Australian rules footballer
| Wally Clark | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Wally Clark | ||
| Date of birth | 25 May 1936 | ||
| Date of death | 24 March 1996(1996-03-24) (aged 59) | ||
| Place of death | Adelaide | ||
| Original team(s) | Fitzroy U19s | ||
| Height | 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) | ||
| Weight | 74 kg (163 lb) | ||
| Position(s) | Rover | ||
| Playing career | |||
| Years | Club | Games (Goals) | |
| 1955–1962 | Fitzroy | 105 (120) | |
| Coaching career | |||
| Years | Club | Games (W–L–D) | |
| 1963 | Fitzroy | 1 (1–0–0) | |
| Playing statistics correct to the end of 1962. | |||
| Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com | |||
Wally Clark (25 May 1936 – 24 March 1996) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Fitzroy in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Fitzroy
Clark, who was at Fitzroy from underage level, played as a rover. He was their top goal-kicker with 21 goals in 1962 but had his best goal kicking year when he bagged 33 two years earlier.
Although he retired from the seniors in 1963, Clark continued in the Fitzroy reserves as captain-coach and won a Gardiner Medal for his on field performances.
Saturday, 6 July 1963
Main article: 1963 Miracle MatchClark coached the senior Fitzroy side for only one match.
Predictions
With the team having lost the first nine home-and-away matches in the 1963 season, and with its opponents on the day (the second week-end of the split round 10) being the powerful Geelong side that would go on to win the 1963 VFL premiership, nobody gave the Fitzroy team a chance.
The selected team
With its captain-coach, Kevin Murray, and its regular first rover, Graham Campbell, absent in South Australia with the Victorian Interstate side—and with Geoff Doubleday, Joe Dixon, and Ted Lovett unavailable (each had returned to their country clubs) -- the selectors made eight changes to the preceding round's team (and in the process, dropped both Stewart Duncan and Brett Pollock, and relegated Ray Slocum to the bench as 20th man) and, as well, appointed the (then) Second XVIII coach, Wally Clark, as the team's stand-in coach (it was the only time that Clark ever coached the First XVIII).
With seven teenagers, and only six of the twenty chosen having played more than 20 First XVIII games, the team was very inexperienced:
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The match
The match, played at the Brunswick Street Oval—with Geelong having already won the Under 19s game, 10.11 (71) to 6.10 (46), and the Second XVIII's match, 8.13 (61) to 4.8 (32) in the curtain raisers—provided "one of the biggest upsets in that decade of VFL football" (Spaull, 2014), when the Fitzroy team thrashed the Geelong side 9.13 (67) to 3.13 (31), not only leading Geelong 3.7 (25) to 1.6 (12) at half time, but, also—following Clark's inspiring half-time address delivered to the players in room packed with Fitzroy supporters (whom regular coach Kevin Murray routinely excluded from the change-rooms)—scoring 5.4 (34) to Geelong's 1.3 (9) in the third quarter.
Remainder of the 1963 season
This extraordinary performance strongly contrasts with the fact that Fitzroy did not win another match during the entire 1963 home-and-away season, failed to win a single match in the 1964 season, and did not experience another victory until the second round of the 1965 season.
Latrobe
The following season he went to Tasmania where he became captain-coach of NWFU club Latrobe. He coached and played for four years resulting in 47 wins and 23 losses. His side were runners up in 1966.
Death
Clark died on 24 March 1996, at the age of 59, following a brain tumour.
Notes
- http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/118997 VFL Record, 14 September 1963, page 29
- With both its Grand Final centreman, Alistair Lord, and its Grand Final full-forward, Doug Wade, unavailable (they were in South Australia with the interstate side), 14 of Geelong's remaining 18 Grand Final team members took the field against Fitzroy that day.
- Geelong Set for Easy Win, The Age, (Saturday, 6 July 1963), p.16.
- This was a significant difference from the experienced Geelong team, eleven of whom (including Graham "Polly" Farmer, with a total of 176 WAFL and VFL games) had played more than 35 First XVIII games over a number of seasons: namely, Terry Callan (51 games), John Devine (53 games), "Polly" Farmer (176 games), Bill Goggin (77 games), Ken Goodland (40 games), Stewart Lord (43 games), Bill Miller (36 games), Paul Vinar (73 games), Roy West (48 games), Fred Wooller (104 games), and John Yeates (57 games).
- V.F.L. Statistics, The Age, (Monday, 8 July 1963), p.19.
- See Lord (2014), Peisse (2014), and Spaull, 2014.
- Upset by Fitzroy, The (Sydney) Sun-Herald, (Sunday, 7 July 1963), p.55.
- Fitzroy Scores Shock Win in V.F.L. Game, The Canberra Times, (Monday, 8 July), p.18.
- Wells (Samuel Garnet Wells (1885-1972)), "The Ups and Downs of Sport", The Age, (Monday, 8 July 1963), p.17.
- Mitchell, Tim (2014), "Momentous Fitzroy Victorian Football League win chronicled by sports writer Ken Piesse", The Melbourne Leader, Thursday, 10 July 2014.
- https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=792269689374331&set=a.525316616069641
References
- Holmesby, Russell and Main, Jim (2007). The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers. 7th ed. Melbourne: Bas Publishing.
- Lord, Sam, "The Miracle Match", lions.com.au, 17 July 2014: Brian Pert is fifth from the left in the photograph.
- Peisse, Ken (2014), Miracle Match: The Day David Downed Goliath, Brunswick St, July 6, 1963, Mt Eliza: Ken Piesse Football & Cricket Books. ISBN 978-0-992522-80-3
- Spaull, Roger (2014), "Bryan Clements -- Fitzroy FC -- A Day To Remember At The Brunswick Street Oval", Boyles Football Photos, 18 May 2014.
External links
- Wally Clark's playing statistics from AFL Tables
- Wally Clark at AustralianFootball.com
| Coaches of the Fitzroy Football Club | |
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| Italics denote caretaker coach |