Sport
8 June, 2023
Dunolly FNC names best team of their 150-year history and unearths premiership glory
Dunolly FNC have taken steps to reclaim their history, naming their best team in 150 years on Wednesday night, as well as unearthing a plethora of lost premiership history. Spearheaded by Chris Williams and past president Stan McNamee, the club has...
Dunolly FNC have taken steps to reclaim their history, naming their best team in 150 years on Wednesday night, as well as unearthing a plethora of lost premiership history.
Spearheaded by Chris Williams and past president Stan McNamee, the club has unearthed a number of pre-war premierships, which included seven premierships won prior to World War I.
The history of the club, as a result, is being generated into a book, made by McNamee, with editions set to be released in time for the club’s official 150 year celebration, which is set to be held on August 12.
As part of those celebrations, the best football team from the last 150 years has also been named, with Arthur Lacey named as captain/coach in a team which features revered local figures, including Wayne and Ron Deledio Snr, ex-Geelong winger Tony Polinelli and ex-Carlton forward Doug Beasy.
Lacey said it was wonderful to be honoured by the club.
“It’s an honour. When you look at the team and the class of footballers that have played, and to be the captain/coach, I’m very proud,” he said.
“Club history is everything. It’s not just now, it’s for another generation comes along, and can see the history of the club and go back. Stan had to go back through the archives. Now the future generations can go through to Dunolly and go back 150 years.”
Lacey revealed that his greatest moment at the club came in their 1958 premiership success against Campbells Creek — a matchwhich required two games owing to a draw.
“I think the greatest feeling I’ve had was the first premiership I coached in 1958. We had a tie in the grand final, and we had to come up again. My main worry was that our players had set ourselves to win a grand final, and when they drew, they were a bit deflated. My main thing was to get them up again, and we did. It was a great night, and the town went mad,” he said.
McNamee, for his part, did much of the heavy lifting when going back through the history of the club, unearthing stories that he believed needed to be told.
“The fact that we’ve discovered we’ve won 18 flags, and not nine or 10, is staggering, as well as the great stories from the early days — people travelling by train playing football. It was remarkable. It was also great to see how the writing was in the early days, as people had to describe the game,” he said.
“We’re fortunate, as we have had The Maryborough District Advertiser, so I can go there. Wesley College has all the editions up until 1941. I was able to go in there and scan stories. Then I discovered the Dunolly-Bet Bet Shire Express was really good as well. A lot of it is available at the museum, so I was lucky. Where there were parts I didn’t have, I went to the State Library.
“People need to know their past. If they know their past, then they can enter their future. If they don’t know their past, then that is a significant issue.”
That work came in handy when it came to picking the club’s best team in its 150-year history, preventing themselves from recency bias when selecting the team.
“One of the things that I saw with AFL teams of the century is that it was biased towards current players. I was impressed by people on the committee that they looked at the history of the entire club when it came to picking this team, so we took the local newspapers at face value,” he said.
“I think everyone at a club should be able to see what has been done in the past. What premierships have been won in football and netball, who the best players were. People need to embrace it. Maryborough did it well last year with their 150th anniversary, and had players from their past. What I’m hoping is that if someone wants to know their history, it’s right there instead of going to a library.”
Williams was in awe of McNamee’s work to revisit Dunolly’s history.
“It’s exceeded my expectations by a long distance. When we started this, I wondered how we were going to do it, but we opened ourselves up. Stan came on board, researched all our history, and did that so we could name our best team, and also revealed hundreds of players that we’d not heard of for years,” he said.
“I’m thankful that Stan was happy to do all the researching. What was great was that he came back to us as soon as he found out we had another premiership. Every one of those had a team and story on the game, as well as the better players. So we worked out those players in the premiership teams. As a result, there’s now over 200 premiership players at the club. Two of them have won six premierships. I couldn’t believe it.
“Some of the stories of our premierships and games, including the time where we had 5000 people watch us play against Maryborough in 1908, having people come from Ballarat and St Arnaud on trains and carts and horses just to watch that game, are amazing.”
It means that Dunolly can now pour their attention towards their 150th anniversary, something that Williams is looking forward to — as well as urging modern-day members of the club to ensure the club can thrive.
“We have heard people preparing to come down from Queensland and New South Wales. It’s hard to quantify how big our 150th anniversary is going to be and how it will go, but it looks like it will be a terrific weekend. What’s great is that we’ve brought 150 years of history to the club to life. Provided the club stays around over the next 20 and 50 years when most of us aren’t around, that history can be around for the future to see what we’ve done as a club,” he said.
DUNOLLY’S BEST TEAM OF 150 YEARS
B: Graeme Watts, Wayne Deledio, Kevin Ryan
HB: Jack Beasy, Ron Deledio Snr, Harry Gathercole
C: Tony Pollinelli, Arthur Lacey (captain/coach), Larry Pollinelli
HF: Maurice Watts, Doug Beasy, Bernie Lanfranchi
F: Joe Hogan, Keith Hunt, Edward Kick
R: Maurie Beasy, James McNamee, Edward Game
I/C: Bert Flett, Bill Game, Neil Robertson, Brian Coleman