CAZALY’S TFL BRAWL

ROY Cazaly’s extraordinary story is one of the great tales of Australian football. In a new book released this month, author Robert Allen tells of Cazaly’s humble beginnings and personal setbacks to become one of the country’s most celebrated footballers. In an extract from the book, Allen talks here of Cazaly’s stint as coach at North Hobart in the 1930s and the famous brawl that rubbed him out for part of the season.

CAZALY’S clearance from Preston (Victoria) was approved on 22 March, 1932. He and his family arrived in Launceston aboard the Nairana six days later and caught the train to Hobart, where they were met on the platform by North Hobart’s president Charlie Dunn and other committee members.

North Hobart, one of four teams in the Tasmanian Football League (TFL), was a club whose players were conditioned to expect success. They had won eight TFL and four state premierships between 1902 and 1929 and had only lost the previous year’s flag following a replay of the Grand Final.

The team contained a mix of old hands, transferred players and raw recruits.

High-marking half-back Stan Felmingham was returning to the side after a stint playing in Launceston, and one of the more promising new players was Alby Goggins, a rugged defender from Tasmania’s Midlands known as the ‘ Bothwell Badger’ for his determination when burrowing into packs.

Training began on 5 April and the club held a welcome social for Cazaly at the rooms the following evening. He called for the members’ support, asked the players to give their best and expressed confidence that the team had the right material to win the premiership.

North Hobart opened the season proper with a solid victory over Lefroy and proceeded to win their next nine games in a row. A four-point loss to Cananore in round 11 provided only a momentary setback and was followed by five wins on end.

Cazaly played the majority of these games at centre halfforward, with occasional spells in the ruck. He was regularly among the goalscorers, and commentators were quick to praise his shrewdness, judgment and on-field leadership.

Following a win against New Town the Sporting Re

cord remarked that: “The exSouth Melbournite provided a model of position play in attack where he led the suburban defenders a merry dance in their occasional attempts to keep him covered.”

In June, Cazaly was vicecaptain of a combined TFL team that played a VFL side in front of 7000 fans at North Hobart. It was the first time a representative VFL side had visited Tasmania since the 1924 carnival.

When the local competition resumed, North Hobart continued winning. A sensation occurred on 20 August when they overhauled a 28-point deficit early in the last quarter to win a spiteful encounter against Cananore. The match was interrupted by several brawls and at one stage during the second quarter a policeman entered the field to help umpires calm proceedings.

The Mercury was scathing in its description of events:

“The disgraceful conduct of players in the Cananore v North Hobart match on Saturday disgusted a crowd of over 6000 who paid admission money in the belief that they would witness a game of football, but were forced to watch incidents more in keeping with a street brawl.

“It was a degrading spectacle and it is doubtful whether its equal has been witnessed in Hobart in league matches which are supposed to be under strict control.”

Cazaly was involved in several of the clashes and was reported by the umpires for charging and elbowing Cananore’s centre Pat Hartnett and for charging ‘Leeter’ Collier.

North’s ruckmen Stan Ryan and Frank Smith were reported for similar offences against Harry Sutton and Russ Johnston.

Almost forgotten in the aftermath of the fracas was the fact that North Hobart had se-

cured the minor premiership.

There were just three more matches before the finals and Cazaly must have cast his mind back to the two previous occasions, at South Melbourne in 1923 and City in 1928, when he had found himself facing a judicial hearing at the tail-end of a season. Alarge

crowd gathered outside the tribunal hearing the following Thursday to await the verdict.

Cazaly, who vigorously proclaimed his innocence, was cleared of charging Collier but found guilty of charging and elbowing Hartnett.

In a harsh sanction, he was suspended for the rest of the 1932 season and the first six matches of the next.

Stan Ryan’s penalty was almost as severe while Frank Smith was disqualified for three matches.

Despite his suspension Cazaly was allowed to continue coaching from the sidelines. Vice-captain ‘Sugar’ Edwards assumed the captaincy role and ‘Sox’ Powell and Bill Hawkes moved to the ruck.

