Weston Soccer Club

From Chapter 7, MY TEN YEARS IN WESTON 1926-1936, by Basil Ralston:

Ch. 7   Weston Soccer Club

           While I was at Weston Primary School, officials of the Soccer Club came with tickets for game on Saturday.  Out of curiosity I bought a ticket and went to the game.  It was at the old Homestead ground on 9th May 1931.  I remember that Weston played Speers Point, who wore blue and yellow stripe jumpers.  Weston won four goals to one and I was sold.  When Weston played at home, I was there.  When they played away, I walked to Gould Park near North Kurri station to watch Kurri.

The great Jim McNabb was my hero, I saw most games from behind his goal.  The game was different then.  Modern critics may consider it to have been ‘kick and rush’.  It was certainly played in a robust manner, but we had plenty of clever players too.  The goalkeeper had no number, so players were numbered one to ten.  Shorts were nearly down to the knee. They wore real football boots which laced up around the ankle, which gave support without falling off.  Bars of leather across the sole gave grip instead of round stops.

            Each man had his job.  The two fullbacks were there to defend the goal.  If the ball was in our half, the goal was at risk.  So when the fullback had the ball, he did not play little games with the goalkeeper, he belted it up the other end of the field.  There were five forwards.  The key man was the centre forward, he was there to score the goals.  So he stayed up field where the goal was.  He was supported by two inside forwards, these three were the ‘strikers’. Inside forward was rated as the hardest position on the field.  In emergencies, they could not loaf up field like the centre, they were expected to fall back and defend.  Yet when the ball was cleared they were expected to be up there scoring goals.

            The two wingers were much the same as to-day, running the ball up the touch line then crossing it to the centre’s feet.  The three halves were the mid-field players.  A good centre half could rule mid-field play and dictate the course of the game.

            In defence, every player had an opposition player to line.  If he didn’t he was soon reminded by the strident voice of Mrs Wilkinson from the grandstand: ‘Take a man, Weston.’  She was as much a part of the team as any man on the ground.

            From Max Lomas I have a copy of a photograph of the 1931 team which won the Northern Premiership then beat Annandale 4/2 in the State Final.

            Jim McNabb joined Weston from the juniors as a fullback in 1926.  He first represented the State against Queensland in 1930.  Because of a leg injury, he dropped back to goalkeeper in 1931.  How fortunate that was.  Jim’s uncle fought Les Darcy.  I am sure Jim could have too.  There were no rules to protect keepers like there are to-day.  If a goalie had the ball, it would finish up with the centre forward, goalkeeper, ball and all bundled into the back of the net..  ‘Nabby’ would stand there laughing while opposing forwards bounced off him.  He loved a corner kick.  No need to fill the goalmouth with supporters.  He stood right back and used the far post as a springboard.  When the ball came high he took off.  Those two big fists, held tightly together, would rise above the heads and meet the ball.  It would come down on the halfway line.

            I saw an opposing forward fire a shot from close range.  ‘Nabby’ did not bother to catch the ball, he drew back one fist and punched it straight back with a laugh.  In a melee in the goalmouth, i saw him reach for the ball.  A boot came up and dislocated his thumb.  He took the ball, booted it out at half way, then called for attention.  He stood in the goal while his thumb was pulled back into place, then he went off.

            Adamstown supporters made claims for Billy Morgan, he was spectacular, diving from one post to the other.  McNabb did not need to, he could read the game so well that he was there already.  I saw Jim at a second rate ground one day, the cross bar was distinctly saggy.  The ball came high towards the centre of the bar.  Jim jumped up and sprung the bar down with one hand so the ball passed over it.

            He was Australia’s goalkeeper from 1933 to 1939, representing on seventeen occasions.  In 1937 he played against Bernard Joy’s touring team and saved a penalty from their top forward Eastham.  Yet for most of his career he fought a nagging ankle injury which caused his retirement in 1940.

            The right fullback was ‘Tolda’ Whitelaw, who came from Cessnock in 1921 and played until 1933.  His clearances were a legend, from one goal line to the other.  In contrast to his fiery partner Tom ‘Pincher’ Harris, ‘Tolda’ was quiet and unassuming.  I saw an opposing forward holding ‘Tolda’ in a headlock.  ‘Pincher’ ran across the field, belted the man off ‘Tolda’ and sent the ball to the other end of the field, all without breaking stride.  Nobody took any liberties with ‘Pincher’.  When McNabb went off with his dislocated thumb, there were no rules to allow replacements.  The team just did without.

