AS THE STATISTICS SECTION in the new edition of Never Before, Never Again, reveals, the worst losing ‘streak’ endured by St George during their 11-year premiership-winning run was two matches, which happened just three times — once in 1956, once in 1960 and once 1966. They were never out of form for long. In the book, the great halfback Bob Bugden, who was a key figure during the first six years before transferring to Parramatta, reflects on what made the Dragons of 1956–66 such a unique force … ‘What struck me as a young fellow suddenly a Saint was the pride in the joint … the great lesson I learned at St George was how to win. We didn’t have hypnotists or psychologists psyching us up, but we didn’t need anybody to tell us that we were good. We knew it. ‘We ran onto the field each week believing that we were not going to be beaten. On the occasions we did get rolled, our attitude and self-belief were strong enough for us to put the defeat out of our minds virtually as soon as the final bell went. All that mattered was next week’s victory. ‘Learning to win is a lesson that has benefited me all my life ... ‘When I joined Parramatta in 1962, my main job was making my new teammates believe in themselves. They weren’t fighters like Saints. They’d come off the field after each beating and they’d have their heads down. Ken Kearney, who was non-playing coach, said to me, “These blokes don’t know how to win.”’ OF ALL THE LEGENDARY Saints, none is more revered than Norm Provan. The man known as 'Sticks' played 256 first-grade games for St George between 1951 and 1965, and was part of 10 grand final winning sides, the first 10 of the winning streak (1956–65). He was captain-coach from 1962 to 1965. In 1994, Provan explained to Never Before, Never Again author Larry Writer what he believed the legacy of the 11 premierships should mean to the Dragons of future generations ... ‘The quietest time in any dressing room is the ten minutes before kickoff. This is when you come to terms with what’s expected of you out on the field, what you must achieve for yourself and your teammates. It’s a personal and very private time. The Saints players used this time in their own ways. Some, like Langlands and Wilson, would be dry retching with nerves. Others would be lost in thought. Others paced ... ‘I always thought it was stupid when I heard Saints coaches of the ’80s and ’90s say that the deeds of the St George premiership-winning sides put unfair pressure on their teams to succeed. I say these coaches didn’t use the great tradition enough. That winning tradition should be a very strong attraction to young players. Saints’ tradition in the ’50s and ’60s attracted players from everywhere to trial with us and be a part of it. ‘That tradition shouldn’t be killed. ‘You’ve only got to put the film up and see how Billy Smith could put a player through a gap, and how Raper could go all day, and the speed and acceleration of Gasnier. You’ve only got to look in the record books and see what we achieved. I guess those [latter-day] coaches just wanted to be judged on their own merits, on what they accomplished on their own.’ RUGBY LEAGUE MAY NEVER have had a better left centre/ left winger combination than Reg Gasnier and Johnny King. The two were a class act for the Dragons from 1960 (King’s debut season) to 1967 (Gasnier’s final year of football). The two had played in the St George juniors — Gasnier for Renown United, King for Arncliffe Scots. In Never Before, Never Again, Gasnier recalled their partnership ... ‘The last thing I expected to do was worry about whether my winger was in position. But with Johnny I never even had to look. I knew he would be out there perfectly positioned. If the defence was coming across and crowding him he’d come inside me and always let me know, “With you, with you, with you, Gaz. I’m inside, I’m inside. I want it. I want it now!” And if he said that he got it, because I knew he would have sized up the situation and decided he was in a better position than me to carry on the movement. If he said, “Hang onto it,” then I’d go myself. I learned to follow his voice and know exactly where he was.’ Now, King remembers Gasnier, and how the two worked together in the days when a try was worth three points ... ‘I relied on my ability to be in the right spot at the right time. Johnny on the Spot, that was me. I could read the play and anticipate what would happen with each movement. If the defence was drifting across I’d hang back then cut inside and take the pass from Reggie running at an angle to wrongfoot the defenders sweeping across. Reg would be full steam ahead for the corner and I’d cut inside and yell, “Now!” and he’d pass the ball back, sometimes over his shoulder, right where I wanted it, and it would be three points. Occasionally we’d work it so when I called “Now!” or “Mine!” he’d keep running and score while all the tacklers who were expecting him to pass swamped me. ‘Reg was tremendous over that first 30 metres, the best acceleration of anyone who’s ever played the game. When he put his head back you knew he was in top gear. ‘Reggie and I on the left side of the field had a competition with Eddie Lumsden and either Johnny Riley, Dave Brown or Billy Smith who played right wing and centre. Whoever scored the least number of tries bought the beers.’ IN 1994, DURING THE making of Never Before, Never Again, Larry Writer asked Johnny Raper why he’d been a special player. In part, this was Raper’s response … ‘I put more importance on being a good team man than on being an individual star. I was an intense competitor who would tackle all day and knew where to be in cover defence. I wasn’t too fast but could make a break and put a man into a gap. I had stamina and energy and hated to be beaten. I could play through pain and knew how to read the game. ‘Being a Saint helped, too. We were one big happy family. I’ve never heard of any other club enjoying the harmony we did. Loyalty to each other and tradition made St George great. The football club, the leagues club, the players and wives, the administrators and the supporters — all were essential elements. Without any one of them, our great era could never have happened. All the elements blended together to make a wonderful club that’s still wonderful today. The name “St George” will always be there at the pinnacle of Australian sport; as important as Dally Messenger, Dawn Fraser and Phar Lap. In my work I travel to out-of-the-way places in the NSW and Queensland bush and the majority of people in these places are St George supporters, and they’ve remained loyal since my day. They followed us then mainly because we were winning, but also because we travelled to the bush on our end-of-season trips. The fathers who followed me passed their allegiance on to their sons ...’ DURING SEPTEMBER, WE WILL feature here some of the opinions and attitudes of the great St George players from 1956–66, as they explained them to author Larry Writer in Never Before, Never Again. First up, Harry Bath — who played his finest football for Warrington in England before returning to Australia to win three premierships with Saints from 1957 to 1959 — explains his philosophy on attacking forward play … ‘In ’57, the Saints side used to drive me mad with some of the bash-and-barge tactics they were using, but they got the hang of what I was telling them ...’ (Which was) ‘Follow me, back me up, run off my passes and you’ll find yourself in open space. League is a collective game. Every man should make it easier for the guy beside him. Draw your man, make the gap, put your teammate through it. Simple. Unless you’re hitting the ball up to settle the play or charging at a much smaller opponent, never try to bust a tackle but get the ball away to a man in a better position. Two-on-one is the way to play. Make the ball do the work, not the body. I could read the opposition defence then position myself to take advantage of any lapses long before I got the ball. Then, when I did, I went into the defence, drew two defenders, created a gap where they’d been, brought the ball out of it and popped the pass for a teammate to run onto ...’ Edward Rennix Larkin (‘Rennix’ was his mother’s maiden name) achieved much in his short life. He was born, the son of a miner, at Lambton, near Newcastle, in the first week of January 1880. After his family moved to Sydney, he earned a scholarship to St Joseph’s College at Hunters Hill. He was briefly a railway worker, joined the staff of the Yearbook of Australia and became a policeman. He was a keen debater, swimmer, boxer and a rugby footballer good enough to play for Australia. He was the first full-time secretary of the NSW Rugby League and member of state parliament, a workers’ representative in a conservative electorate. He died a hero’s death at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. Known to his friends and admirers as ‘Ted’ or ‘Teddy’, Larkin was initially a halfback who at age 18 played a few rugby matches with the great cricketer Victor Trumper for Newtown juniors. He had been an excellent and successful student at St Joseph’s and, before that, at St Benedict’s, Chippendale, which was located in one of the most congested parts of the inner city, amid narrow laneways and tiny terrace houses, close to Tooth’s Kent Brewery. He was a star of the St Joseph’s first XV. His relationship with the Sydney Cricket Ground went back to at least 1899, when he was in the Sydney club side that lost the first-grade final to Wallaroo. Four years later, on the night before his wedding to May Yates, the NSW selectors surprised by naming Larkin —now a 5ft 11 (180cm), 13-stone (83kg) hooker and captain of Newtown’s first-grade side — in the line-up to