Arko series

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Arko once called me into his office at the Leagues club to discuss my future ... unfortunately it was the lack of it.

Many many years later he was signing his book down at Humphries in the Corso .. I grabbed a couple and when it was my turn I walked up to the desk and just placed the books in front of him .. he looked up and said Hello Woodsie, how have you been? ...

That was the measure of the man ... 20 odd years later he remembered a numpty u/23 player's name and could make them feel special ... the man is a legend ..
 
Arko once called me into his office at the Leagues club to discuss my future ... unfortunately it was the lack of it.

Many many years later he was signing his book down at Humphries in the Corso .. I grabbed a couple and when it was my turn I walked up to the desk and just placed the books in front of him .. he looked up and said Hello Woodsie, how have you been? ...

That was the measure of the man ... 20 odd years later he remembered a numpty u/23 player's name and could make them feel special ... the man is a legend ..
I may have asked this before Woodsie, but is your first name Paul and were you mates at Manly with a player called John, whose second name starts with ‘S’?

I will understand if you don’t want to respond.
 
I may have asked this before Woodsie, but is your first name Paul and were you mates at Manly with a player called John, whose second name starts with ‘S’?

I will understand if you don’t want to respond.

No, not Paul .. trying to think of a John S. .. but struggling ..
 
@Woodsie So what was Ray Ritchie like as a coach in the lower grades? Was there much development of the younger guys back in those days?
 
@Woodsie So what was Ray Ritchie like as a coach in the lower grades? Was there much development of the younger guys back in those days?

I may seem a bit guarded in my comments.. but it is challenging to be completely honest in case a casual observation is viewed as a great fault.

Ray was a great leader and motivator and loyal to his team.. he was not a big technological coach more a RIP in teamwork type. Game plans were simple and seldom made it out on to the field. How he may of evolved when he got the first grade job I don't know.

As far as junior development goes it was almost non existent.. of course they knew of the best players coming through the junior reps but the thought that they would go anywhere else never happened..

Ray also co-coached the u/21 Presidents Cup team I played in (the equivalent of today's U/20's) .. I won the Best and Fairest for the season and at no stage ever spoke to anyone from the senior club .. 4 weeks after the end of junior reps season I got a phone call from Bob Batty at 5pm on Friday night to turn up on Sunday and play u/23's .. welcome to grade





.
 
I may seem a bit guarded in my comments.. but it is challenging to be completely honest in case a casual observation is viewed as a great fault.

Ray was a great leader and motivator and loyal to his team.. he was not a big technological coach more a RIP in teamwork type. Game plans were simple and seldom made it out on to the field. How he may of evolved when he got the first grade job I don't know.

As far as junior development goes it was almost non existent.. of course they knew of the best players coming through the junior reps but the thought that they would go anywhere else never happened..

Ray also co-coached the u/21 Presidents Cup team I played in (the equivalent of today's U/20's) .. I won the Best and Fairest for the season and at no stage ever spoke to anyone from the senior club .. 4 weeks after the end of junior reps season I got a phone call from Bob Batty at 5pm on Friday night to turn up on Sunday and play u/23's .. welcome to grade





.
I am assuming that that typifies the game at a time run by committee members or blazer barons.
Thanks for the insight. You must be filled with great stories of clubland.
 
I could listen to Arko all day. I’ve never met a more humble and gracious man than Ken Arthurson
I had the pleasure of meeting our Godfather in one of the games I attended
Humble Gracious and Infectious
Our Godfather was a very Compelling Character and had an Aura of Greatness

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I may seem a bit guarded in my comments.. but it is challenging to be completely honest in case a casual observation is viewed as a great fault.

Ray was a great leader and motivator and loyal to his team.. he was not a big technological coach more a RIP in teamwork type. Game plans were simple and seldom made it out on to the field. How he may of evolved when he got the first grade job I don't know.

As far as junior development goes it was almost non existent.. of course they knew of the best players coming through the junior reps but the thought that they would go anywhere else never happened..

Ray also co-coached the u/21 Presidents Cup team I played in (the equivalent of today's U/20's) .. I won the Best and Fairest for the season and at no stage ever spoke to anyone from the senior club .. 4 weeks after the end of junior reps season I got a phone call from Bob Batty at 5pm on Friday night to turn up on Sunday and play u/23's .. welcome to grade





