Goulburn United’s 1962 premiership winning team, with captain-coach Cyril Eastlake third from the left in the front row. Photo: Goulburn Mulwaree Library.
Solicitor Don Elder stepped up as president of Goulburn United Football Club in 1968 during Group 8’s peak years of rugby league.
He recounts some of the pivotal moments in that golden era, and the beginning of the end of Group 8.
He said that in the early 1960s the Group 8 executive, comprising of all the clubs’ presidents, engaged a leading referee Bruce Chapman to write a report on where the group – comprising two Queanbeyan clubs, two Goulburn clubs, two Canberra clubs, Yass and Crookwell – was headed.
“He (Chapman) raised the question of a serious team coming out of Canberra and what would likely happen and that it would be the end of Group 8. And he was spot on,” Don said.
These days Don follows the Canberra Raiders, but in the late 1960s he happily joined Goulburn United Roosters executive because in his view they were the poor relation to the Workers Club which had the benefit of a licensed club’s poker machines to help pay the bills.
United relied on the community. “They had lots of followers who bought tickets in the chook raffles. Chook was a delicacy in the early 1960s,” he says with a nostalgic chuckle. “We used to sell tickets in all the pubs, and people would buy tickets. You wouldn’t make a lot of money, but you would make some. That’s when gate money became important.
“I said I wouldn’t sell raffle tickets in pubs which was the president’s main job,” he said. “I ran meetings, wrote contracts for blokes (players) who were given $100 a season.”
In 1960 Workers pulled off a major coup, luring former Great Britain centre Phil Jackson back into the game following his illustrious international career. The Workers downed the all-conquering Queanbeyan Blues in May that year and won the grand final in September against Yass Magpies.
United battled on, drawing on a solid network of supporters, Don said. Geissler Motors sales manager Bede Fitzgibbon found work for some of the players, including as car salesmen.
“President Reg Beaver was the local agent for Mobil and employed some of the players as truck drivers on above-award wages, and they did not have to work on Mondays,” he said.
Then United signed former New Zealander Cyril Eastlake and won the Group 8 premierships in 1962 and 1963. Playing in front of a record crowd of 3000 in 1963 against Goulburn Workers, Eastlake scored all the points in a dour, 5-nil win.
Don Elder recounts the days when Goulburn United Football Club mixed it with bigger, more resourced clubs. His wife Maxine washed and mended the guernseys of the club’s reserve grade side. Photo: John Thistleton.
Eastlake brought another former Kiwi international Ron Ackland to Goulburn, who later became United’s captain-coach and played with plenty of passion, earning a fine in May 1969 for obscene language during a heated clash with referee Bruce Chapman.
“George Robinson was the prime mover in Goulburn United,” Don said. “ He was a clerk on the railways and secretary and treasurer for years. He did everything; he was a very hard worker.”
Goulburn Teachers College provided several good footballers for both clubs who competed for their services. “You went and made a pitch to them,” Don said. “Ken Hill was president of the Workers Club and his pitch was, ‘we will pay you x (amount of money), free jumpers and transport and so on,” he said. “We would say we are the strugglers, we’ll pay you but you’ll have to sell a few raffle tickets and things as well. We got Tim Edwards who was a very good centre, Tim Lawrence also a centre, Bobby Merton who was a hooker, all students of the CAE.”
In 1973, when a subsequent captain-coach Jeff Bell returned to Sydney club St George, United enticed Clarrie Betts from Workers to head up their team. “He was a prop and good captain-coach,” Don said.
He said the Workers’ grandstand was further away from the action compared to League Park’s grandstand which seemed almost on top of the players. “You could hear everything that was being said (on the field) and see everything being done.”
During his tenure, United dealt with Sydney club executives coming to Goulburn to sign up new talent, including Balmain’s secretary Kevin Humphreys, who secured Allan Fitzgibbon for the Tigers and Canterberry’s chief executive Peter Moore, who came for John Coveney.
Like most country-based clubs, the officials had little idea of their top players’ worth. “They (Balmain) got Fitzgibbon for a grand ($1000),” he said. Fitzgibbon played in the winning Balmain premiership side in 1969 and coached Cronulla (his son is coaching them today). What a bargain.
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