The 1980 All Australian ruckman you may not have heard of
Ron Stubbs went from playing local football with Carrum in 1979 to winning All Australian selection in 1980 alongside football greats including Robbie Flower. Forty years on he reflects on his remarkable rise.
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It was a formidable team.
Some of football’s most decorated players were selected as All Australians after the 1980 national carnival contested by Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania in Adelaide.
There was Robbie Flower. Garry Wilson. Geoff Southby. WA champion Brian Peake. South Australian greats Peter Carey and Graham Cornes.
And there was big Ron Stubbs.
A ruckman, Stubbs played in the carnival for Tasmania. But he was Victorian; he had only one season in Tassie, lining up with Devonport.
But what a season. The former Hawthorn player won his club’s best and fairest, was named Tasmanian’s best representative player and, crowning all, landed an All Australian jumper.
He also picked up WA champion Graham Moss’s jumper: they did a swap after the Tasmania-WA match.
Both have been looked after and remain in good nick, as does their owner, now 71, who lives quietly on a couple of acres at Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula with partner Anne Williams.
“Everything clicked at the right time that year,’’ Stubbs recalled of his fabulous season 40 years ago.
“I think I’d just turned 32 and I thought my best football was behind me. But going over there lifted me to play well, Devonport and then at Adelaide. It was a really exciting year.’’
The Tasmanian team included Michael Roach, Rodney Eade, Phil Manassa and Colin Robertson, but North Melbourne’s Darryl Sutton was the only other Tassie player who joined Stubbs in the All Australian team.
Stubbs has a happy memory of he and Sutton being presented with their jumpers by team officials at the post-carnival dinner and standing on a table as teammates sang “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’’. “It was a wonderful thing. I’ve never forgotten it. Great moment, really,’’ he said.
In Tassie’s first match Stubbs came up against Carey (“a huge man’’) and in the second he rucked against Brownlow Medal champion Moss and Mike Fitzpatrick.
“After the game Graeme Moss wanted to swap jumpers, so I gave him mine and he gave me his. I’ve still got it. It’s the best jumper I’ve ever had, a terrific keepsake,’’ he said. “He’s a legend over there.’’
All Australian selection was the pinnacle of Stubbs’ long career, which ended in 1990 as the playing coach of Chelsea’s reserves team. The local paper sent a photographer to the match, such was his standing in the Mornington Peninsula Nepean league.
He started in it with the Chelsea Under 15 side, then crossed to Carrum, entering senior ranks under legendary Lion and former league player Eric Guy. “That was an eye-opener for me, a young bloke playing against men,’’ he said. “It was tough football. Eric was a really good tutor.’’
Four years later he won the senior best and fairest and the league medal, and in 1969 he joined Hawthorn.
A young lad from Chelsea named Leigh Matthews made the move at the same time.
“They took us away to Sydney for the pre-season,’’ Stubbs recalled. “Leigh was 16 but he was a champion even then.’’
Both hopefuls made their league debuts that year. John Kennedy was coach.
“He was terrific, a real father figure,’’ Stubbs said. “When he spoke, you listened. He had that booming voice. I’m glad I had the pleasure of playing under him.’’
Stubbs played in Round 1 against Collingwood at Glenferrie Oval. It was a lock-out and as he took his place in the back pocket against “Jerker’’ Jenkins the new chum marvelled at the size of the crowd. He’d never seen anything like it.
“I think I was still crowd-gazing and the ball came straight out of the centre and Jerker’s got a metre on me and taken the mark. I thought, ‘Geez, welcome to league football, get your act together’. He kicked a point and I must have woken up.
“Len Thompson came down and changed in the pocket about five minutes later. I didn’t realise how big Len was until I was actually standing beside him, you know? But we had a win — by about five goals — and that was a bit of a buzz.
“It’s hard to remember all that stuff. I remember bits and pieces but I do remember the crowd and all the hoo-hah that went with it.’’
Round 2 brought him up against Carlton and John Nicholls. When he thinks about Nicholls, he thinks about the size of his thighs and his strength.
“I used to be able to jump a bit and I was taller than John but he’d bump you with his hips and send you flying and he’d grab the ball and handball it off like Polly Farmer,’’ he said. “But it was a great experience to play against him. They really gave us a hiding at Princes Park that day. They moved me to full-forward. I kicked two goals but we didn’t kick too many for the game.’’
He grew up watching Nicholls and he said it was surreal to suddenly be playing against him, a bayside kid opposed to an iconic Blue.
Stubbs also played against Essendon in Round 3 and Footscray in Round 4, when the legendary Ted Whitten was still playing for the Dogs. He injured his shoulder against Footscray and believes it took him about 18 months to fully recover.
Years later at Hawthorn player reunions, the great Kennedy would ask Stubbs the same question: “How’s that shoulder, Ronnie?’’
The Hawks won the 1971 premiership, and Stubbs played six senior games that year. He had five senior games and won the reserves best and fairest in 1972, after which he returned to Carrum. He’d made 17 senior appearances for the Hawks, all in the No 1 jumper.
“It was sad to leave Hawthorn, I’d had a great time there, but I wanted to play with a few of my mates again and enjoy my footy for a while,’’ he said.
He enjoyed great success with Carrum, and also had a stint with Dandenong in the VFA, playing in the famous 1976 grand final against Port Melbourne.
The offer from Devonport for the 1980 season included work — he was a chippie — and a nice home for his late wife, Kathy, and four children.
He played superbly, but it was devilishly cold and the family became homesick, returning to Victoria at the end of the season. In 1981 he made a triumphant comeback at Carrum, winning the club and league best and fairests.
Stubbs finished his career where he started it, at Chelsea, with about 480 games of senior football, four league medals and 10 club best and fairests behind him. He was named in the MPNFL team of the century.
“I was lucky with footy. I had a lot of fun with it and did a few things, which was good,’’ he said. “Played at good clubs and made a lot of friends out of it, and that’s the main thing.’’
After he retired he stay involved in sport by watching his sons Richard, Dennis and Reegan, all three reaching VFL level with their football, and his netballing daughter Tania.
These days Stubbs’ interest extends to racing, as a part-owner of the good horse Stars Of Carrum.
Big Ronnie himself was one of the great stars of Carrum.
And in 1980, keeping esteemed company, he was an All Australian star too.
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