GPS premiership rivals Nudgee and Terrace prepare to wage war once again
THIS weekend’s GPS premiership showdown between Nudgee and Terrace promises the drama we have come to expect from the two warring sides with a long history of rivalry.
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IT IS a story straight out of the Old Testament. Two brothers, separated at birth, feuding over a slight that never happened.
This afternoon at Tennyson in Brisbane’s south, the latest chapter in Queensland’s oldest – and some would say, greatest – sporting rivalry will be written when Nudgee and Terrace 1st XVs lock horns in round two of the GPS rugby competition’s centenary season.
There will be 36 matches played in the GPS premiership this year, but none will match the passion, pride and sheer drama that will be on show at Terrace’s home ground today.
It has always been thus.
Terrace old boy and now Nudgee archivist John Sayer describes the annual contest as “great theatre”. Wallaby legend Chris “Buddha” Handy, who captained Terrace in 1967 and 1968, says it is “the only game from your school days that you’ll remember all your life”, and 34-Test Wallaby Elton Flatley, who had four years in the Nudgee Firsts, goes so far as to liken it in intensity to a Test match against the All Blacks.
But why? What makes this annual sporting contest between schoolboys so important and so passionately fought?
To understand that you have to go back to 1891, and a game that never took place.
Prior to 1891, there was only one St Joseph’s College in Brisbane, the one founded by the Christian Brothers at Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill, 16 years earlier.
As the school expanded it had trouble housing its growing numbers of boarders, some of whom were sleeping in corridors and even in the chapel. The brothers decided to move the boarding school to Nudgee, the idea being that the two schools would both be administered from the offices at Spring Hill.
In time, Nudgee evolved into a separate entity – a little brother – and like all little brothers, one who wanted nothing more than to get one over its older brother.
Which brings us to the Battle of the Colours.
It is a legend passed down from generation to generation: of how the original school at Terrace had worn the traditional Christian Brothers colours of blue and white, and how in 1891 Nudgee had challenged them to a contest.
The stakes were high: the colours. Winner to get blue and white, loser consigned to wear the opposite – red and black – for eternity.
“We won,” says solicitor and passionate Nudgee old boy David Williams, who started at the college in 1971.
“It could have been a game of marbles, it could have been a game of rugby – no-one really knows – but the end result was that we won, they lost, and we wear blue and white.”
Which is a great legend, but it never happened. In fact, says college historian Bianca Anderson, Terrace didn’t adopt the red and black – or cardinal and jet, as the colours are officially known – until 1924.
“Up until then the school didn’t even have a uniform,” she says. “It was just Sunday best. The headmaster Bill Reidy led a relaunch of the school.
“It got a uniform, new crest, war cry and new colours.
“There was no battle for the colours. It was all about creating a new identity. Still, it’s a good story and it all adds to the drama, doesn’t it?”
It certainly does, and there has been plenty of that since the first recorded game on August 6, 1892, won 22-0 by Terrace.
There was 1962 when Terrace fly-half Ron Singleton kicked a field goal after the bell at Nudgee’s Ross Oval fortress to snatch an upset win that cost Nudgee the premiership.
Or 1991, when the match that marked Nudgee’s centenary attracted a record crowd of more than 12,000 and ended in a 15-all draw.
Then there was the 1995 match that Terrace looked to have won when a Nudgee player scored the winning try despite, as even Nudgee captain Elton Flatley admits, “his foot might have gone on the line or it might not have”.
And 2000, when Nudgee won 66-nil, leading to a tightening of GPS rules over the awarding of bursaries to talented “imports”.
The 2004 match saw the darkest day in the history of the century-old rivalry, when a brawl between old boys broke out at full-time and spilled on to the field, prompting the banning of alcohol at all GPS sporting events.
And then there was last year’s encounter at Ross Oval when Nudgee scored a try in the dying seconds to bring them within a point. As the Nudgee kicker moved in to attempt the conversion, the Terrace players yelled at him. The kick was missed but the referee ordered it to be retaken. This time successfully. Nudgee won by a point.
Think that will add some feeling to this afternoon’s match? Well, factor this in as well: Nudgee’s most successful coach, Tom Barker, who won five premierships for the school between 1989 and 2005, is the new coach of Terrace.
For the past week the atmosphere and anticipation have been building. There has been war-cry practice and poster painting. Friday was Blue and White Day at Nudgee, with students paying a “fine” for charity to wear casual clothes in the school colours instead of their uniform.
The Greek Club yesterday was host to the annual
pre-match luncheon, attended by 600 old boys and supporters of both schools, with guests of honour the two teams from the 1978 match, won by eventual premiers Terrace.
