Melbourne has always been mad about footy.
Not that rubbish from Sydney where they just run straight and bash into each other with brutal predictability.
Nor that game for toffs which is know intimately only to those who play, and spectators rarely see the ball. The love for that game is rooted in The Old Country and their traditions, not ours.
We don’t have the patience and societal maturity to appreciate Soccer. Not enough scoring, and the pitch is too small and stuffy.
Real footy, invented in Melbourne.
Played on a Cricket Ground when it lays fallow over winter.
Large and open spaces. Free flowing. Fast and tough and tribal. Many players and lots of scoring.
Local teams, based on Suburban Clubs. Run by volunteers. Blokes only then. Beer soaked, and mostly everyone smoked, everywhere.
Played only on Saturday afternoon. Not on The Sabbath and not at night, ever.
12 teams on 6 grounds dotted around Melbourne only. Arden St, Victoria Park, Junction Oval, Windy Hill, Kardinia Park, and the beginning of corporatisation, Waverly Park amongst others.
This passion needed coverage. By newspapers, mostly.
Television and their cameras were infants, and no-one could foresee that monster’s growth.
Pre internet and all the phones were at the end of a wire.
Newspapers almost at their zenith then, and they’d peak probably in the 1980’s.
There were lots of newspapers. The Herald in the afternoons, The Age and The Currant Bun in the mornings 6 days a week.
The Sunday Observer broke this tradition with a maverick publisher who had to be constrained, so The Sunday Press was born.
Newsday was begun by David Syme to have a similar effect on The Herald, but it flamed out, ingloriously. The Pink Bible also, but it was mainly for Racing.
To cover the footy required lots of Journos and Photographers. There was no pooling, and competition for stories and pictures was fierce.
Press Photography in Australia at that time required a distinct and separate skill set from any other form of what is now called image making. But that requires another blog. Freelancing was in its embryonic state.
I recall being with John Lamb when he unboxed the first Nikon F in the early 1970s. Until then, the twin lens reflex was the standard tool for general news work. Mainly Mamiya. For sport, briefly, we used the Pentacon Six cameras with 120 film and Novoflex rapid focus lenses. They were bulky and generally difficult to handle.
The small and portable Nikon F with wide and long lenses was a total revelation and game changer. We fell on them with glee and a sense of liberation and adventure. It was entirely manual for film advancement and focusing, and no built-in exposure metering. It was liberating and we threw off the previous cumbersome and difficult photographic shackles with enthusiasm.
The standard lens for coverage at the footy was the 300mm, with a 135mm and others nearby.
You had only one camera body, and only black and white film. Ilford FP3 if it was sunny, and Kodak Tri-X: when the weather turned, as it does in Melbourne. Always.
You chose your position on the boundary based upon your knowledge of the teams and players that day and generally stayed there. The flow of the game came to you and you did your best.
The mood amongst the photographers was competitive but collegial. It was not unusual to share a car to the game with your competitors which meant a meeting point, often a pub. Rounds of beers were common before getting to the ground.
Always, after a job of any type, it was back to the office to develop and print your film. The process and procedure requires another blog
When I shot this image, I had a feeling that I may have caught it, but you don’t know. Manual focus with the 300, guessed exposure, beer on board.
Only developing the film will tell and I still recall the quiet thrill of lifting it out of the fixer.
It was sharp and well exposed, and I’d managed the timing. Getting the ball was an essential bonus.
On a personal level it was a result of my life and training at the time. Photographing, developing and printing 5 days a week at work and usually on my days off, and liking football and beer.
The picture is of Stephen Beaumont from Essendon, and Michael Stilo from South Melbourne at Windy Hill on the 28th of June 1975.
It was used rather large and went on to win The Best Action Picture for the VFL in 1975.
In the 50 years since, the VFL has morphed into a national game via the creation of the AFL, and photography is done differently, for certain.