play the touring New Zealanders on the coming Saturday. One imagines few were more stunned by this development than the bride. The first day of the new Mrs Larkin’s honeymoon was spent at the SCG, watching her husband mixing it with the All Blacks on a field so flooded the Sydney Morning Herald’s correspondent thought the cricket-pitch area resembled a ‘miniature lake’. A second-half penalty goal kicked by the visitors’ fullback Billy Wallace was the only score of the game. Larkin was also in a Metropolitan XV that lost to the tourists on the following Wednesday at Sydney University. Ten days later, back at the SCG, Larkin played what would prove to be his only Test match. It was the All Blacks’ first Test, home or away: an emphatic 22–3 victory. Finally, the newlyweds could begin settling in to their new home at Milson’s Point, a move that meant — because of the residential rules then in place — Larkin had to play for North Sydney in 1904. He joined the police force and the responsibilities of that role convinced him to retire from football at the end of the season. He was only 24. With his prematurely grey hair, he looked older than that. He liked to tell a story against himself from that final season, of he and another constable on foot patrol near North Sydney Oval one day as the first-grade team trained. Ted had not been able to get time off to join them. ‘Who are they?’ Ted’s colleague asked. ‘That’s the district football team,’ Ted replied. ‘Oh yes!’ said the questioner. ‘I saw them playing last Saturday. Not a bad side, but they’ve got one old beggar amongst them.’ ‘I was the old beggar,’ Ted would say, with half a grin. He was a good and reliable footballer, a born leader and a wily diplomat. In the opening game of the All Blacks’ 1903 tour, one of the Kiwi forwards, Reuben Cooke, was sent off after a clash with Larkin’s club-mate Harold Judd. Afterwards, there was scuttlebutt about that the two combatants had taken the matter further when their paths crossed after the game. To quell the conjecture, the tourists were invited to a ‘smoko’ organised by the Newtown club two days before the Test. A three-round bout between Cooke and Larkin was widely advertised. Ted, it was said, was going to avenge his cobber’s honour. It might not have been until the two men approached the ring that it became clear that blood was not going to flow. Judd was in the New Zealander’s corner, from where he laughingly waved a white towel of surrender throughout the ‘contest’. Hardly a blow was landed, but reputations were restored. The patrons went home happy too, for the main event was a stirring three-round exhibition between a rising star, ‘Snowy’ Baker, who would build a reputation as one of Australia’s greatest ever all-round sportsmen, and ‘Paddy Martin’, one of Sydney’s most popular welterweights. Paddy Martin was actually Martin Larkin, Ted’s older brother. They would sign up for the Great War at the same time. They would head for Europe on the same ship. Ted Larkin became the NSW Rugby League’s first salaried official in June 1909. The League was in turmoil, its very survival in question. Formed in 1907 as a breakaway from rugby union, the fledgling body’s original hon. secretary, James Giltinan, and hon. treasurer, Victor Trumper, had been driven from office amid allegations of corruption and secret bank accounts. The League was substantially in debt, but Larkin and his new cohorts — some of whom he knew from his days in rugby — found the game a wealthy benefactor in the entrepreneurial James Joynton Smith, some of the Wallabies’ best players were lured to the ‘professional’ code and troublemakers were ruthlessly shown the door. Great Britain toured Australia in 1910, drawing huge crowds, far bigger than anything rugby union was now attracting. Within two years of his appointment, Larkin’s league was the biggest game in town. Never content, over the next three years, Larkin shrewdly negotiated deals with all the major grounds in Sydney, including the SCG, built league as the primary football code throughout country NSW and in Queensland, developed the concept of pre-game entertainment to boost attendances and established a Catholic Schools competition in Sydney that became a bedrock for future development. One of the foundation teams in this competition was Larkin’s old school: St Benedict’s, Chippendale. His integrity was his calling card. In Bathurst in 1913, as league and union fought for supremacy, one union official commented glumly that the problem with Larkin was that he always kept his word. A year earlier, Larkin had played a pivotal role in the introduction of league in the blossoming country town of Orange and its surrounds, which quickly led to league becoming the principal winter sport across western NSW. His modus operandi was calculated. He was smart enough to realise he couldn’t just plant his