Great People make Great clubs
Remembering the Great Incomparable Immortal Bob Fulton .....
Vale ‘King Silver’: Manly man and Immortal who put family above all
Roy Masters
May 23, 2021He called me “King Fibro” and I called him “King Silver” and the brutally frank, yet hilarious, text messages we exchanged should be the centrepiece of the obituary of Bob Fulton - one of four inaugural rugby league Immortals - who died in Sydney on Sunday, aged 74.
But “Bozo”, like most real-life clowns, was incredibly private and the messages will die with him.
The prostate cancer that Bob had bravely fought returned late last year and spread to his lungs, yet he attended the funeral of his Manly teammate, Freddy Jones and the wedding of his radio colleague, Ray Hadley, in March, without acknowledging it.
The news of his passing at 12.30pm on Sunday in St Vincents Public Hospital was conveyed to me by Royce Ayliffe, who was at his bedside, along with wife Anne, their children and grandchildren.
Royce, Bozo, his son Brett, Ian Schubert and I were regulars on a twice-yearly trip to the Northern Territory, where we fished and chased wild pigs.
It was on these trips I came to understand the real Bozo. His grandchildren were everything. Perhaps it was growing up without siblings in a small cottage in the Wollongong suburb of Unanderra, having migrated from England at age four, but Bozo adored family. Memories of him showing the grandchildren how to bait a hook, untangle a line and clean a rifle, will endure.
Some say he was aloof, even selfish. But he had a low tolerance for fools and like all great footballers with an inbuilt radar for reading weakness in opponents, he detected duplicity in an instant. If he gave offence, it was because he was a “cut-through” man, never masking his language in obfuscation.
His critics say that, given the players available to him as Manly’s coach, he should have won more premierships. To that, I say with some experience, “You don’t know how hard they are to win” and secondly, “You weren’t at the 1995 Rugby League World Cup in England.”
Bozo spent 1995 as the frontman for the ARL in its fight with the News Limited-funded Super League, convincing players to sign with the establishment administration, even orchestrating the return of the “Canterbury Four” to the ARL.
His busy workload contributed to him losing the grand final to the Bulldogs and, with most of the top players signed to Super League, he left for England with a second-tier squad of Kangaroos.
He encountered major problems in a tournament where England and New Zealand had signed with News Limited. Training grounds suddenly became unavailable, the press was hostile and the Kangaroos lost the first game against England at Wembley.
In the semi-final against New Zealand at Huddersfield, the penalty count went relentlessly against Australia and Matthew Ridge, the Kiwi fullback but also a member of Bozo’s Manly team, lined up a kick that would have sent the Kangaroos out of the World Cup.
“You owe me one, Ridgey,” Bozo whispered in the coaches’ box and he missed, sending the game to extra time, with Australia triumphing.
Bozo crafted an improbable win at Wembley against England in the final, where Andrew Johns wore No.9 but played first receiver. Geoff Toovey wore No.7, played dummy half and had a sore neck, meaning Johns packed into the scrum.
Bozo thought like a chess player, orchestrating moves well in advance, leaving exasperated rivals saying, “F--- you, Bozo, you’ve done it again to me.”
Yet sometimes, he could utter a comment of searing honesty and personal admission.
On the eve of the 1980 preliminary final, between his Eastern Suburbs team, captained by Ayliffe, and my Western Suburbs team, he set out to debunk what he called the “Fibro myth”.
It was a passionate delivery that ended with Bozo asking the assembled players whether they wanted to live in a fibro house. Having lived in one at Unanderra, he declared he loved his comfortable Manly dwelling and anyone priding themselves on living in fibro homes had poor priorities.
Over the next 40 years, I called him “King Silver” and he teased me as “King of the underclass”, while texting book titles of right-wing media.
Our last conversation was at the time of Tommy Raudonikis’ death, but he was too consumed with sadness at the death of a famous Fibro for any levity.
Yet, if I could guess a message he would send as I write this, it would be, “Just mention I did die in a public hospital.”
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