Sprightly ‘n’ sharp

By Peter Sweeney
JIM Allan was born minutes before they rang the bells to send out 1925 in the southern Mallee town of Rainbow… or so he has been told.
“Can’t remember it myself, so I have to believe what my mother told me that I was born just before midnight,” the sprightly 85-year-old said on Saturday, during a reunion of ex-Berwick players at Edwin Flack Reserve.
Obviously, Mr Allan – who lives in the Berwick street named after his family, who have called it home for 75 years – is sharp and humorous.
“I once kicked 17 goals in a match… but I was a better full-back,” he said.
And when Tom Watson, the recorder of anything and anybody that moves in the Navy Blues camp, told attendees Jim Allan wore the no.11 guernsey, Mr Allan reached down, picked up THE old jumper and waved it around.
Two days later, he wasn’t the best.
“Must’ve picked up a wog on Saturday, the throat’s all stuffed up,” he said at noon. “I’m still in bed.”
Mr Allan wasn’t even in double figures when his family moved to Berwick from what is now Lakeside (“we had a property on the corner of Princes Highway and Cardinia Road”).
“I was only nine and saw Berwick play on the way home from Wolf Club meetings on a Saturday,” he said.
“The old football ground was a saddle shape, high at the ends and sloping to the wings. The pavilion was at the Brisbane Street end, near the presbyterian manse.
“After the club was reformed (war) at a meeting in the middle of the ground, property man Denis White produced a trunk of jumpers. I got the last one, a no-sleeves no.11.
“I wore it for the next 20 years…. I’ve still got it.”
And how did players get to matches in those days?
“Our early transport was in Mac Bailey’s flat tray truck – and later in Ernie Grant’s luxurious fruit truck with a canvas cover,” Mr Allan said.
“Ernie took us on end of season trips with a nine-gallon (keg) in the back.
“I remember so many people, but do not recall any great coaching. Or perhaps I was difficult to coach, as I was not one for training.”
And as a player, secretary, president, critic and life member, Mr Allan spoke of the early trainers.
“The standard treatment of the old trainers, with due respect to them, was to grab the legs and pump – better to be killed outright,” he said.
And ‘old’ Jim – who was given an impromptu celebration of his time at Berwick – was killing the crowd with his comments.
Tom Watson said it appeared from early club records that Jim Allan was “an automatic selection” in interleague teams in the Dandenong and Districts Football Association – a competition Berwick were in before the South West Gippsland League was formed in 1954.
“He was best on the ground in the 1946 and 47 grand finals, mainly played centre half back and in the ruck but featured in goalkicking lists,” Watson added.
“As well as playing, he was secretary in 1949 (phone no. 177) and on 30 June of that year, he starred as ‘Saltbush Sally from Berwick’ in the Kia-Ora Sports Parade at the Dandenong Town Hall.
“So Jim was a great footballer, administrator and entertainer.”