Reynolds, Coleman, Sheedy: the greats who shaped the Bombers
Essendon was a pioneer of the VFA and VFL — winning the first VFL premiership — and today spearheads honouring our Diggers and indigenous past. History shows that the Bombers always lead from the front. These are the players and coaches who made the Bombers a footy powerhouse.
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Essendon won the VFL’s first premiership, and showed it was one of the greatest teams in AFL history by winning 15 more flags.
But like its great rival Carlton, Essendon has not won a grand final in the 21st century and seems anchored to its 16 premiership wins.
Can it overcome the impact of the supplement saga and restore some premiership pride?
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ORIGINS
The Essendon Football Club is thought to have been formed by a group including prominent members Victorian Woolbrokers, the Melbourne Hunt Club and the Royal Agricultural Society at the home of Melbourne brewer Robert McCracken in Ascot Vale in 1872.
On June 7, 1873, the team played its first official match against old rivals Carlton, beating the Blues by a goal.
Essendon became a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association in 1877, playing its home games at an area known as Flemington Hill.
It was also an innovator, playing a night match with a white ball against Melbourne in 1879 and becoming the first side to travel to Geelong for a match in 1880.
The club sought a permanent home in Essendon — the Essendon Cricket Club’s at Windy Hill, but was blocked by the mayor of the day. The club shifted to the now defunct East Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1882.
Collingwood is lauded for its four premiership victories in a row from 1927 to 1930, but Essendon did it first in the VFA, winning the VFA’s from 1891 to 1894. It went undefeated in 1893 and, in 1896, beat St Kilda with the first score over 100 points in Australian rules football history.
Essendon helped found the breakaway Victorian Football League in 1897 along with Carlton, Collingwood, St Kilda, Melbourne, South Melbourne, Fitzroy and Geelong.
That inaugural VFL season was decided in a round robin involving the top four sides — Melbourne, Geelong, Collingwood and Essendon. Essendon won all three of its matches.
GOLDEN YEARS
Essendon was known by different nicknames, adopting the Bombers moniker during World War II because of the team’s location near Essendon Airport.
It was variously known as the Essendonians, the Dons, the Red Sashes or the Same Olds, derived from Same Old Essendon, a song played by the band during its matches.
The name didn’t matter because the side was consistently good.
It made the 1898 grand final against Fitzroy, and lost that by 15 points, but defeated Collingwood in the 1901 grand final in a victory led by centre half forward Albert Thurgood, who kicked three of Essendon’s six goals. Thurgood was later named by Essendon as one of its greatest 25 players.
But Collingwood exacted revenge against Essendon in the grand final in 1902, and the Dons lost again in the 1908 grand final, this time to Carlton. Essendon was the first team to kick more than 1000 points in a season in 1902.
It went back to back in 1911 and 1912, a golden period that featured two more of the club’s greatest players, Fred Baring and Bill Busbridge.
A lean period followed, including a refusal to play in 1916 and 1917 because the VFL refused to donate all gate takings to the war effort.
The 1922 season marked the club’s move to Windy Hill after decades playing in East Melbourne.
Essendon returned to form, with back-to-back flags in 1923 and 1924 — the second in a three-match round robin just like in 1897.
The 1924 win was not without controversy. Another of the club’s self-proclaimed 25 greats, Tom Fitzmaurice, quit sensationally, accusing teammates of taking money to throw one of the finals.
While the Dons were quiet in the 1930s, winning the wooden spoon in 1933, the decade was the foundation for success in the 1940s with the debut of a young man named Dick Reynolds in 1934, aged 18.
He won Brownlow medals in his first year, in 1937 and 1938. Another club legend, Keith Forbes, was a Brownlow runner-up in 1935.
Reynolds became captain-coach in 1939, and the following year Essendon came third on the ladder, playing its first finals since 1926.
Essendon owned the ‘40s and early ‘50s, winning the 1942, 1946, 1949 and 1950 flags and losing five more in 1941, 1943, 1947, 1948 and 1951.
The 1948 loss to Melbourne came following a draw with Melbourne, Essendon scoring 27 behinds. The replay was Melbourne’s by a convincing 39 points.
John Coleman arrived on the VFL scene in 1949. In his debut season, he kicked 100 goals, smashing Tom Reynolds’ club record of 70 in a season, and booted 120 goals
and 103 goals respectively in 1950 and ’51.
His career ended tragically in round seven of 1954 when he fell heavily at Windy Hill and dislocated a knee. In just 98 games, he amassed 537 goals — an average of about 5.5 goals per game.
He was held goalless in only one match, against Fitzroy at a mud-soaked Brunswick Street Oval in 1952.
Dick Reynolds retired as a playing coach in 1950 but coached until 1960, with grand final losses against Melbourne in 1957 and 1959 and whispers around the footy world that Essendon was soft when it really counted.
John Coleman took over as coach in 1960, and helped lead the Bombers to flags in 1962 (against Carlton) and 1965 (against St Kilda).
It would be another 19 years before a Bomber held the premiership cup aloft.
Coleman retired in 1967 and Essendon lost to Carlton in the grand final in 1968.
Essendon figured in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s without success, losing the grand final in 1983 to Hawthorn, before it struck back against the Hawks in 1984 for its first flag since 1965, winning against the Hawks in 1985 as well.
A nucleus of champions including Tim Watson, Simon Madden and Roger Merrett, and the appointment as Kevin Sheedy as coach for season 1981, began something special. It won the night premiership in 1981 and 1984 and played in six successive finals series from 1981 to 1986.
THE AFL ERA
The Bombers debuted strongly in the new national competition in 1990 but faltered at the final hurdle, losing to Collingwood and granting their Magpies their first flag since 1958.
But the Baby Bombers were on the rise, with veterans including Watson, Mark “Bomber” Thompson and Mark Harvey leading youngsters including James Hird, Michael Long, Dustin Fletcher and Gavin Wanganeen leading Essendon to a stellar season and the defeat of Carlton for the 1993 flag.
Wanganeen and Hird won Brownlow Medals in 1993 and 1996 respectively.
Under Sheedy’s stewardship, Essendon and Collingwood added a new dimension to their rivalry in 1995 with the first Anzac Day clash and Essendon and Richmond began their Dreamtime at the ‘G clashes in 2005.
The year 2000 was a huge one for the club. Essendon left Windy Hill for a home ground co-tenancy at Docklands and the MCG, and Matthew Lloyd booted 103 home-and-away season goals to deliver the Bombers their 16th premiership.
The club’s results had been patchy in the years between the 2000 flag and the beginning of the supplements saga in 2013, and it’s yet to be seen how long it will take the Bombers and for the major players in the affair, including “Bomber”
Thompson and James Hird, to recover fully from its devastating impacts.
ESSENDON
VFL/AFL Premierships: 16 (the last in 2000), runner-up 13 times
VFL/AFL games played/won/lost/drawn: 2411 games, 1350 won, 1026 lost, 35
drawn
Longest serving captain: Dick Reynolds, 224 matches from 1939 to 1950
Longest serving coach: Kevin Sheedy, 634 matches from 1981 to 2007
Longest serving player: Dustin Fletcher, 400 games from 1993 to 2015
Brownlow medallists: Dick Reynolds (1934, 1937, 1938), Bill Hutchinson (1952,
1953), Graham Moss (1976), Gavin Wanganeen (1993), James Hird (1996).
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