Magarey Medal 2023: Meet the new SA Football Hall of Fame inductees
There are good players. There are great players. And then there are these four men who have just joined the pantheon of SA footy legends.
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Daryl Hicks had a great love of football and teaching.
He combined both with great effect.
“Daryl was a fine player, a ball-getter who was a beautiful kick, but he was trained to be a teacher and he saw his role as being able to do something in the education area of football,’’ said Sturt premiership teammate and Australian Football Hall of Fame member John Halbert.
“Daryl is a very interesting character, he always was, a deep thinker about football and life in general, and when he finished playing he became heavily involved in the National Football League, doing a lot in terms of their training courses.
“He was one of the people instrumental in the setting up of the coaching preparation programs, the Level 1, 2 and 3 coaching certificates that we see today.’’
Hicks, 82, played in four consecutive premiership sides with Sturt from 1966-69 in a 212-game career from 1960-72.
A quick, skilful wingman, he won the club best and fairest award in 1962, when he was leading goalkicker with 49, and represented South Australia 13 times.
But his off-field exploits were just as significant, if not more so.
After retiring as a player, Hicks served as Double Blues reserves coach and then the NFL’s coaching director, where in 1977 he created the league’s first coaching manual.
He was appointed Central District coach in 1978 – the season after it finished bottom – and led the northern suburbs club to its first minor premiership in his second year in charge in 1979 when he introduced the team’s striking, predominantly white strip and red shorts.
The Bulldogs never made it to the ‘Big Dance' in Hicks’ six-year tenure but they became super-competitive and earned the respect of their rivals.
Hicks’ philosophy – one that wife Tricia says he first publicly delivered at a sportsman’s night in the late 1960s – was that “players win touches, teams win games, clubs win premierships’’.
While he was unable to lead Central to the promised land, Hicks’s minor round success saw him named coach of The Advertiser SANFL Team of the Year in 1979 and 1982.
After coaching South Australia's Teal Cup side in 1986, he returned to Sturt briefly before coaching the Dogs reserves side for two seasons.
Hicks was Central’s chairman of selectors in 2000 when the club famously won its first SANFL flag.
The club, which would go on to win nine premierships in 11 years from 2000-11, lauded Hicks for his influence in ending its flag drought,
Hicks helped co-ordinate the book “How to Play Australian Football’’, using prominent players including Carlton’s Alex Jesaulenko and Glenelg’s Kym Hodgeman, and a motivational video titled “6 Points to a Goal’’ – a self-funded program filmed with Central players and staff which was used by schools and businesses to promote personal development and life skills.
Hicks later became a highly-respected football commentator and sports columnist.
In 1993 he was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his services to Australian football and the community.
Born in Jervois and teaching at Cleve during his football heyday, Hicks was very religious and later became a Deacon in the Catholic Church.
His SANFL involvement spanned five decades.
Currently struggling with his health because of a stroke three years ago, Hicks, in typical gracious fashion, told his wife Tricia that he wasn’t “worthy’’ of South Australian Football Hall of Fame induction.
“He thinks he just did his job to the best of his ability,’’ Tricia said.
But she said Daryl thoroughly deserved the honour and that the family, which includes five children – two of whom played league football, dual Central premiership player and 1995 joint reserves Magarey Medallist Damian, and Joseph, who played at Sturt and Central – and eight grandchildren, was “over the moon’’ with his selection.
“It’s a wonderful honour for someone who did so much for the game but never sought any recognition or awards for his achievements,’’ she said.
Nick Chigwidden: Little big man walks tall
He’s the pocket dynamo who made a big mark on the field and then helped save the Glenelg Football Club off it.
Standing at only 172cm but having the heart of a lion, blond-haired rover Nick Chigwidden, the son of a sheep farmer, arrived at Tigerland as a 15-year-old “bright-eyed kid’’ from Clare hoping to play league football.
He ended up becoming a “Great of Glenelg’’ for his on and off field achievements.
The diminutive rover’s playing CV is outstanding.
He captained the Tigers for a club-record eight consecutive years from 1993 to 2000, won four straight best and fairest awards from 1991-94 – only Len Sallis won more club champion awards (five) at the Bay – was runner-up in the Magarey Medal twice (1993 and 1999) and played 293 games and kicked 257 goals in 14 seasons from 1987-2000.
