Brookers_85727_01.jpg: Rick Causer, Harold Ramage, George Millman and AJ Walker are Brookers through and through. Pictures: RUSSELL BENNETT
By RUSSELL BENNETT
HAROLD Ramage will never consider himself a retired footballer.
The 79-year-old Gembrook Football Club legend will be a Brooker until the day he dies.
He played 385 games over four decades between the 1940s and 1970s and had a starring role in Gembrook’s breakthrough premiership win in 1962.
And he, along with a handful of team mates, returned to the club on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brookers’ 19-point win over Upper Ferntree Gully in front of almost 3000 raucous local footy fans at the Monbulk Football Ground on 8 September, 1962.
Ramage can recall the game like it was yesterday.
“Dave Donaldson and John Mahoney were fantastic,” he said.
“Dave, particularly.
“Not only was he our captain and coach, he was the best player I’ve ever seen.”
Ramage and Donaldson formed a lethal midfield-centre-half-forward combination and the key to their side’s success – fast, direct ball movement.
How times have (not) changed.
Ramage addressed the current Brookers playing group before it took to the field on Saturday against modern-day nemesis Woori Yallock.
The two sides are the clear standouts atop the division one ladder. Gembrook went into the clash looking to secure top spot for an all-important finals series. The team is looking to make its third grand final in as many years but reverse the heartbreak of last year’s decider against Upwey Tecoma, and the 2010 cliffhanger against Woori.
“I basically told them that 50 years ago was our first ever premiership and the real start of our history – what the club’s built on and what it’s become today,” Ramage said.
Fellow club legend, 240-game utility Con Licciardi was also in the Brookers’ ranks in the 1960s.
He remembers the sheer talent of the likes of ‘Chick’ Henderson and John Munday.
“A number of those blokes could have played league football but back in those days they just couldn’t get down to training in the city so they never bothered to go,” he said.
The Brookers were the lucky beneficiaries.
Licciardi makes every effort to get to Gembrook Cockatoo’s games each week. After all, the Con Licciardi Medal is one of the highest honours in Brookers’ ranks.
His biggest hope is that the current playing list bleeds as much for the jumper as the 1962 breed.
The 2012 Brooker crop stumbled disappointingly on Saturday against Woori Yallock, going down by eight points in a likely grand final preview.
But two of Gembrook Cockatoo’s current stars, Rick Causer and AJ Walker, still have their eyes firmly fixed on the end-of-season prize.
Causer made no secret of his side’s desire to emulate its 1962 heroes.
“They’re a pretty big motivator,” he said.
“We can take so much from those guys – they’ve been there and done it and they know what it takes to get over the line.”
If the Brookers do win the 2012 decider, they’ll be sending coach Travis Marsham out in style. He will hand the reigns to current playing assistant Rick Clark at the end of the season.
Club president Steve Goodie said Clark and the rest of the Brookers’ playing group could be on the verge of a truly special era.
But for now, the focus is on the short term. These boys want to be remembered.
“Probably 85 per cent of our boys have been here for the past four years,” Goodie said.
“A premiership this year would be a great reward for them.
“It’d be something to really hang their hats on because this will be all gone before they know it.
“Society dictates that we only celebrate success.”
