenEDGE.
For Gerry, the sports nut from Bendigo, it was the culmination of a long-held dream to have an Aussie team take part in the world’s greatest road race.
And for the sports nut from ABC Grandstand, it was the thrill of a lifetime to be included in the inner sanctum for the closing stages near Paris, just a few days before the London Olympics, where I called cycling.
Alongside a range of business interests, Gerry runs a breeding and pre-training farm, and in just over a decade has raced hundreds of horses, including 2010 Melbourne Cup winner Americain, a horse he and Kevin Bamford bought just to run in the Cup.
It was because of Americain that I first put a face to the name at Melbourne’s Flemington racecourse on Derby Day in 2010.
We were in the toilets on the corporate box level of the Hill Stand, along the corridor from the commentary boxes.
Gerry said to me, ‘Who do you think is going to win the Melbourne Cup?’
I replied, ‘I think we saw the winner here today.’ I was referring to So You Think, who had just won the Mackinnon Stakes and, after two Cox Plate wins, was one of my favourite horses.
Gerry shook his head. ‘Americain will win.’
Later that afternoon, we went to the barrier draw for the following Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup, and Gerry picked out the marble for the horse he owned — Americain.
‘Oh, that’s Gerry Ryan.’
Of course he was right about the Cup winner, with the French-trained galloper saluting in Australia’s most famous race, winning by almost three lengths.
Though Gerry has had many entrepreneurial successes over the years, it is what Gerry did with his money that makes him an unsung hero. For instance, few know he had staked racing cyclist Kathy Watt, sponsoring her so she could travel to the US to prepare for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was his first venture in sport investment with money he had made through his business Jayco.
That initial punt paid off when Kathy won gold in the women’s road race. I called the race when I was with Channel Seven. I found out twenty years later that Kathy had rung Gerry the night before the race and announced, ‘I am going to get you gold.’ She also won a silver medal in the individual pursuit, a remarkable achievement in both road and track cycling.
Superstar basketballer Lauren Jackson, the world’s best female player, has also benefited from Gerry’s generosity through his sponsorship of the national women’s basketball team over a number of Olympics. Happily young stars like Liz Cambage will continue to reap the benefits of his association with the game over time. The WNBL team Dandenong Rangers, who have won championships in the national league, can also thank Gerry and his company for naming rights sponsorship.
He has also been a lifelong supporter, and then director, of St Kilda, an AFL club with just one premiership in over a hundred years. The Saints have often fallen on hard financial times. Former captain Danny Frawley says the club was kept alive by Gerry and Tony ‘Plugger’ Lockett: Lockett kicked the goals to keep the crowds coming, and Gerry made up the financial shortfall. Music guru Molly Meldrum is also famously a dyed-in-the-wool St Kilda fan. After Molly’s much-publicised fall off a ladder and brush with death, his first appearance in public was at a Saints game, with Gerry at his side.
My unsung hero was also a director of NRL team Melbourne Storm. Originally invited to watch a game he knew little about, he became close friends with managing director and part owner John Ribot. That relationship developed into sponsorship, with Gerry eventually becoming a director. After the salary cap scandal in 2010, the independent directors, including Gerry, were fired by News Limited. In 2013, Gerry bought in to the premiers as a co-owner — a move that should keep the young franchise alive and well in Victoria.
He has always believed that the spirit among Australians to work for a common cause can conquer the world. Riders like Robbie McEwen, Cameron Meyer and Scott McGrory can all thank one of sport’s great benefactors for what he has made possible through his financial backing of the Institute of Sport and many Olympic programs. The aim now is for a new generation of cyclists like Simon Clarke, Luke Durbridge, Leigh Howard and others to stand atop the podium at a Grand Tour. They could have had British superstar Mark Cavendish ride with them, but the team (including, importantly, a women’s outfit) put together by Gerry and general manager Shayne Bannan wanted to build from within rather than having a ready-made star winning stages.
In 2012, GreenEDGE’s first year, the team won the Tour Down Under (the fifth major, held every year in South Australia) with Simon Gerrans. Gerrans then won the Milan–San Remo race. Matt Goss won a stage of the Giro d’Italia, and Clarke won a stage of the Vuelta a España in Spain, as well as the King of the Mountains title. The Tour de France was a case of ‘close but no cigar’, as Matt Goss kept placing, but never winning. Still, it wasn’t bad for a debut season.
In their second year, GreenEDGE hit the world headlines, and Gerry’s dreams came true, when Gerrans won Stage Three by millimetres — the first-ever victory for the team at a Tour de France. The next day was even better: the squad won the team time trial by less than a second — a victory that put Gerrans into the leader’s yellow jersey.
The next day, the team defended the yellow for Gerrans. By Stage Six, GreenEDGE’s Daryl Impey had become the first South African to lead the Tour. He held onto the yellow for another day.
