Cashion’s skill set him apart
HIS name doesn’t roll off the tongue like some of the AFL stars of today but in his time humble Tasmanian Terry Cashion was the Dustin Martin or Joel Selwood of Aussie rules.
In 1950, when Cashion tore bigger states to shreds with his speed and talent wearing the “Map” at the national football carnival while leading the charge for Tasmania in Brisbane, there wasn’t a better onballer in Australia than the tenacious Tassie tiger.
So impressive were his feats of skill, leadership and bravery, Cashion was named rover in the All-Australian team and awarded the Tassie Medal as the best player of the carnival.
That put him on the honour roll with the likes of Graham Farmer, Ted Whitten Sr, Barry Cable, Dale Weightman and Paul Salmon to name a few of the greats to also claim the award.
The offers came pouring in from VFL teams but Cashion turned down all approaches and aside for a brief stint with South Melbourne, carved his legend in Tasmania.
Passing away in 2011 aged 90, Cashion remains the only Tasmanian player ever to win the Tassie Medal.
Cashion entered the AFL Hall of Fame for his feats and his family could not have been more proud.
“We’re all over the moon,” his grandson Scot Murray said.
“We are all very proud that he’s got this honour. He would be super happy about it even though he was not one for that sort of stuff.
“He would think the recognition of him would be absolutely awesome.”
While most of his football was on home shores, while stationed in Melbourne during his service in the army in WWII, Cashion had one season with South Melbourne, playing five games in the VFL.
The then 21-year-old would have played more games for the Swans but a knee injury torpedoed his time in the VFL.
At 5ft 10in on the imperial scale – when the average height of an Australian mare was 5ft 7in – Cashion was unfashionably tall for a rover.
That gave him a distinct advantage and put him well ahead of his time.
The family has likened him to a player who football fans know well.
“The only modern player we could compare him to was a James Hird sort of player – he was the James Hird before James Hird,” Murray said.
Cashion started his senior career in 1939 with New Town in the TANFL and after the war he returned to the league in 1947, when he joined Clarence.
In the 1947 Hobart Carnival he made his debut for the Tasmanian interstate team in its 114-point win over Queensland and after wins over NSW and Canberra, and a loss to WA, Cashion won the Stancombe Trophy as Tasmania’s best player at a national carnival.
He won the trophy again at the 1950 Brisbane Carnival along with the Tassie Medal and receiving All-Australian honours.
From 1948 to 1951, Cashion had a stint at Longford, where he won the NTFA best-andfairest Tasman Shields Trophy three times. In 1948, Cashion tied with Harry Styles for the award, won it outright in 1950 and again tied for the award in 1951, this time with Darrel Crosswell.
Cashion then returned to the TFL in 1952 with Sandy Bay, with whom he won a William Leitch Medal in 1953 before retiring at the end of the season having played 193 club and representative games.
Cashion won seven bestand-fairest awards at his various Tasmanian clubs.
In June, 2004, he was selected as a rover in Tasmania’s official Team of the Century alongside AFL legends Peter Hudson, Royce Hart, Darrel Baldock and Ian Stewart.
The following year Cashion was inducted as a legend in the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame.
Murray said his grandfather let his footy do the talking.
“He was proud of the way people talked about him and knowing that people saw him for the man he was,” he said.
In 1994, when he was recognised at the Tasmanian Legends Dinner, Cashion returned to the scene of many triumphs at North Hobart Oval.
As he walked the oval, he made numerous observations.
“This is the spot where Bob Withers dropped Roger Browning in a North-South game,” he recalled, kicking the turf crossing centre halfforward. “And that over there [pointing to the terrace wing] is where a dog buried a sav in 1947.
“Albert Collier had his pants torn off him over there [pointing to a spot in front of the Ryde St Stand] and some women yelled out ‘look at his red bottom’. You could hear it all over the ground.”
Murray said Cashion was a gentleman and a joker.