But Chigwidden is even prouder of his off-field role in stopping the club’s doors from shutting seven years ago when it was under serious financial stress.
“As a player I felt I was just a battler, someone who had to work really hard to get the best out of myself because I wasn’t the biggest or most skilful player,’’ he said.
“From that point of view, to play so many games and captain the club was very satisfying.
“But there were big holes in my career from not winning a premiership (he played in three losing grand finals against Port Adelaide in 1988, 1990 and 1992).
“That left me with some unfinished business, so I felt that when my playing days were over I would work at the club in some capacity to help it be successful, if it wanted me.’’
Inducted into Glenelg's Hall of Fame in 2005, Chigwidden joined the club’s board of directors the same year and was appointed president in 2012.
He oversaw one of the most tumultuous periods in club history as it buckled under financial pressure.
In June, 2016, Chigwidden was a key driver in Glenelg launching the ‘Save the Tigers’ campaign to stop the club from folding after it had come off three consecutive bottom-two finishes and plummeted to $3.2 million in debt while owing its creditors about $800,000.
Club greats, including games record holder Peter Carey and dual premiership coach Graham Cornes, were called on to rally behind it in its time of need.
Players – past and present – and supporters were rattling tins to raise money.
“If the Holdfast Bay Council did not give us relief with interest on the debt, we would have had to shut the doors,’’ Chigwidden said of the emotional rollercoaster.
But with Chigwidden courageously leading the way, the Tigers – a SANFL powerhouse in the 1970s and 1980s – miraculously survived their crisis and within three years had won their fifth league premiership.
It was one of the most stunning turnarounds by any club in SANFL history and was a fitting end to Chigwidden’s reign as president after he had decided during the year to hand the baton to Carey.
“Winning that premiership in 2019 was an amazing reward for a lot of people who did a lot of hard work,’’ said Chigwidden, who remains on the board.
“We had to fight really hard to keep the club alive and, importantly, we didn’t make shortsighted decisions and instead looked at making the club sustainable and setting it up to be successful for a long time.
“The premiership was great and came quicker than we expected but what I’m most proud of, is that Glenelg is now in a very good place, so the influence I’ve had from an administrative point of view is probably bigger than that of my playing career.’’
Carey, an Australian Football Hall of Famer, suggested Chigwidden was arguably the Tigers’ greatest ever contributor for what he had done for the club.
Chigwidden, 54, described being inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame as an “unbelievable honour’’.
“It’s so humbling because it’s something you never expect,’’ he said.
“You look at the people in there, the champions of the SANFL, and you don’t feel you’re in their category.
“But it's lovely to be recognised, as much for your family as anything because they obviously sacrifice a lot and I think they’ll get a lot out of it as well, which is great.’’
Charles Kingston: A “King’’ of SA football
Without Charles Kingston, the South Australian National Football League might not exist.
In 1876, at age 26, the then lawyer and footballer and eventual SA Premier led a playing group to form the South Adelaide Football Club.
A year later, Kingston was a key figure in the establishment of the South Australian Football Association, which would later be renamed the SANFL.
Attending the meeting to set up a formal Australian football league after several clubs were involved in an informal competition using a variety of rules, Kingston established a committee “to confer with the various football clubs to find their ideas about the role of the proposed association and the rules they want to play by.”
His insistence that a player should not be able to run with the ball without bouncing it led to the Melbourne rules being adopted, otherwise football may ultimately have evolved into rugby in South Australia.
The SA Football Association was established – one week before the Victorian Football Association, making it the oldest state league competition in Australia.
It was renamed the South Australian Football League in 1907 and rebadged with the ‘N’, making it the SANFL to reflect the national game of Australian football, in 1927.
“Kingston can rightly be identified as the father of Australian football in South Australia,’’ said former South chairman Peter Alexander as Kingston earned induction into the SA Football Hall of Fame.
“As far as which set of rules were to be adopted, he argued for and succeeded in achieving the oval-shaped ball and the necessity to bounce the ball, differing it from the game of rugby.
“He wanted a game for all classes and a uniquely Australian game, which he achieved.
“And as far as South was concerned, he was our founding father and oversaw our most successful period, being a part of eight premierships (in 1877, 1885, 1892-93, 1895-96, 1898-99).’’
While Kingston was influential in the formation of the SANFL, his connection with the Panthers lasted for decades.