sport on the region; he needed the locals to lead the revolution. Once keen interest had been expressed, they all went to work. Keith McClymont, a hooker who had played representative rugby, became the main spokesman for the local league enthusiasts. McClymont recalled: We organised a meeting of the players, and Mr E. Larkin came along and spoke, telling us what his League had done for other country branches, and telling us what they would do for us. He made several promises, all of which were honoured. He promised us a cup for competition among western clubs and we received a cup valued at 50 guineas. He promised to send along two teams to play an exhibition match. Glebe and Eastern Suburbs came along, and the whole of the gate receipts — £50 — was given to our League for a nest egg. He stated that metropolitan teams would visit us during the season. Nine came along. He promised that our team would be taken to Sydney. Our team went to Sydney and the members and the manager received all expenses and 10/ per day loss of time ... Larkin, as shrewd as they come, knew that what would most effectively sell his sport to a new audience was the best of the best. The Glebe and Easts teams that ran out in front of a big crowd at Wade Park, Orange, on April 27, 1912, were at full strength. Glebe were led by Chris McKivat, a former star of Orange rugby who had gone to captain his country in union and league, while Easts’ skipper was the one and only Dally Messenger. Alongside them were men who would become legends of the new code: Dan Frawley, Frank Burge, Sandy Pearce and ‘Pony’ Halloway. Tom McMahon, Australian league’s first great referee, was in charge. A rugby league competition in Orange began soon after and similar leagues were established within 12 months at Bathurst and Dubbo (the Bathurst evolution causing a ‘split’ in the Chifley household, with Ben continuing as a member of the Bathurst rugby club while younger brother Patrick joined the nearby Kelso rugby league team). By October 1915, the Orange Leader noted that many former union strongholds, such as Wellington, Forbes, Parkes, Molong, Mudgee and Gulgong, would all be playing league in the following season. Larkin’s role in all this cannot be understated. Yet it was just one of a series of major developments for a football code that just a few years earlier had been on the brink. Given all that was achieved in such a short period of time and how the Sydney sporting landscape changed under his watch — and especially considering the way rugby league became entrenched for all time as the primary winter sport in NSW and Queensland — Larkin must be ranked among the most influential administrators in the history of Australian sport. A writer for The Australian Worker once noted that Larkin was ‘a keen student of social problems and seldom without a socialist book or pamphlet in his pocket’. At the 1913 state election, he claimed the seat of Willoughby for the Labor Party after conducting a smart and relentless campaign. Never before had the conservatives lost a metropolitan seat on the north side of the harbour. It was, the new MP told a trembling crowd at Crows Nest, his life’s ambition to be elected to parliament. ‘There was a scene of the wildest enthusiasm,’ the Sydney Morning Herald reported. ‘Men and women embraced the victorious candidate and carried him shoulder high to a waiting car. Here a torchlight procession was formed and some brass instruments played See the Conquering Hero Comes ...’ Larkin tried to resign immediately as League secretary, but he was asked to stay on until the end of 1914. In August, however, as soon it was announced Australia was at war, he made plans to enlist. He also relinquished his role as president of the Federal Cycling Council of Australasia, ending a formal association with the sport that went back to 1911, when he’d organised some cycling and athletic events. He stayed on the board of the Royal North Shore hospital (a position that would be passed on to his widow). He was the father of two sons, aged six and two. ‘I cannot engage in the work of recruiting and urge others to enlist unless I do so myself,’ he said. As the member for Willoughby, Larkin could have sought rank. Instead, he entered the army as a private. Within 48 hours, he was promoted to sergeant. Within weeks, he might have been second guessing what he had done. ‘We have been silly enough to think that the Australian Army had been democratised,’ he wrote from Egypt. ‘There was never a greater delusion. Class is everything for advancement … Suffice it to say that there would be very few here if the men were free to leave or had anticipated how they were to be treated.’ Larkin contracted a virus so severe he was reputedly offered the chance to be invalided home. He declined. In another letter home, he derided the politicians who had not followed him into battle, calling them ‘rotters who think only of themselves’. He was a member of the 1st Battalion, which was not among the first to land at Gallipoli but was soon rushed into the fray. He didn’t survive long; slaughtered as he led his men over Plateau 400 towards an area that would become known as ‘Lone Pine’. For a while, there was much conjecture about exactly what happened to him. It will never be known for absolutely sure. What is beyond doubt is that, as is documented in official records, he displayed ‘conspicuous gallantry’. Private Harold Cavill, a bugler in the 2nd battalion, recorded what he’d heard of Larkin’s demise in his diary, which was reproduced for public consumption in 1916: Wounded and dying he lay, yet when the stretcher-bearers came to carry him in, he waved them on, saying, ‘There’s plenty worse than me out there.’ Later, they found him — dead. This story was echoed in dramatic fashion by Father Dowling during the Requiem Mass for Larkin at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on June 27, 1915. Suddenly the well-known figure of Sergeant Larkin is stricken down; yet as he falls he still cries, ‘On men, on.’ In spirit we see him on the sand which is being reddened by his blood. The ambulance comes. It is almost full. Our hero insists on some of his more severely wounded comrades being taken first. But, alas!, when the ambulance returns, it is found that the Turks had wrought their deadly vengeance. He was dead … Corporal Charles Lawler, who smashed an index finger so badly he was invalided out of the war within a week of the landing, told the Newcastle Morning Herald in an interview published on August 12, 1915, that he was only ‘five yards’ from Larkin and ‘well up in front’ when the sergeant died: ‘It must have been shrapnel that got him. We were charging under bursts of shrapnel and there was very little rifle fire.’ Sergeant Harry Sparks, who was in the 1st Battalion, provided his version of events in a missive from the trenches to Charlie Ford, a prominent official with the North Sydney Rugby League Football and the chairman of the NSW Rugby League’s management committee. Sparks recalled that ‘the night before we left the ship to commence operations Ted and I had a long talk, and amongst other things he remarked that there would surely be a great scramble for his constituency of Willoughby if he went under’. He also described how Larkin had an early ‘narrow escape’ when, shortly after landing, ‘the pannikin hanging to his gear got in the way of a bullet’ … I was with Ted in a hot corner, and as he was in charge, he gave the order to advance, which was done rapidly with bayonets fixed. We got amongst the enemy's trenches which had been evacuated owing to our hurried visit. We stayed there until shelled out ... According to Sparks’ account, he was leading one section of soldiers; Larkin was commanding another team. Eventually, they were separated. Ted fell with his lads right in front of the argument. His brother Martin and my brother Mervyn went at the same time … Larkin’s remains were not recovered until the armistice of May 24, near ground the Anzacs had named the ‘Pimple’. So severe were his wounds erroneous rumours spread from Gallipoli to the streets of Sydney that the Turks had mutilated his body; so toxic were these rumours, the army felt it necessary to issue an official denial from Captain Charles Bean, their press officer on the frontline. Bean’s cable, in which he described Larkin as ‘a fine man and a brave soldier’, was published on the front page of Sydney’s Evening News of June 29. The previous day, the same paper had been the first publication to report the death of Victor Trumper at age 37, a victim of Bright’s disease. In his official history of Australia in the Great War, Bean concluded Larkin had been cut down by ‘machine-gun bullets’. The rumours his corpse had been attacked by Turkish bayonets might have come from traumatised soldiers unfamiliar with the carnage modern ammunition could cause when fired relentlessly from close range. Most likely, when the stretcher-bearer offered to help the stricken former Test forward, they both must have known he was done for. Larkin’s casualty form held at the National Archives in Canberra states his remains were buried by the revered Salvation Army padre, William McKenzie, in or close to the ‘Valley of Death’, now more commonly known as ‘Shrapnel Valley’ or ‘Shrapnel Gully’. This contention is supported by a letter from Brigadier-General Glanville Ryrie, an arch conservative, the federal member for North Sydney, to Fred Fleming, the Liberal candidate defeated by Larkin at the 1913 election, which was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Brigadier-General Ryrie, commander of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, had arrived in Gallipoli on May 19. One paragraph of the