At the first game after the tribunal hearing the crowd roundly booed the umpires and greeted Cazaly “with a roar of cheering and applause” each time he strolled past the pavilion.

The tribunal affair had an extraordinary sequel several days later when the police charged Cazaly and Cananore’s Harry Sutton with having disturbed the peace by fighting during the match.

Cananore supporter Arnie Walters later recalled the inci-

dent which led to the police charges:

“It was a bit of a grudge match really, there was a lot of bad feeling between the players and early on in the game there were a few fights.

“Anyway, the ball was bounced and another brawl started in the middle, a fair dinkum brawl, fists flyin’ everywhere and Cazaly and Sutton was in it, as well as others, and Sutton, well he was a bit of a hot-head, and he was gettin’ stuck into Cazaly.

“I think Cazaly was down, like, on his knees, and Harry was gettin’ stuck into ‘im and other players was draggin’ them apart.”

The police charges against Sutton and Cazaly were listed for separate mention in early October.

After hearing the evidence against Sutton, police magistrate Horace White found the fighting charge proven and fined him £1 with a further 11 shillings in costs.

Cazaly was represented in court by prominent barrister and future Labor Premier Albert Ogilvie.

Under questioning, Cazaly said he had been struck several times while on the ground and that he’d merely tried to smother the blows.

After Ogilvie called several eyewitnesses supporting Cazaly’s version of events, Magistrate White said he was satisfied he’d been defending himself and dismissed the charge.

Between Cazaly’s criminal charge being laid, heard and dismissed, North Hobart pro- gressed to the TFL Grand Final against Cananore and won easily by 52 points.

The suspended Cazaly and Stan Ryan are included in a photo of the victorious premiership side, easily identifiable as the only two players wearing civilian clothes.

A week later North Hobart lost the state final by a goal to Cazaly’s old team City.

North’s ‘Apples’ Pye won the William Leitch Medal for the TFL’s fairest and best player, and full-forward Alan Rait was the competition’s leading goalscorer for the fifth season in a row, with a haul of 102. After

moving to Hobart, the Cazalys had lived in West Hobart, but during 1932 Roy set up his home and a masseur business opposite the Royal Hobart Hospital. The large three-storey sandstone building on the corner of Argyle and Collins streets had been built by Hobart merchant Sir Elliot Lewis in 1846 as a residence and commercial warehouse.

The Cazalys lived on the top floor, and daughter Pat later recalled the old bell pulls which had been used to summon servants, and the dark corners where her brother Roy would hide in wait to scare his sisters.

Roy jnr, now 14, was his offsider in the rooms and he proved a quick learner.

Cazaly’s re-appointment as North Hobart’s coach in 1933 was not a fait accompli, despite him having delivered a premiership the previous season.

North’s committee members were still unhappy with the severity of his playing suspension. They felt his long absence from the field had been disruptive and they blamed it for the team’s narrow loss to City in the state final.

After considering cancelling the remainder of Cazaly’s contract the committee decided to retain him because of his value to the team.

It appears, however, that they didn’t pay him during his suspension because his salary — which had totalled £247/5 in 1932 — fell by more than half to £115 during 1933.

As the new season began, Cazaly sought remission for the remaining six weeks of his sentence, telling the league in a personal appeal that it was the first time he had ever been disqualified from playing and that it had resulted in “serious fi- nancial loss”. The league’s investigation tribunal was unmoved, however, and his suspension stood.

When Cazaly finally returned to the field for the start of round seven on 10 June he played one game at full-forward before alternating between ruck and centre duties.

His form improved towards the finals and a number of his positional changes were successful but Cananore swept all before them, winning 13 of their 16 matches.

North Hobart easily accounted for New Town in the semi-final but were overwhelmingly defeated by Cananore in the Grand Final.

Within days there were whispers that Cazaly would not be staying at North Hobart.