Elected as club secretary when the club was formed, he continued to play football for the first two seasons and was a member of the South side that won the first league premiership in 1877.
Kingston then served as association delegate and club chairman and was South president for 30 years until his death in 1908.
He became the Panthers’ first life member.
While such a key figure in SA football, Kingston’s career as a lawyer, politician and statesman was equally significant.
He was elected to State Parliament in 1881, served as Attorney-General and then Queen’s Counsel before becoming SA Premier in 1893.
Widely tipped to be Australia’s first Prime Minister, Kingston was instead appointed as the first Federal Minister of Trade.
The Federal seat of Kingston is named in his honour while he has a memorial statue in Victoria Square.
In 2001, to mark the 125th anniversary of South’s establishment, the club’s vice-president’s group was renamed ‘The Kingstonians’ as a tribute to Kingston.
Former SA premiers Dean Brown and Mike Rann are members of the ‘Kingstonians’, continuing the political association with the Panthers’ that started with Kingston.
Sonny side up: The man who paved the way for others
Sonny Morey choked up when he was told he was being inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame.
“Because I couldn’t believe it, I was in shock and questioning how I could be elevated alongside so many great players in SA football history,’’ the former Central District star and Indigenous trailblazer said.
“Obviously it means a lot to me but also for the Indigenous kids who want to play footy. It gives them an avenue.
“They can have a look and say, ‘hang on a minute, if this man can get to this point and be recognised for what he’s done in football, there’s something for us’.
“Then you get the Gavin Wanganeens and Michael O’Loughlins coming through, who came well after my time, and it gives them a direction, something to aim for.
“Not everybody is going to do it but what we’ve done proves that these things can be achieved.’’
Morey, 78, did it the hard way.
“I came through an era which was quite difficult for Indigenous people,’’ he said.
“I didn’t feel like a citizen of my land. I was playing football but I had to wait outside the pubs and bars because I wasn’t allowed in.
“That, for a young man like me, I was only about 17 or 18, was very difficult to understand.
“I didn’t understand the politics of it all. It was hard, a challenge, but if you want to succeed at something you have to work through things.’’
Morey, a member of the Stolen Generation, being just seven when he was ripped from his community under a policy which destroyed the lives of countless Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, went on to become a Bulldogs and SANFL great.
As a teenager, two weeks before his 19th birthday, he was a member of expansion SANFL club Central’s first league team in 1964, having the distinction of being the first Bulldogs player to win a kick in senior ranks in the club’s opening game against West Torrens at Thebarton Oval.
When he retired 13 seasons later, in 1977 after 213 games, Morey was the last remaining player from the original side.
Recruited from Gawler Central Tigers, Morey started his SANFL career as a wingman before moving to a back pocket, where he became a star and state representative.
Morey played four state games and became the first Bulldog to play 200 SANFL league games.
He won the club’s best and fairest award in 1970, was runner-up to football legend Malcolm Blight (Woodville) for the 1972 Magarey Medal and was selected in the back pocket in Central’s ‘Best team of its first 40 years – 1964 to 2003’.
He recalls being one of the Indigenous pioneers of SANFL football in the 1960s, naming Sturt’s Roger Rigney, West Adelaide’s Bertie Johnson, South Adelaide's David Kantilla and Port Adelaide’s Richie Bray and Wilfred Huddleston as others.
“There weren’t too many of us,’’ Morey said.
“When I look back and reflect on history and where we are today it’s quite amazing.
“I really didn’t believe that I did anything special but the fact is somewhere, at some point, I must have set a benchmark or done something for young people to look at and work towards.
“And I'm proud of my football club because there are some absolute (Indigenous) champions who have come through there – Wilfred “Wilbur’’ Wilson, who was a brilliant left-footer and is one of my best mates, Phil Graham, Derek Kickett and others.’’
After SANFL retirement, Morey coached Eudunda for three years and became the first Indigenous premiership coach in the Barossa and Light association before returning to lead Central’s under-17s for a decade.
A proud Arrernte man who was a household name during the halcyon days of the SANFL, Morey was picked in the back pocket and as coach of the SANFL Indigenous Team of the Ages.
Now living at Williamstown and a keen golfer, Morey has had a book written in his honour, “Sonny”, co-written by former Bulldogs teammate Robin Mulholland.
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