letter includes the following: During an armistice on Monday we buried 200 of our men and about 3000 Turks. We found poor Larkin’s body that day. I can assure you that the tales about the mutilation in his case are lies. I had a talk with the clergyman who read the prayers and the men who were at the burial. The legislator-soldier must have been killed instantly … I have written a comforting, note to Mrs Larkin, which I hope she will get. We had a church parade yesterday [May 30] on the side of the mountain. I shall never forget the solemnity of the scene. The sun was setting, and an aeroplane was circling over us. Down in the valley shells were bursting. Apart from the terrors of war, that sunset was magnificent. Soldiers who arrived later in the campaign would write home to say they had stopped by the grave. But the cross planted to mark his resting place did not survive and Larkin’s ultimate sacrifice is now remembered at the Lone Pine Memorial, as one of the almost 5000 Australian or New Zealand Gallipoli victims who either have no known resting place or who were buried at sea. In November 1915, a grand plaque was unveiled in the Legislative Assembly chamber at NSW Parliament House, to honour Ted Larkin and another member of the Assembly who died at Gallipoli. Lieutenant-Colonel George Braund, commander of the 2nd Battalion and the member for Armidale, lost his life early on May 4. It was the first permanent memorial to be placed on the walls of the chamber and much was made of the fact it was prominently located between portraits of William Charles Wentworth and Sir Henry Parkes. Sadly, they inscribed the wrong date of death. Braund was killed ‘in the month of May’. Larkin was not. In an obituary for the Saturday Referee and Arrow of June 19, 1915, the great sportswriter JC Davis rued the fact that Larkin’s ‘life’s work had only just begun’. Four days later, in a much longer piece, he placed the late sergeant alongside some of the giants of the Labor Party and pondered what fate had taken away: In the early manhood of the present premier of NSW, in the ante-Labor days of Australian politics — Mr WA Holman, then a young Englishman, a cabinet-maker, was one of a group of men who won no little distinction as debaters on social and political subjects in Sydney. They moved in a restricted sphere, but were developing for the wider work in front of them. One night — a Sunday night, too — after he had given a most brilliant address on socialism, I remarked to the youth from whom magnetic eloquence flowed as though he were an Edmund Burke, that he would enter Parliament and that if he were to supplant some of the idealism which permeated his mind by a more practical view of life’s problems and a keener recognition of the frailties to which human nature is heir, he would become premier of NSW. It was a precocious prophecy. But there was not a great deal in that peep into the future, for the WA Holman of that period possessed oratorical powers and a memory that made his contemporaries, some of whom have risen as high as he has, marvel. Among those contemporaries who had not tasted of the nectar of the life political were Mr WM Hughes, Mr George Black, Mr F. Flowers, Mr JD Fitzgerald and Mr JC Watson. I have gone out of the way somewhat, but what I desire to say is that Mr Larkin in later years struck me also as possessing qualities which, while differing from those of Mr Holman and Mr Hughes, would have made him a force of no uncertain strength in the political atmosphere into which he had advanced so soon as he had felt his way. But, alas, the Kaiser and the Turk have intervened and this man of promise and performance has gone. PRIVATE ROBERT RICHARDSON TIDYMAN of the 19th Battalion was 24 years old when he joined the AIF on December 6, 1915. Earlier in the year he had played for a Metropolis XIII, a standout personal effort in a disappointing premiership year for his club that saw them finish fifth on the ladder, with just six wins from 14 games. In all, he’d played 30 top-grade matches for Easts since his debut in 1913, to go with his two Test caps. A short man, but quick, thickset and strong in the hips, he had come into the Australian team for the second Test of 1914, one of six changes, and quickly announced himself to Test rugby league with a smothering tackle of Harold Wagstaff that saved a try. Straight after, he made a long run down the left wing after receiving a pass from five-eighth ‘Chook’ Fraser, beat three men and then cross-kicked for his captain, Sid Deane, who was tackled near the posts. The move thrilled the crowd, and though it didn’t lead to a try it set the mood for the game. ‘Tidyman is cut out for representative football,’ wrote one critic in his report. ‘The best Australian back,’ enthused another. Fourteen years later, Harry Sunderland, one of rugby league’s most dynamic administrators, recalled the try that he believed generated the greatest enthusiasm he ever saw from an Australian crowd: ‘That was the touchdown which the late Bobby Tidyman and Chook Fraser effected for Australia on the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1914, when it enabled Australia to win against Wagstaff’s men in one Test by 12 to 7.’ In the main, the Australian selectors stuck with the old guard for this series, so young Tidyman’s exciting play was especially noteworthy. The third Test — known famously today as the ‘The Rorke’s Drift Test’ because of the way an undermanned British side refused to give ground — was fought out on a mud-patch that restricted opportunities for the two backlines, but The Referee noted that a Tidyman dash from one 25 to the other was ‘the trickiest and cleverest run by an Australian in the match’. ‘The advent of young ones of the type of H. Horder, R. Tidyman and W. Messenger indicates that the star players are still coming along,’ JC Davis wrote in The Referee at season’s end. Nothing that happened on the football field in 1915, not even a broken arm that cost Tidyman a number of weeks on the sideline and a slightly tentative return when he recovered, refuted that assessment. For the second year in a row, Easts came good after the premiership had been decided, and thrashed Glebe 22–3 in the City Cup final, with Davis noting that ‘R. Tidyman also played a fine game, getting into it more than usual.’ Bob Tidyman was one of the few players from the Australian Test team of 1914 with many years of top football ahead of him. Yet he was the first of them to die. One cannot be sure what motivated him to enlist; the romantic would like to think that the hurt of leaving his parents, Robert and Elizabeth, and a flourishing football career was outweighed by the family ties that compelled him to follow his two younger brothers, William and Christopher, who were due to depart for the War in a fortnight’s time. He had been born in Townsville in North Queensland, but the family had moved south soon after, and were now living in working-class Woollahra. When Bob Tidyman enlisted, he was 19 days away from his last Christmas. He left for Europe on April 9, 1916. On September 25 — six week after Easts won their third straight City Cup by defeating Glebe 18–15 in the final — he found himself in the ghastly mud-filled trenches of the Somme, a God-forsaken place where so many soldiers on both sides of the conflict perished. The battlegrounds stunk of death and disease, and by November there was a stigma about the place that had engulfed all sides: this was hell and there seemed no way out. One soldier described being up to his waist in slush as he manned the frontline, before adding: ‘The dead lay everywhere.’ The 19th Battalion, of whom Tidyman was now a member, had been involved in the appalling battles at Pozieres in July and August, and with their reinforcements they were now being asked to attack again at Flers, trying to win a semblance of advantage before the worst of the winter set in. An assault took place on November 5, for no gain and many casualties. A repeat was ordered for two days later, but an arctic tempest prevented that. There was a further postponement on November 9, but then on November 14, despite the cold and the bog, the infantry was sent over the parapets. Apparently, Bob Tidyman was the first man running, and with his pace he would have been among the first to the opposition trenches, too. Within 24 hours, he was gone. The Australian Red Cross’ missing persons file for Tidyman provides conflicting reports of his death. For almost 12 months, he was listed as ‘missing’ rather than ‘killed’ in action, a distinction that appalled his parents — to be classified as ‘missing’ for so long carried a possible implication of desertion. The family wondered whether an incident in England, when he was charged with being late for a 6.30am parade and confined to camp for four days, might have worked against him. He would not be the last good footballer to be late for training. The most accepted version of his death was that his platoon had been surprisingly successful, though at great cost, and Tidyman was told to look after 50 prisoners while back-up was sought. He was never seen alive again. The presumption is that he was overpowered by the German captives. However, there were other stories, which add to the mystery. One private from the 19th Battalion wrote, ‘I knew him well. He came from Sydney and used to play for the Eastern Suburbs FC. I saw him wounded on November 14th. This was on the Ancre-Thiepval side, I think. He was taken away by our own stretcher bearers and that is all I can say about him.’ Another, who was not an eyewitness: ‘I am certain Tidyman was taken prisoner at Flers, Nov. 15/16. It was known throughout the Battalion.’ A third version: ‘I knew Tidyman quite well — he was a great footballer. He was a short man, about 5ft 5in, about 26. He was wounded in Nov. at Flers, then he went to England, returning to France again, and I saw him at the base at Etaples in Jan. He was going back to the Batt.’ And a fourth: ‘I saw him on the 14th Nov. 1916. He was sent back with prisoners and that was the last I saw of him. He was a very popular chap and a champion football player in Sydney, New South Wales.’ Another informant claimed that he saw Tidyman fall. But he did not know what became of him afterwards, adding, ‘He was a great footballer, and a favourite with all.’ Private John Cleary, also from the 19th Battalion, a former plumber from Balmain whose mother lived at Darlinghurst and who’d sailed to Europe with Tidyman on the HMAT Nestor, seemed to offer the most succinct account: ‘Tidyman was in D Co. and he was killed at Flers on November 14th, after the stunt was over, while coming back with prisoners. I saw this myself.’ It may not have been exactly 50 prisoners, but it was definitely plenty — a dreadful ask for an inexperienced soldier in such a ghastly theatre of war. His body may well have been out there in the mud, but as with so many of his comrades there was no chance for a search or time for ceremony. The battle moved on. A sequel to this tale of anguish came in the June 20, 1917, edition of The Referee, when the following story appeared: Private R.B. Fitzpatrick of the 4th Battalion writes to Mr Claude Corbett, General Manager of the Sunday Times Newspaper Company, from France (14/4/17) as follows: ‘Noticing the remarks re Bob Tidyman, Eastern Suburbs footballer, in the Referee, dated January 3, it is with regret that I forward the following: two months ago, while going over some ground which had just been taken, I picked up an old Rugby Football League membership ticket, with the name R. Tidyman on it. Another man and myself then looked around a bit and we discovered the body of one of our boys, and lying around near him were some letters with the name R. Tidyman just discernable on the envelope. There was nothing else to help in identification, so we buried him and marked the spot. Unfortunately, censorship prevents the name of the place being given. Of course, we could not do much for the poor chap at the time, as we were under direct observation and fire of the enemy, but should I get down that way again I shall have a tablet erected. I thought, of course, it was poor old Bob, but was hoping against hope that I might be wrong, but knowing if he was at the front or not. If it were he, then his relatives and friends may know that he died ‘following on’ and forfeited his life for his country in one of those game rushes for which our boys are famous. I can quite understand that this will be hard news to bear for his relatives, for my own brother lost his life in somewhat similar circumstances.’ It was sad news, indeed. The writer of the letter was a rugby league referee in the lower grades, and his brother to whose death he refers was Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, the well-known Centennial Park cricketer and cricket official. Mr John Quinlan informs me that this news is not regarded as conclusive, inasmuch as Robert Tidyman did not possess a Rugby League ticket, as he did not need one. He thinks there is still hope. The ticket might have belonged to one of Tidyman’s brothers, two of whom are at the front, one having been wounded. But there was no hope. When Private Fitzpatrick saw Johnny Quinlan’s response to his letter, he wrote again, to explain that the ticket was actually a NSW Leagues Club honorary membership ticket, ‘marked Mr R. Tidyman, member, H.R. Miller, secretary, available till October 21, 1915.’ Quinlan had thought he meant a season ticket, the kind that got holders into matches. Not that it mattered, for the War Office had finally confirmed his death. No one ever managed to give the dead footballer a proper burial, or to plant a cross or erect a tablet; there is no known grave, but his fate is recognised, with 11,000 other brave Aussies, at the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. It is almost quaint that Tidyman chose to carry a souvenir of his rugby league days into battle. And there is a certain trivial irony in an Australian player from the Rorke’s Drift Test being beaten in this much more important fight because he was outnumbered, and on a mudheap, too. But very seriously, with no evidence to the contrary, we can safely presume, as some of his comrades asserted, that Bob Tidyman died a hero’s death. Strangely, neither the NSW Rugby League nor the Eastern Suburbs club ever recognised his service in any significant way. It is a shame that his gallantry was never truly commemorated by the game he graced for far too short a time. |
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