And last night, as for as long as anyone can remember, the Nudgee 1st XV was treated to a ritual that will live with them all forever.
“The night before the game was always special,” Flatley recalls. “They would give us a special meal and Brother Wal, the 1st XV manager, would bring out bowls of red and black jelly beans, and we’d chomp them all down.
“Then we’d go outside to the quadrangle underneath Ryan Hall, the boarding house, and have what we called ‘Rock Around the Clock’, which was all the boarders doing the war cries.
“We’d stand there in the dark and there would be kids round us cheering and others doing it down from the windows on level 2 and level 3. It was pretty moving.
“Obviously, playing in a Test match for your country is a lot different to playing for your school, but to me playing for Nudgee against Terrace was the schoolboy equivalent of playing a Bledisloe Cup game against the All Blacks.
“The build-up through the week, running out in front of 10,000 people, the war cries, the intensity. When you’re 16 or 17 years old, it doesn’t get much bigger than that.”
Of course, for some who attend the Nudgee-Terrace match, it isn’t so much a football game as it is a major event on the Brisbane social calendar.
Martine Whitton first went to the games as a schoolgirl in the 1980s. Her father, Warwick Parer, had attended Nudgee; her brothers, Warwick, Justin and Rohan, went to Terrace.
“It was always a big day,” she recalls. “The thing I remember about going to Nudgee was the enormity of the crowd and all the Nudgee boys standing in their grandstand doing their war cry. It was very impressive.
“I didn’t really appreciate the rivalry. To me it was more a social thing. Going to Tennyson became a big part of my life in the last few years of school. I went to Loreto and I’d meet a lot of girls from All Hallows and Stuartholme there.
“It wasn’t so much about the game – it was about going to the party afterwards. There was always a party. A lot of time was spent during the week working out what to wear.
“I remember once seeing one of the players crying because he’d lost. I felt so sorry for him.
“I didn’t get it then. I had no idea of the tribal mentality.
“When my own boys went to Terrace I started going to the games again. Not much had changed. It’s still a big day and a big social event.”
Nudgee’s dean of students Peter Todd says it is the aim of both schools to make the match a positive experience for students and spectators, especially after the events of 2004.
“We try to make it a fun thing – something to look forward to. There is always a lot of energy around the game and it is a great community builder for both schools.
“It is also a way for us to educate the boys about the tradition of the school and let them know they are part of something that goes back a long way.”
To that end, both schools have museums that record their histories and celebrate the exploits of their rugby players.
At Terrace these include the likes of Austin Gralton, who played halfback in Australia’s first-ever Test, against Great Britain in 1899; Mick Dore, who played for the Wallabies in 1905 before becoming a pioneer of rugby league alongside Dally Messenger; 1908 Olympic rugby gold medallist Phil Carmichael; and Wallaby captains Tony Shaw and Michael Lynagh.
Nudgee’s museum houses Wallaby captain Mark Loane’s vast collection of rugby memorabilia, as well as a separate rugby room, which displays dozens of Wallaby jerseys earned by old boys including the school’s favourite son, Paul McLean.
There are also two displays honouring old boy rugby stars who never had the chance to play for the Wallabies. Joe Faust, whose tattered blue and white woollen jersey from 1937 is the oldest on display, died as a Japanese POW in World War ll. John Fraser, who played for the lst XV in 1961, ’62 and ’63, was killed in Vietnam, aged 23.
Little wonder then that a published history of Nudgee’s first century noted, “They say there are two religions practised at Nudgee – Catholicism and rugby.
“The rites of the first are celebrated on Sunday, the rites of the other on Saturday.
“They’re wrong, of course. Anyone who has ever watched the annual Nudgee-Terrace premiership match knows there are three religions practised at Nudgee and Terrace. The third is engraved on the heart of every boy who has ever worn the blue and white, or the red and black.”
It is that kind of sentiment that will be on show when captains, Will Roach of Terrace and Nudgee’s Harrison Vella, lead their teams out at Tennyson today.
David Williams says he never had to be taught about the school’s sibling rivalry when he started at Nudgee.
“It came naturally, like osmosis,” he says.
For Chris Handy, who started at Terrace aged nine, it was a more physical process.
“I had four older brothers,” he says. “Other kids might have pretended to have Test matches between Australia and England in their backyard. Not the Handys. For us it was always Terrace versus Nudgee.
“I learnt early and nothing’s changed. Even today I’ll go into a bar anywhere around the world and someone will come up and say, “Hey, Buddha, remember that game against Nudgee in ’67?”
mike.colman@news.com.au
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