            So ‘Pincher’ donned that famous yellow jumper with Weston one goal ahead.  The opposition fired a shot into the bottom right hand corner of the net.  ‘Pincher’ dived and just put it around the corner of the post.  That save won the game.  Harris played for Weston for nine years and for Australia on three occasions.

            The halves were Billy Victor, Charlie Thompson and Jim ‘Ni**er’ Kemp.  Victor played from 1928 to 1933.  Thompson had English experience, and served the team from 1927 until 1933.  The tall dark figure of ‘Ni**er’ Kemp dominated mid field play.  Yet while playing inside forward he scored twenty goals in a season.  He retired in 1942, after thirteen years, scoring 158 goals, with never a bad game.

           [Ellis] ‘Du**y’ Williams was deaf and dumb, but not on the field.  He played from 1927 to 1937, scoring 210 goals, 45 in one season of 1929, from the centre forward position.  Jack Manion was a classy player from 1925 to 1933.  Young Ernie Kemp performed well in the forwards, in the Kemp tradition.

            When the team was sadly depleted in 1943, Jim Wilkinson and Ernie Kemp were the only survivors from the 1931 team, carrying on the magnificent Club spirit, a feature of Weston soccer.

            In 1931 Charlie Thompson asked a stripling winger with 22 junior goals to his credit, to play first grade for Weston.   The boy’s mother objected, but Charlie promised to look after him and keep him out of trouble.

Jim ‘Skeeta’ Wilkinson first played on the right wing in 1931 at the age of seventeen.  He was and immediate success.  Figures will only tell part of the story, but they are imposing enough.  In 1934 he scored seventeen goals from the wing, in 1937 it was 19.  He first represented the state in 1932 and completed his State career in 1941.  He was a member of an Australian team sixteen times and scored ten international goals.  He retired in 1954 after playing a record 552 (or 574?) first class games with a total of 167 goals.  What a record.

            ‘Skeeta’s’ ball control was a sight to see.  He trained by kicking a tennis ball suspended in a stocking from the clothes line.  He said if he could kick the little ball accurately he could not miss the big one.  When he kicked the soccer ball, he did not just aim at the ball.  He hit the exact spot on the ball which would produce a ‘carpet burner’, a lofted ball or a swerve to left or right.  He seemed to exert magnetic field around the ball.  When he took a corner kick, the keeper would confidently wait for the ball coming towards him, only to see it curl around the near post and into the net.  We kids were practicing on the Homestead ground when he came to show us how it was done.

            ‘Skeeta’ Wilkinson was one of the all time greats of Australian soccer.  Both him and Jim McNabb were offered places in English professional teams but they would not leave their homes.  Yet he would take time to train schoolkids and retained his loyalty to his club for 23 years.  In the 1940’s Weston was forced to close down for a time.  Jim did not consider going elsewhere.

            His home needed new roofing iron.  Mayfield Club were able to get this from Lysaghts for him.  That was the price for a time with Mayfield.  He was still a force on the field at forty years of age.  After being away from Weston from many years, I was privileged to talk to him only three months before he passed away in July 1984.  In 1995 he was inducted into the Hunter Region Sporting Hall of Fame.  The presentation was accepted by his wife Hilda, bursting with pride.

            Other great players were Aub Teece who followed the big money and played in Sydney, and for Australia in 1937.  ‘Dixie’ Biggers scored 107 goals.  Jack Leddon was a champion on the  left wing.  Tom Shakespeare – ‘Big Shakey’ – was a master at midfield.  ‘Crabby’ McCroary played from 1922 and was Captain of the Cup winning team of 1934.

            Northern Soccer took a beating in 1936 with the emergence of big money professional teams in Sydney, sponsored by trade houses such as Metters, Goodyear and Grace Brothers.  They plundered the northern teams of all the best players they could buy.  The depressed economy of the Coalfields was their ally.  They could provide jobs.  One thing they could not provide was the mateship and loyalty to the town built up in the mines since 1902.

            Weston, with a team held together with Club spirit, had their best year.  With ‘Crabby’McCroary as Captain, they won the statewide premiership.  They won the Sheahan Cup by defeating Goodyear by 2/0 in the final. In the final of the state cup they beat the expensive Metters side by 3/2, including two goals from the wing by ‘Skeeta’ Wilkinson.

            I left Weston in 1936.  What memories I took with me of ‘Nabby’, ‘Skeeta’, ‘Pincher’, ‘Tolda’, ‘Ni**er’,  ‘Ernie’, ‘Du**y’, ‘Crabby’.  Heroes all.