.
Very very much like Redcliffe back in the 80's with respect to juniors @Woodsie. Redcliffe had a huge junior nursery but they didn't care less about junior development. Back in those days we had 5 grades - yep 5 - A, Reserve, C Grade, Under 21's and Under 18's. People just flocked to play... C Grade on a Sunday might have 10 reserves on the bench. There would be maybe 70 players vying for the three Grades not counting 21's and 18's. So if you were a junior and you were playing grade - you would be taking the spot of someone who couldn't play Under 21's or Under 18's and so the number of people on the C Grade bench would increase... sooo they decided basically if you were under 21... you didn't get a run unless you were super talented. If you were a half... you had a much better chance because there are only so many halves.... but as a forward - there were a million forwards so it was tough. In those days Redcliffe were the Manly of the BRL - we went out and signed Mark Murray, Paul Khan, Mitch Brennan, John Ribot, Bryan Neibling, Dave Brown etc etc from other clubs and bought in players like Wally Fullerton Smith, Chris Close, Richie Poulson from the bush... meaning again the good juniors were pushed to the back of the queue. You would find Internationals/State players coming back from injury in third Grade and certainly see across all the clubs Internationals playing in Reserve Grade each week. I was sort of lucky and got a lot more chances in Grade than other juniors I suppose... but the road to A Grade was pretty much blocked although I did get the odd game. I was a two year Qld High Schools and three year Brisbane High Schools rep and BF a number of years in juniors. You could then win B and F week after week in the 21's but all that meant absolutely nothing come selection day. Sadly/funnily enough most juniors like me ended up playing A Grade at other clubs. Junior development at most clubs was non existent until the 90's. Essentially the club never ever spoke to you in those days about next week as you alluded to - let alone next year. As a junior they just expected you would just turn up each week and each year. Sounds like you were far from a nufty mate that is for sure. Anyone playing Grade or winning B and F's in the late juniors were pretty decent footballers and sadly good juniors like you just didn't get the opportunities they would in today's game. Certainly you needed to be both mentally and physically tough in that era - you couldn't just be fast and flashy - you would get the stuffing belted out of you - literally lol.
 
Very very much like Redcliffe back in the 80's with respect to juniors @Woodsie. Redcliffe had a huge junior nursery but they didn't care less about junior development. Back in those days we had 5 grades - yep 5 - A, Reserve, C Grade, Under 21's and Under 18's. People just flocked to play... C Grade on a Sunday might have 10 reserves on the bench. There would be maybe 70 players vying for the three Grades not counting 21's and 18's. So if you were a junior and you were playing grade - you would be taking the spot of someone who couldn't play Under 21's or Under 18's and so the number of people on the C Grade bench would increase... sooo they decided basically if you were under 21... you didn't get a run unless you were super talented. If you were a half... you had a much better chance because there are only so many halves.... but as a forward - there were a million forwards so it was tough. In those days Redcliffe were the Manly of the BRL - we went out and signed Mark Murray, Paul Khan, Mitch Brennan, John Ribot, Bryan Neibling, Dave Brown etc etc from other clubs and bought in players like Wally Fullerton Smith, Chris Close, Richie Poulson from the bush... meaning again the good juniors were pushed to the back of the queue. You would find Internationals/State players coming back from injury in third Grade and certainly see across all the clubs Internationals playing in Reserve Grade each week. I was sort of lucky and got a lot more chances in Grade than other juniors I suppose... but the road to A Grade was pretty much blocked although I did get the odd game. I was a two year Qld High Schools and three year Brisbane High Schools rep and BF a number of years in juniors. You could then win B and F week after week in the 21's but all that meant absolutely nothing come selection day. Sadly/funnily enough most juniors like me ended up playing A Grade at other clubs. Junior development at most clubs was non existent until the 90's. Essentially the club never ever spoke to you in those days about next week as you alluded to - let alone next year. As a junior they just expected you would just turn up each week and each year. Sounds like you were far from a nufty mate that is for sure. Anyone playing Grade or winning B and F's in the late juniors were pretty decent footballers and sadly good juniors like you just didn't get the opportunities they would in today's game. Certainly you needed to be both mentally and physically tough in that era - you couldn't just be fast and flashy - you would get the stuffing belted out of you - literally lol.
Redcliffe were able to jag a premiership in 81 ? from memory with big Artie Beetson coaching ? but didn 't seem to have a good title strike rate with some of the really top rated sides during that era you were referring to . Still a good effort and result for you to play in the i st grade Reddy side at that time though , certainly a very competitive environment . Forgot that Ribot had a season there , after stints with Valleys and originally Wests , Reddy just couldn 't seem to get the best out of some of their name imports at the time and maybe also in the team work sense . Guess that their League's club good profitability was then and continues to be the main reason for their fielding some very strong line ups over the years and now to the test in the N R L
 
I may seem a bit guarded in my comments.. but it is challenging to be completely honest in case a casual observation is viewed as a great fault.

Ray was a great leader and motivator and loyal to his team.. he was not a big technological coach more a RIP in teamwork type. Game plans were simple and seldom made it out on to the field. How he may of evolved when he got the first grade job I don't know.

