THERE’S a long-held sporting adage that a “champion team will always beat a team of champions”.
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And that’s what Lloyd Jones believes held one of the most crucial keys to South Bendigo’s golden era of success in the Bendigo league of the 1950s – the Bloods were a tight-knit, champion team.
South Bendigo – which is this weekend celebrating its 125th anniversary – has 24 senior premiership cups in its trophy cabinet, five of which were won in a seven-season span between 1950 and 1956, making the Bloods the league’s team of the decade during the ’50s.
Jones – predominantly a centre half-forward – played in all five of those premiership teams in a senior career that was over by the age of just 24 due to a knee injury.
“We were never a team of champions, but we were a champion team throughout that 1950s period,” Jones recalled this week.
“We played for one another… we wanted to make our team-mates be a better footballer and we had a very good coach in Alan McDonald.”
McDonald is one of the most revered figures in South Bendigo history as the mastermind behind the Bloods’ 1950s dominance.
McDonald – who played in Richmond’s losing 1940 VFL grand final team before moving to Bendigo – was at the helm of all five of the Bloods’ premierships in the 1950s during a famed coaching stint between 1947 and 1956.
“My word he had a good football mind,” Jones said.
And it’s that football mind that earned McDonald the nickname of “The Fox”.
“One thing he could do was build up a kid’s confidence… he could just about talk you into anything,” said Tarz Pollock, who played in the Bloods’ 1951, 1954, 1955 and 1956 flags.
Jones can still vividly recall the astute, tactical nature of McDonald’s coaching as he was able to constantly bring out the best when it mattered the most in the Bloods’ mosquito fleet teams that played a “play-on” style of game.
“He was very crafty when it came to making positional changes when they were needed,” Jones said.
“He was very astute and that’s why Richmond grabbed hold of him again and got him back there.”
Following his 10-season stint in charge of the Bloods, McDonald – whom the Bendigo league’s reserves best and fairest medal is named after – returned to the Tigers in 1957 as coach.
“I remember being in tears one day because I wasn’t getting done what he wanted me to do,” Jones said.
“I was playing on Eaglehawk’s Ollie Grieve, who was a very good full-back. Alan told me to just keep leading and leading all day to keep Ollie on the move.
“I was leading and our blokes kept kicking the ball over my head and Ollie was just marking them on his chest… as a young fella you’d give everything to do what Alan asked of you.”
During the Bloods’ run of success in the 1950s – which came on the back of a barren period in which they hadn’t won a flag since 1925 – rarely did they go into a grand final as the favourite.
Of their five premiership seasons through the period, in only 1954 did they finish on top of the ladder, while in 1951, 1955 and 1956 they had to win knockout first-semi and preliminary finals under the top-four system just to reach the grand final.
The Bloods defeated Echuca by 26 points in the 1950 grand final and in a shoot-out the following year when 44 goals were kicked, they beat Eaglehawk 24.12 (156) to 20.8 (128).
Having finished third in 1952 and fourth in 1953, the Bloods returned to the grand final stage in 1954 against Sandhurst, winning the first of a hat-trick of flags by 12 points.
The Bloods again beat the Dragons in 1955 by one-point on a rain-sodden QEO – a game Jones kicked three goals in – before capping their hat-trick in 1956 with a 10-point win over Eaglehawk.
“The camaraderie and team spirit we had was fantastic. I’m proud to have been part of all the teams I played in; they all had a real character about them,” Jones said.
“I remember in one of the weeks leading into a grand final getting a letter from the secretary Kevin Jewel thanking me for all I’d done for the year and wishing me all the best for the grand final… that was just wonderful for the confidence of a kid.”
The 1950s under McDonald is one of three periods in South Bendigo’s history when the Bloods were the league’s benchmark.
Six decades earlier, the Bloods didn’t take long to establish themselves as a club to be reckoned with.
Having been founded in 1893, the Bloods won their first premiership in 1899 and by the time World War 1 halted the competition in 1915 for four years, they had won a further nine pennants – including four in a row between 1909 and 1912.
The Bloods later won two of the first three flags after the resumption of the competition in 1919 and 1921 and again in 1925, which would be the last of their premiership triumphs for a quarter-of-a-century before the McDonald era returned the club to the top.
However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that South Bendigo would again cement itself as the power club of the competition over a sustained period.
While the club won premierships in 1969 under Colin Rice and 1974 led by Bernie McCarthy, it was the arrival of Peter Bradbury as coach in 1989 that set the foundation for a run of four premierships in five years.
