Jack Elder

Grand Finals a specialty

Fists were flying, two players were felled, thirty barrackers had jumped the fence, a few thousand were more were about to follow, trainers, policemen small boys and dogs were mingled in a mad whirl…the stage was set for a Grand Final riot of epic proportions.

Amongst the frenzy, the lone field umpire did not lose his nerve. He had been charged with control of the game and he exercised that authority swiftly and firmly. He stepped into the middle of the scuffle, separated the main fighting pair, ignored the six others 'shaping up', blew his whistle, grabbed the ball and bounced it.

That did the trick. Players remembered there was a ball to be chased and a Grand Final to be won.

One correspondent wrote, "An umpire's whistle saved more than 40 000 persons from witnessing a pitched battle in which hundreds of their own number must have inevitably have been belligerents".

That whistle belonged to Jack Elder who, for seventeen seasons, reigned supreme as the Victorian Football League's best field umpire. A short, dark man, he had control of most of the major matches played in the League from 1906-1922.

One statistician estimated that at his retirement that Elder had umpired over 1000 matches. That total included country, carnival and others in the Metropolitan Association before he began his VFL career that was outstanding on its own. His 295 VFL matches as field umpire and 7 as boundary included a record 39 finals – a number that current day umpire Bryan Sheehan is approaching only in 2003.

His umpiring philosophy was simple and he expounded it in the 'The Sporting Globe' more than a decade after his retirement.

"Even in the hardest fought match it is important to remain calm. Use the whistle only when required. League football is not a genteel sport for schoolgirls and the term 'rough' is often misapplied. That borderline between manly vigour and roughhouse tactics is sometimes a little vague. The term 'rough football' should I think be used sparingly. 'Hard play' differs greatly from the sly bump, the kicks at ankles, the trips and the knees jolted in the backs that constitute rough and illegal play."

Jack Worrall, the first VFL umpires coach (1910), was unstinting in his praise for Elder, referring to him as 'our leading adjudicator'. "He allows a certain freedom which makes for the enjoyment of all and it is only when the latitude is abused that a penalty is exacted".

Both Elder and Worrall extol the pre-Great War era of 1905-14 as the 'Golden Age' of football and in a 1935 article Elder compared that current period to his 'Golden age' most unflatteringly. Yet close examination paints a different picture. Player loyalty was being questioned, and culminated in the revolts, which forced the League to legitimise payments in 1911. Violence on the field was at its height, typified by the previously described 1910 grand final between Carlton and Collingwood.

Attempts to curb the violence in the game had prompted the League to allow boundary umpires to report players (1908), and then goal umpires too (1910); finally stewards were introduced from 1912 to 1918. Allegations of bribery were more rampant between 1908 and 1911 than ever before, and there were several League investigations into the problem. Moreover attendances stagnated until the introduction of the Saturday half-holiday, and not until 1913 did they accelerate.

Regardless, Elder held Fitzroy's Percy Trotter, who played early in that era as the best he had ever seen. Better than Hayden Bunton because he could kick longer and with both feet and "he could pick up the ball with one hand on the run, bounce it and let fly with his kick in seemingly one action."

If the 'Golden Era' produced his greatest player it was the era after the war that provided the best match he officiated.

In 1920 Richmond played Collingwood on the morning of 26 May. A Wednesday, it had been declared a public holiday in honour of the visit of the Price of Wales and more the 30 000 squeezed themselves into Punt Road. With two other matches fixtured at either end of the Lake and in the vicinity of the Prince's parade up St.Kilda Road, so dense was the crowd that Elder had to reach the ground from his North Melbourne home in a taxi via Fitzroy and Collingwood.

"What a game it was! Players seemed inspired by the joyful occasion and played magnificent football", recalled Elder. The sides played tight football for three quarters before the Tigers pulled away in the last stanza. Collingwood dragged the lead back to one point late on but at the death the home side got the ball to James who kicked truly to seal victory - this despite the bedlam of part of the Grandstand collapsing prior to his shot!

It was a remarkable season with the 1920 Second-Semi Final between Richmond and Carlton played in front of a record crowd of 62 200. The crowd was so large that with Carlton running away in the final quarter on an MCG mud-heap the main interest was when Elder had to stop the game to allow the police to move the crowd away from the boundary.

Only two years later when the final bell sounded to complete the 1922 Grand Final it signaled the end of two great VFL careers. Elder had decided to retire and he walked off the field with Collingwood champion Dick Lee, who had kicked his last goal for Collingwood that day.

Elder explained, "It was early in the 1922 season that I decided I had had enough."

"Neither old age nor creaking joints dictated my decision. I was not yet 37 and by no means a tottering veteran….it was simply that I felt after 16 years I should stand aside and give a younger man a chance to prove himself."

"I was asked to continue for a while but long before the finals of 1922 I wrote to the League giving my decision. On the day when Fitzroy met Collingwood in the Grand Final I went to the Melbourne ground with my actual resignation in my pocket."

Elder continued his involvement with umpiring by taking on the role of umpires coach for the 1923 season but was forced to give up the role due to ill health prior to the commencement of the 1924 season.

Perhaps Jack Worrall's words best sum up Elder's career.

"Elder has been the outstanding figure in the umpire world, not only being above suspicion, but making a name for himself in the pre-war world…he has the respect of all players and other umpires."

Sources

100 years of Australian football 1897-1996. Penguin. 1996.
Sporting Globe. 6 July 1935 p.7,  17 August 1935 p.7
Stremski, Richard. Football is more than a game: comments on some recent histories of Victorian Football League clubs. 1983.
Rogers, Stephen. Everygame ever played. 3rd ed. Viking, 1992