As far as junior development goes it was almost non existent.. of course they knew of the best players coming through the junior reps but the thought that they would go anywhere else never happened..

Ray also co-coached the u/21 Presidents Cup team I played in (the equivalent of today's U/20's) .. I won the Best and Fairest for the season and at no stage ever spoke to anyone from the senior club .. 4 weeks after the end of junior reps season I got a phone call from Bob Batty at 5pm on Friday night to turn up on Sunday and play u/23's .. welcome to grade





.
Got an old Sydney [ N S W ] League programme somewhere and from 1972 and the weekend grades listings including Manly . Haven 't seen it for years but thought that there was i st , 2 nd grade and 3 rd grade at that time . Could be wrong but just recall noticing Manly 's three grades and even the 3 rd [ or could have been under 23 's ] still having a pretty strong side or on paper at least . A few i st graders or former i st graders there . No slight on any promising Manly junior then though finding the path to a higher grade a little challenging . All of the emphasis seemed to be on that elusive i st grade premiership for Manly and of course Manly had the where with all then to field some very competitive i st grade squads filtering back though the grades . Seems to be a totally different approach in recent times with the path ways systems and so on but probably out of necessity also but kudos to the Manly personal doing such a good job with that role now and in recent years . Think that Graham Lowe and Bob Fulton had some good junior or junior development in the early 90 's which set Manly up for a largely good decade then . Hopefully history will repeat it self now and with some of the quality of juniors coming through, apart from the already established and good performing personal .
 
The Johnny Gibbs podcast interview is interesting. As a narrabeen player he heard from Thommo about a few players that got graded, and Gibbs knew he was better than them.
 
I am assuming that that typifies the game at a time run by committee members or blazer barons.
Thanks for the insight. You must be filled with great stories of clubland.

One of the good things about the old club run by the good old boys was the camaraderie of the dressing room ... there was always ex players hanging around at training and on game day helping out .. I still remember blokes like Roy Bull, Gordon Willoughby, Rube Hudson, Bernie Seymour, Hermie Hamilton and many others in the sheds .. even Rex Mossop would come to training and walk his boxer dog around the fence ...

Although I would definatelty change getting the pre-game leg rub by an unshaved male, white singlet wearing 150 kg linament reeking volunteer for the young 20's something female glamours with a uni degree I see in the sheds on TV these days .
 
Redcliffe were able to jag a premiership in 81 ? from memory with big Artie Beetson coaching ? but didn 't seem to have a good title strike rate with some of the really top rated sides during that era you were referring to . Still a good effort and result for you to play in the i st grade Reddy side at that time though , certainly a very competitive environment . Forgot that Ribot had a season there , after stints with Valleys and originally Wests , Reddy just couldn 't seem to get the best out of some of their name imports at the time and maybe also in the team work sense . Guess that their League's club good profitability was then and continues to be the main reason for their fielding some very strong line ups over the years and now to the test in the N R L
Hey Al - Redcliffe got beaten by Souths in the last minute of the 81 Grand Final. Mick Reardon scored in the corner. Redcliffe had won the Reserve Grade and C Grade Grand Finals that day at Lang Park and I was also captain of the Clontarf High schoolboys side that beat Cairns in the State Championship that day at LP as well meaning Redcliffe had won all three lower Grades and were 30 seconds or so away from a clean sweep. My old man had a huge bet going that day for all 4 wins and as normal for Dad... had a hard luck story to tell lol. But yes Redcliffe were the perennial bridesmaids for years. Beaten in 73, 75, 77, 81, 83 and 87. The true story is that Redcliffe were essentially insolvent and were going bankrupt and the doors were going to close... until the new Goss Government introduced pokies.... and that was the only thing saving the club from total disaster. They seriously were done and dusted. Artie was Captain Coach in 81 and Frank Stanton was coach in 80. Beetso then captained coached his pub side Moreton Bay Rams in 82 and I funnily enough played against him given I went and played for Bribie Island that year who were playing in the sub district competition. Greg Oliphant also played for Redcliffe after playing for Wests up here and Balmain.
 
One of the good things about the old club run by the good old boys was the camaraderie of the dressing room ... there was always ex players hanging around at training and on game day helping out .. I still remember blokes like Roy Bull, Gordon Willoughby, Rube Hudson, Bernie Seymour, Hermie Hamilton and many others in the sheds .. even Rex Mossop would come to training and walk his boxer dog around the fence ...

Although I would definatelty change getting the pre-game leg rub by an unshaved male, white singlet wearing 150 kg linament reeking volunteer for the young 20's something female glamours with a uni degree I see in the sheds on TV these days .
Thanks for Sharing those priceless moments @Woodsie

Our Legendary club is indeed a priceless piece of Historic Greatness

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