Bradbury joined South Bendigo following a VFL career with Essendon and Collingwood that included being a member of the Bombers’ 1984 premiership.
With Bradbury’s arrival came a new level of professional to the Bloods, a step-up in training and a renewed hardness.
“We had a great young team at the time, but we just couldn’t take the next step. When Bradbury came in though it all just went to a new level,” said Peter Tyack, a four-time South Bendigo premiership player.
“We prepared ourselves professionally, trained extra hard under Bradders and we didn’t leave any stone unturned because we were hungry for success.
“South had been so skillful, but just didn’t have that hard edge until Bradders came in and that topped us off.”
Forward David Ivey, who played in three Bloods’ premierships, described Bradbury as a “man’s man who led by example.”
“He was very competitive, and even our warm-up laps nearly ended up being a sprint at the end to finish first,” Ivey said.
“That competitiveness he instilled really resonated throughout the group.”
In Bradbury’s debut season at the helm the Bloods reached their first grand final since 1974, but were beaten by Golden Square – the game in which 17-year-old Bulldogs’ wingman Wayne Campbell kicked four goals in the first quarter on the way to winning the Nalder Meal.
However, that grand final defeat of 1989 lit the fire for what would be a sensational 1990 season at South Bendigo for not just the senior team, but the whole club.
All three South Bendigo teams – seniors, reserves and under-18s – finished on top of the ladder, winning a combined 51 of 54 home and away games with a monster total percentage of 1112.4.
All three teams went on to capture premierships, making the Bloods one of just four clubs – along with Golden Square (1964), Gisborne (2002) and Strathfieldsaye (last year) – to have all three of its football teams win flags.
“I always had the reserves out with us at training, and spent a fair bit of time with the juniors, so to actually come out of that year with the three premierships was awesome... the whole club just had a buzz,” Bradbury said in 2010 ahead of the 1990 20-year reunion.
Making the senior win that little more sweeter was the Bloods ended their 16-year drought against their conqueror of the year before, Golden Square, winning 15.24 (114) to 14.8 (92).
The memorable 1990 season included the senior team kicking what is still the Bendigo league’s record score of 49.28 (322) in a 301-point win over Kennington-Strathdale at Harry Trott Oval.
Another flag followed the year after against Castlemaine at a jam-packed QEO in a game the Bloods won by 22 points having trailed by a goal at three quarter-time.
“The QEO was absolutely chockers that day and Castlemaine had a fantastic team full of exceptional players,” said Mark Keck, who played in the Bloods’ 1990, 1991 and 1993 premiership teams.
“It was a really tough game of footy and the quality of players across both teams was just unbelievable.”
Bradbury coached the Bloods from 1989 to 1991 for a win-loss record of 53-9 to go with his two flags.
The other coach at the helm of the Bloods during their successful era of the ’90s was another VFL premiership player in Peter Curran, who had played in Hawthorn’s 1986 and 1989 flags.
After the Bloods slipped to fourth in 1992, South Bendigo landed Curran as coach for the 1993 centenary season.
And like Bradbury, Curran also guided the Bloods to back-to-back premierships in 1993 against Sandhurst (65 points) and 1994 against Golden Square (48).
“For the club to have recruited Bradbury and then been able to get Curran was fantastic and he was also a great leader,” Tyack said.
“It was amazing to have a guy who had been coached for so many years by Alan Jeans coaching us; the same with Bradders having been coached by Kevin Sheedy.”
The Bloods’ 1994 premiership win remains the last senior flag the club has won.
The Bloods were beaten in the grand final by Kyneton the following year, and the only other deciders they have been to since were back-to-back defeats to Golden Square in 2009 and 2010.
Combining the Bradbury (1989-1991) and Curran (1993-95) coaching years, the Bloods boasted an overall 109-15 record and finished on top of the ladder each of those seasons bar 1989.
Steering the club off field throughout the the early-to-mid 1990s dynasty was president Roy Bakes.
“We had a fantastic administration at the time led by Roy Bakes… he just knew what had to be done and got it done,” Steve Dean said.
Dean, one of the key organisers of the 125th celebrations, played in the 1990, 1991 and 1993 flags and was later part of Calivil’s United’s run of six premierships in a row between 2003 and 2008 in the Loddon Valley league.
“Coming up through the juniors at South, that period in the ’90s was really special to be part of, and then being out at Calivil when I was… I guess it’s all about being in the right place at the right time,” Dean said.
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