Seymour’s clash against Echuca at Kings Park this weekend is a big occasion for more than just the fact that spectators will witness two top-six clubs facing off in both the A-grade netball and senior football.
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As the modern day Lions take on the Murray Bombers, former Seymour footballers will gather to celebrate the 50 and 60-year reunions of the club’s 1976 and 1966 premierships.
In a hugely successful era for the club, Seymour in 1966 won the Waranga North East Football Association premiership over Yea, going on to reach the next nine grand finals — for a scarcely believable 1-8 record — before a move to the Goulburn Valley League eventuated in 1976.
Making the step up to the major league in the region proved no worry for the Lions, who waltzed to a dream flag in their very first year as a GVL member.
Former Seymour players Phil Jarvis (1966 premiership player) and Greg Liddell (1976 premiership player) have organised the reunions, which will see former teammates come together to share memories of their triumphs.
1966: success, followed by heartbreak
For Jarvis, 1966 was the only football premiership he ever played in, having tasted defeat in the decider numerous times afterward before walking away from the sport in 1972.
“That was my one and only premiership — a lot of runner-ups before and after that,” he said.
“Seymour lost seven or eight in a row after we won in ’66, we were beaten quite a lot.”
The memory of that period is a coveted one, though, and he looks back fondly on that time and his teammates, particularly sharing the field with Essendon VFL legend Ian ‘Bluey’ Shelton.
Born and raised in Avenel, Shelton was player-coach of the 1966 Seymour side following his retirement from the VFL and proved a brilliant mentor for many Lions, including Jarvis.
“Probably the main thing (I remember) was when we recruited ‘Bluey’ Shelton from Essendon,” he said.
“Bluey had to give up league football because he went blind in one eye, but to play football with such a good footballer as Bluey Shelton was pretty enormous.
“He was, I believe, a fantastic coach. He told us what to do and then he went and showed us what to do.”
Jarvis’ memories of the 1966 grand final are patchy, but he knows he had a good time.
“Going over to Alexandra where we were playing this grand final (against Yea), ‘Alex’ was a muddy little ground beside a big hill, usually wet and boggy.”
“But a kid as young as I was, 21, I don’t have a lot of memories except chasing the bloke I played on, Peter Christie, and I had fun trying to catch him.
“But when you win a premiership like we did, I know I celebrated pretty well. I’d not long met my girlfriend at the time, who is my wife still, and she reckons I did celebrate.”
There was plenty of cause for festivities, too, as Seymour nabbed a 10.14 (74) to 9.14 (68) win over Yea for its first flag since 1959. While there would be plenty more appearances on the final day of the season in the ensuing decade, there wouldn’t be the ultimate glory.
For the next eight years, Seymour would finish as runner-up, once to Yea, three times to Euroa and four times to Broadford, as it was unable to overcome the final hurdle.
Despite having some very good players run through the side, as well as hosting Kevin Sheedy at training multiple times during his national service stint at Puckapunyal, Seymour was unable to claim another premiership until 1975, its 10th straight grand final appearance and last in the WNEFA, but Jarvis had by that time stopped playing.
“Every time we went out to play, we’d reckon we’d win one,” he said.
“But we just didn’t quite make it for various reasons.”
1976: the Goulburn Valley era
With the monkey finally off the back in 1975 following the WNEFA premiership triumph over Mansfield by five points, Seymour embarked on a new journey, challenging itself in a move to the premier competition in the region, the Goulburn Valley League.
Liddell had moved to Seymour for work in 1975, but had been playing football for Kilmore in the Riddell District League, winning the Bowen Medal as league best-and-fairest in 1974.
It was that challenge of playing GVL football that prompted him to suit up for the Lions, following some encouragement from then Seymour president Jim Ure.
“I was a physical education teacher at Seymour Tech. My first year was 1975 and I can remember Jim Ure, the president, turning up at school on day one, in cahoots with the principal, trying to talk me into playing footy at Seymour,” Liddell said.
“I’d been playing for two years at that stage with Kilmore … we were runners-up in ’74, so I played one more year at Kilmore and then thought I’ll have a go.
“Jim came to me a bit earlier and teed me up to take the preseason training for Ron Grattan, the coach at the time, and I liked the challenge of the first year in the Goulburn Valley and having a go.”
Stepping up into a league that had been dominated at the time by the Shepparton-based clubs, especially the Bears, who had won eight of the past 11 premierships, there was plenty written at the time about Seymour’s move and how it wouldn’t be able to compete with the likes of Shepparton.
It created an ‘us against them’ mentality, Liddell said, one which the Lions used to their advantage, getting on a roll late in the season to firstly make the finals, then go all the way to winning the cup on their very first attempt.
“The mentality around the club was ‘us and them’, we were the underdogs,” he said.
“Even the write-ups, I’ve got all the Telegraphs here, round by round, and I can still remember some of the scribes at Shepp News — Tom Carey, Bill Ludlow — and most of the write-ups would be very pro the Shepp clubs particularly, because that’s where they came from.
“But there was a bloke called Ray Robinson who wrote us up favourably, and he was our pin-up boy, really, because he always praised us. But it was an us and them mentality.
“I can remember getting to just before June 30, the cut-off for clearances. We were on the fringe of getting into finals and the president got all the players in and said, ‘look, we think we can do a bit better, we just lack a ruckman and we can afford to go out and get one’.
“He brought in a bloke, John Counsel, who was about 19, straight out of under-19s in Melbourne, a tall, rangy, thin, leaping ruckman.
“We still kept our noses in front on the verge of making the five or six, and got in, and we had a good final series.”
That good finals series culminated in a stunning 21-point victory over Echuca at Deakin Reserve, and while the contest was a bit of a blur for Liddell, who kicked two goals and was named in the best in the win, the overwhelming memory was one of poor kicking.
“In hindsight, when I reflect on it, Echuca kicked terribly,” he said.
“(The final score was) 16.5 (101) to 10.20 (80), we won by 21 points, but had 21 shots and they had 30. Bad kicking is bad football, but that was costly.
“They had a couple of blokes who I can remember, and actually met up with one at teacher’s college, who were about 6’3, 6’4, full-forward and centre half-forward, strong marking blokes who could mark the ball in big pack marks, but kicked like mules.
“They could be 20m out and miss regularly, shocking kicks for goal, which was a godsend for us.”
Liddell has been the driving force behind the reunion, which marks 50 years since the triumph and will occur, fittingly, as the Lions face off against the Murray Bombers this weekend, and has organised a few special touches for the event.
The 1966 side will catch up earlier in the afternoon to watch the senior game, where they will be joined by the 1976 side, before a dinner and presentation of medallions to the 1976 premiers, something which didn’t occur 50 years ago.
“Don Kilgour, he’s going to be our MC for the evening session,” Liddell said.
“We're putting on a meal about 6.30pm and doing an ’on the couch’, and I've organised medallions.
“Peter Elliot, the president, and the footy club have agreed to buy medallions, so we are going to do a formal presentation.
“They did the presentations at the same spot that they still did do it at Deakin Reserve, except now you get a medallion. We were just filed past and did a group shot with the pennant and cup.”
The 1966 and 1976 Seymour Football Club premiership reunions will occur this Saturday, May 16, coinciding with the GVL senior football clash between Seymour and Echuca at Kings Park.