In the end, the team had won two stages and worn the yellow jersey for four days — an unbelievable achievement in just their second year.
With cycling under the microscope following Lance Armstrong’s doping admission, it would have been easy for Gerry to step aside and save his money. It’s not as if anyone would have blamed him. But he’s in it for the long haul, continuing to fund GreenEDGE, and give Aussie cyclists the chance to prove themselves on the world stage.
At the 2012 Tour de France, I witnessed first hand what it was like. Kaz and I rode in the team car with Matt White, the team’s directeur sportif, during a time trial stage. Then we cycled the cobbled stones of the Champs-Élysées alongside Robbie McEwen prior to the final stage in Paris. We were welcomed and embraced by the entire team as if part of the show.
That’s Gerry’s way — a king with a common touch.
It can be done
by Colleen Kerr
THERE’S SOMETHING INVINCIBLE in the eyes of these people. Diminished but not beaten. Forlorn but still loyal. The look in their eyes is the look of a man as he staggers back into a ring for one more round. And it’s the look of that last weary runner stumbling across the line, well after the adoration and fanfare have disappeared in the dusk.
Beleaguered men and women of the red and blue, every last one of them. Besieged by years of false starts, near misses and promises left unfulfilled by yet another loss. Expats in this foreign city, they gather tonight to hear, and to hope. They have long since traded the comforting rhythm of the morning tram for the winter sun on a Manly fer
ry, but their heart lies firmly, squarely and forever with their beloved Demons.
It’s a dynasty of disappointment that is unfathomable to any outsider. Most here have never known a flag or the euphoria of a finals’ triumph, but their childhoods echoed with tales of great Melbourne men and epic victories. For some, the oracle of their infancy was a simple transistor radio humming across the neatly mown lawn; for others, it was a warm embrace from a hand-knitted jersey.
This is a family tie that binds far beyond the victorious seasons. It’s a pair of brothers lying on twin beds listening to their Dees across the Tasman, and it’s a father and daughter in matching team scarves sharing their sad pride through these last few years. It’s the precious uncle who teaches you the right way to hold a ball and inducts you into his club, not knowing that he will soon be gone. It’s the force that propels a family pilgrimage to an icy Manuka oval, and it’s the dignity of a silent tear rolling slowly down the cheek of a proud old man as his team lose their way once again.
It’s tangible, indelible — and entirely admirable. Red leather, yellow leather or a crumpled mass of paper bound into a ball — here is a football that has been handballed across generations and geography to find the next eager young hands.
And so the beloved ball has rolled from the heartland to this incongruous rest in a harbour-side hotel. The followers walk past the tinkling, young crowd on the marina, navigate the rowdy, ruddy rugby crowds and head for quiet back room where they greet each other with funereal nods. The faithful are fewer than fifty but span several decades.
Of course John arrives early. He is a broad and upright man for his eighty-four years. He has that impeccable polish that is often found in a man of his era — there is substance to men of that time. As always, he is accompanied by his still beautiful, and equally impeccable, wife.
As a player, he showed the promise of his brothers but housed in a sturdier frame. There was no question of him donning the red and blue. It was his birthright and undeniable destiny to stride onto that VFL field in 1951. It is the same heritage that brings him here to this clandestine Sydney gathering.
This is as close to a wake as a man of his years wants to be. For his beloved team has been slaughtered. Today’s game is not played in four quarters, nor is it left on the field. It spills from the stadium and skulks guiltily into the accusing boardrooms. It hovers in the furtive corridors and lingers in the liniment and potions of the change room. Finally the colosseum doors are flung open and the gladiators are pushed forth to be brutally dissected by the anonymous men of modern media — and left to hang in bloody shreds for the baying hounds waiting insatiably in the press conference.
In John’s day, wounds were licked in private and a man could still emerge to face the world in his own time and with his pride protected. Now the times have changed, the game has changed, the business has changed — but the young men following in his footsteps are, at their core, the same. Somewhere beneath the maze of trading deals and salary caps these boys were also once the lanky kids everyone loved to watch at their local club. And though they may now look impenetrable, they haven’t yet learned not to take things to heart.
A man like John knows a thing or two about life, and death — he has farewelled his own brothers and many a teammate. If there is blood-letting tonight, he plans to be ready with the bandages.
And so the battle plan is unrolled over a musty back-room billiard table. Like some sort of perverse school report, the room is offered ‘loads of potential’ and ‘early promise’ by The General. The General wears the casual yet expensive uniform of his class. He is tall and seemingly candid, and begs to be believed. But this gathering is battle-born and not easily appeased. There’s a growing restlessness as some members of the audience spew club statistics and demand answers. A few are too deeply wounded to speak, so fume with silent anger over their beers. Some subdued spectators also say little but their eyes desperately want to have faith.
