Fred Fanning

Nigel Dawe

For the past few months, I’ve been meaning to draft up a tribute piece to commemorate the 75th anniversary of a feat that may never be beaten, let alone ever remotely challenged.

I’m of course referring to Fred Fanning’s haul of 18 goals, 1 behind in the last round (30th August) of 1947, a game that would also be his last (at 25-years of age) for the Melbourne Demons.

Fittingly, a movie released in the very same month of that very same year was called ‘Brute Force’ and starred an equally young ‘take no prisoners’ Burt Lancaster.

Another omen of sorts just one month prior to Fred Fanning’s final round goal feast against the Saints, was something equally otherworldly in the form of what’s become known as the Roswell Incident, in which debris of not just a UFO spacecraft was found, but allegedly the bodies of its alien pilots as well.

Relatedly, I have a number of framed pictures of Melbourne players in my house, but none feature more prominently than the one I have of Fred Fanning in ‘full flight’, having just launched one of his right foot rockets: it reminds me of an ancient statue of the god Hermes. For those that might not know, this fleet-footed deity with his be-winged sandals was apparently able to move between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, in addition to being the god of athletes, speed, thieves, magic and dreams.

While time lends many a feat the ‘quality’ and gleaned quandary of exaggerated myth and fable, the legacy of Fred Fanning is one that has shone confirmably, albeit unrepeatably from the very day he hung up his boots in the VFL at the Junction Oval, some 75-years ago.

If the 18 goals, with just the one ‘poster’ that came in the third quarter, in front of the sticks in his last outing (which totals 109 points alone) is not enough to make you shake your head in disbelief, then how’s the story Don Cordner would often recount about how running onto the field that day, Fred apparently turned to him with a grin and said, in Babe Ruth fashion: “I’m gonna bag 18 today!”

And that he did, after threading 10 goals the week before, taking his tally to 33 majors in the last three matches he played for Melbourne, that being an average of 11 goals in each of those games. No one in the history of the sport has gone even close to matching this ‘hidden’ statistic.

Magpie great, Gordon Coventry bowed out with 16 goals in his last three outings; even arguably the game’s greatest sharpshooter of all – John Coleman (who debuted with 12 goals in his first game and kicked a neat 100 majors in his first season) finished up his career with 21 goals in his final three appearances.

Seemingly, there was nothing diminutive about our burly #6 wearing Demon forward. That he couldn’t do anything by halves, constitutes Fanning’s most defining trait: as his mention in the Guinness Book of Records testifies – you’ll find him listed next to the longest kick (in any code of football) in the world. A young Fred Fanning dobbed a goal on the full from the very centre of the MCG (or exactly 105.5 mts) in the reserves Grand Final of 1939, the same day he kicked a lazy 12 goals for Melbourne!

Add to Fred Fanning’s footy CV – the most goals by a Demons player in one season (97 in 1947) and the highest average goals per game by anyone to wear the red and blue (3.95) in 104 games; the club best and fairest award in 1945, and you get a glimpse of what it takes to become an all-time great at a club like the Melbourne Demons.

After seeing a newspaper article written by Tony De Bolfo, 12-months before Fred Fanning passed away in 1993, a young Dees fan sent the legendary spearhead a self-addressed envelope with a myriad of questions and a card for him to autograph.

To this day, it’s one of my most prized possessions, and creates a direct mercurial link for me to one of the game’s most enigmatic figures. Interestingly, in Fred’s hand-written response, he made mention amongst other things, that his toughest opponent was South’s Jim Cleary; that kicking the first goal from the boundary line in the 1940 Grand Final was ‘unforgettable’, before rounding out with: “I was aware of Coventry’s record (of 17 goals).”

Which you can just imagine our red and blue colossus, fathoming how he was about to play his last game in the big league, thus set himself the challenge of bowing out with a bag that no one would ever forget, let alone come close to ever replicating again.

With that fantastically said, and signing off now for the last time in 2022, on behalf of the NSW Demons, whether or not you support the grandest team of all – have a wonderful festive season.

After claiming last year’s men’s premiership and this year’s women’s silverware (along with the men at Casey ‘flying the flag’) here’s to the thought of a bountiful, truly beautiful, red and blue hued 2023!