John meanwhile sits calmly in a corner with his old mate and his devoted family. Ever vigilant, and ever patient — just waiting in the wings for the ball to come his way.
The Strategist is a master of spin and disguise. His laconic delivery belies an intricate and ruthless web of draft picks and trades and game plans. His shorts and thongs are just like yours, so surely this is a man to be trusted. Here is a report worthy of any high-flying financier, as his formulas and forecasts cloak the room. But his commodities, of course, are the dreams of young men and the marketplace is the home ground of a 150-year-old tradition. John and his mate wince as tier-two players are considered little more than useful fodder to spare the bodies of the true stars. In days gone by, this same mindset fed young soldiers to enemy fire.
John lets his mind wander a little. He’s played alongside men like The Strategist and knows his type — he’ll hog the ball and piddle around, which leaves John plenty of time for reminiscing. This time his mind rushes back to a young girl who turned his head more than sixty years ago. As clear as day, he remembers soft curls and an easy laugh and his hand slipping around her lithe waist. Those tiny hands seemed ridiculous in his big grip — he could hold a football or cricket ball as if they were extensions of himself but those tiny hands had left him incredulous. He knows those hands will one day hold his as he slips from this life. She is younger and he must not expect to feel this invincible forever. And now those hands are just resting in his — slender and familiar, they offer a reassuring squeeze.
And here comes the perfect passage of play he has been waiting for. The ball is lofting his way and his opponent is caught off-guard.
‘Would you mind if I tell a story?’ John requests in a still-strong voice.
Of course John dodges the tackle and is already on his feet heading to make the play before he gets a reply.
He turns confidently to face the goals and a respectful quiet fills the arena. He tucks in his jersey and straightens his socks as he captivates the crowd with his memories of the 1951 season. He checks the wind and tells the tale of a year of consecutive losses with a spartan three wins for the Demons. John smiles wryly at his teammates as he recalls that this was his one and only year of playing VFL.
He lines up and gets ready as he briefly remembers his reasons for leaving it behind — his girl, some blurred years in England, his cricket whites and that scarring on his lungs that would never quite go away. But he trades those now and reaches deeper for his red and blue as he starts his run up. His story gains momentum and everyone is waiting expectantly, but he is not afraid to take the set shot. His old limbs find their way back into his former upright running action as he releases the ball low to the ground. His torpedo is true and there is no doubt about its destination. The ball soars, confidently buoyed by the Demons men who took the 1951 losses and within four short years turned them into a premiership.
‘It’s a different business now,’ he says. ‘But it all goes back to the fact that from bottom to top in four years, it can be done. It can be done.’
The kick is unwavering as it finds its target. A sturdy and solid six-pointer that drags a cheer from the throats of shattered men. It’s a game-changing kick that charges the hearts of fellow players and resuscitates legends.
The General casts aside his polished script and turns to share a joke about junior footy. Even The Strategist sees the glory of this kick as it sails through the posts to the legions of club stalwarts who never questioned its path.
Integrity has that funny knack of stirring souls and laying bare any falsehoods. It was time to roll up the battle plan and roll out the family album. It was time to say less about trades and more about tradition. For in that back room, on a balmy Sydney night, the sceptical swords of the entire free press army were quashed by one very old man. Here was a man to be believed — for this was the man who passed you your first footy, the man whose number you wanted to wear on your back, and the man who first showed you that your heart beats true.
A true country gentleman
/> by Jocelyn McLennan
IT IS A heart-breaking task to have to sort through a house of belongings and memories when the time comes for elderly family members to move into an aged-care facility.
It is even tougher when it is your hero, your grandfather, who has to leave his beloved land and farm, and live in a strange town. Each special piece and photo I came across brought floods of memories of the wonderful times I spent with him in my childhood — and of tears. My father was often away working in shearing teams when I was very young, up to the age of eight, so I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. I fondly remember riding around in his small Bedford truck, which we had named ‘Nen-nen’, due to sound it made when it started. Both my brothers and I learned to drive in it at a young age.
William Alexander McLennan, or Alec as he was fondly known, was born on 8 November 1911, in the wheatbelt town of Katanning in Western Australia. He grew up on his parents’ farm near the small town of Borden, in the shadows of the majestic Stirling Ranges. He was a modest and quietly spoken country gent who never said much about his youth or what he had achieved on the sporting field.
So you can imagine my delight when, while packing up his house, I found a cardboard box, tucked away in a corner of a back room, filled with his sporting memorabilia. I pulled out a trophy cup, looking forlorn and long forgotten. The cup was for the Hale School quarter-mile and half-mile (400 and 800 metres) championship in 1927. Inside the cup was a medallion, barely readable due to age, for the State Junior half-mile championship.
ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes Page 10