AFLW – Grand Final Brisbane V Melbourne

Nigel Dawe

Watching, and then trying to convey something about a team winning a grand final at any level, let alone your own team’s inaugural premiership, at the most elite level – is like seeing a pinata torn wide open from a great height, and then trying to determine which goodie you want to find and explain first.

Well, after seven seasons the AFLW crown has finally gone to the Daisy Pearce-led Melbourne Demons, at a location that few of us had even heard of little more than a fortnight ago… but one now, that none of us will ever forget – Springfield.

Heading to the game by car, I knew it was going to be a good day when the first turnoff from the highway to the ground heading north was #31, and the second was #11, all we then needed was a turnoff #2, and that would’ve been the most famous three guernsey numbers in the club’s history.

There was no turnoff #2, but once we arrived at the ground it became quite evident that the numbers were stacked in the Lions favour… to the tune of 20 (Lion fans) to each of our 1.

Which only meant the barracking had to be more vigorous and committed than at any other time or at any other game we could ever be in the attendance of (as such, I’m hoping I get my voice back at some stage between now and Christmas!)

Having watched footy my entire life, I can’t recall a game (let alone a grand final) that was more on a knife-edge for the whole duration of play, than this one. Throughout the day I kept pondering a comment Norm Smith once made along the lines, “Football is one hundred minutes of agony, but it’s an agony I love.”

Never did solitary acts and singular, selfless deeds across the entire field become so consequential and determining of a final result. As such, if Hanks’ lunging contested mark on the outer wing with 20-seconds of the game to go, didn’t seal the win, then her next possession – a laser-like pass to Purcell, forward of the centre square – certainly did.

With little more than one straight kick in it all day, the final result provided an eerie parallel with Melbourne’s first ever VFL premiership, 122-years prior – which was by the same margin against the same team – a four-point win against the then Fitzroy Lions!

But that said, November 27th, 2022 will eternally belong to the women in the team of the red and the blue, they clocked and thoroughly locked in this day as their very own, forever! With grit and a steely-eyed will to win, they took the grand old flag to a place – against all odds, it has never been before – the Premiership dais of the AFLW.

As a doting Dad who took his own 9-year-old daughter to her very first game of footy on the weekend; the beauty and lasting resonance of this occasion wasn’t lost on me for a second. It’ll be something I tuck away at the back of my mind in highlight fashion, like the day she was born and handed to me wide-eyed and curious of her surrounds. Or the day I wrote her the haiku poem: ‘Every daughter is a rainbow across the sky of her father’s soul.’

But it’s thanks to the women, both on and off the field last Sunday, like Daisy Pearce and Kate Roffey who have paved the way – so my own little girl might one day share the big stage (of whatever forum) without any constraints caused by gender, or because of any subsequent preferential bias given to boys.

Thus, leaving the stadium, holding my daughter’s hand and both of us singing A Grand Old Flag, I couldn’t have been more chuffed; at not just the game our team had won, but what it represented for my own little girl, and girls like her across the country – for the dreams and opportunities it now makes infinitely possible.

That my Alina was the happiest and most delighted I’ve ever seen her, is a measure and gleaming testament to something I just can’t wait to see much more of.

AFLW – Grand Final Brisbane V Melbourne

Jacqui Parry

When the Demons squad are standing out on the field and they hear the Lions song before the start of the Grand Final on Sunday – we’ll be singing these words:

We are the pride of Springfield town
We wear the Demons Red and Blue
We will fight like Hell for victory
Like the Demon Squads of old

All for one and one for all
We will answer to the call
Go Lions back to Brisbane – (without that Shiny Cup)
We’ll kick the winning score
You’ll hear our mighty roar – (and then you’ll hear):

The Grand Old Flag

It’s a grand old flag, it’s a high-flying flag,
It’s the emblem for me and for you,
It’s the emblem of the team we love,
The team of the Red and the Blue.
Every heart beats true, for the Red and the Blue,
And we sing this song to you,
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the Red and the Blue.
 
Oh, the team played fine in the year Thirty-nine,
We’re the Demons that no one can lick,
And you’ll find us there at the final bell,
With the spirit of Twenty-six.
Every heart beats true, for the Red and the Blue,
And we sing this song to you,
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the Red and the Blue.

We are going to Paxinate them!!