Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

[Remi Moses]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

By memory the game ended up something like 5 goals to 4 with us losing. John Bennett kicked a couple for us at full forward and Merv Neagle had a ripper battle with Doug Hawkins all day.

Never stopped raining but strangely enough was one of the most enjoyable games I've seen at the Whitten Oval. Had you engrossed all day.

Malthouse pulled Beasley out because of the conditions.JB kicked a blinder from the boundary to hit the front, Cordy cost us going AWOL on Peter Bradbury

[LostDoggy]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Doug Hawkins breaking EJ's record.

I remember as a young fella sitting right behind a Richard Osborne barrel, was a massive kick from the bench area of half forward that went straight through the middle.

That was awesome. Right in front of the grandstand. I remember practicing torps for days after that.

[the banker]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Identifying with the Team, riding a push bike to occasionally watch training
Teddy, wrists and ankles strapped white, chest puffed out, in command.
Later, Dempsey dominating week after week,
Bernie kicking some unbelieveable goals - great player
Laughs and pies and beers standing in front of the Grandstand, meeting all sorts of people
The feel of gravel under your feet.
The crush to get into the rooms after a rare win
Doug Hawkins and his wing
The Carlton game
Thought the St Kilda game ended as a farce.
Simon the Pieman on the lead.

[I'm Not Bitter Anymore!]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

We lived so close to the ground we used to go home for a cuppa at half time. I mostly think of my Dad - when we moved he stopped going to the footy

[Missing Dog]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

I remember one wet rainy day I arrived early to watch Mathew Croft as i had seen him in the last Quarter the week before and was really eager to see if he could back it up. I sat on the wing beneath the stands in the pouring rain and marvelled at his skill with the wet ball I knew then we had a player and loved watching him ever since.

[always right]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

I think it was 3 each wasn't it?

Yeah you're right.....couldn't remember the score but knew there were bugger-all goals kicked.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

I remember one wet rainy day I arrived early to watch Mathew Croft as i had seen him in the last Quarter the week before and was really eager to see if he could back it up. I sat on the wing beneath the stands in the pouring rain and marvelled at his skill with the wet ball I knew then we had a player and loved watching him ever since.

Might have been the day he kicked a goal from well inside the centre square. The kick itself would have been lucky to have carried 50 metres but it hit a wet patch and skid another 30.

[Missing Dog]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Might have been the day he kicked a goal from well inside the centre square. The kick itself would have been lucky to have carried 50 metres but it hit a wet patch and skid another 30.

yes it was Sockeye he he must have taken 10 marks in the second half alone I loved him ever since!!!

[LostDoggy]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Apart from those mentioned.
I remember John Ballantyne kicking goals from the centre square at the geelong rd end against Fitzroy.
Ben Sexton kicking one at the same end that went left right then left.
Peter Foster kicking a point but awarded a goal then shaking the goal umpires hand.
Matthew Hogg being knocked out by Bernard Toohey when at the swans.
Georgiades smacked in the back of head by steven hocking.
Off field - the Fitzroy feral fans that were angry with the world in their final years.

[Drunken Bum]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Lockett and Tits Kennedy going at it in the goalsquare down the Barkly st end one game was memorable, at one stage lockett was sitting on Kennedys chest like a kid giving it to his little brother. Kennedy never took a backwards step ever though, loved him, one of my alltime faves

[Twodogs]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Beating Essendon in 1985 when they seemed unbeatable. 30 degree day in April, crowd packed in, after so many miserable years, realizing we had a team that could play finals.

We came out after half time and kicked seven goals in the first ten minutes of the third quarter to blow them away. Brian Royal was everywhere and picking up kicks at will. I still reckon it was the most dominant and devastating (for Essendon) burst of football I've ever seen us put on.


My favorite memory was one day against Geelong in the early '80s when the power went out at the ground just before half time. There was no electricity for the time for the timekeeper to blow the siren and they were furiously ringing the old cow bell, God knows where they got that from. Anyway the umpires didnt know that the quarter had finished and play just kept going.
The umpire was about to bounce the ball when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to find T-shirt Tommy standing there. The umpire looked at him as if to say WTF?!? Then Hafey pointed to the timekeeper running down the steps of the John Gent stand ringing the bell.

Other memories;

-Sliding down the embankment behind the scoreboard on flattened cardboard boxes

-Terry Wheeler shirtfronting Jezza and us coming from five goals down to win the game easily against Carlton in 1978.

-Shane Loveless pulling Bruce Doull's headband off and throwing it into the crowd. Doull started to charge at Pinhead until Loveless shaped up to him and stopped Doull dead in his tracks. It must have been the only time Doull backed down in his life. Loveless's purple patch over a month or so in the early '80s when he was kicking 7 or 6 goals a game was prety good too.

-Two Essendon supporters watching Michael MacLean. One said to the other "Watch this bloke, he's going to be a superstar" Magic lead two Essendon players to a bouncing ball stopped, propped, tapped the ball backwards between his legs and then turned and scooped the ball up and took off leaving the Essendon players stading there flat footed and thinking "where the hell has he gone?". The bloke turned to his mate and said "see, I told you"

-Chooka Merrington(I think) running away from Peter Hudson. He bounced the ball which went back over his head and landed in Hudson's arms. Huddo jusy turned around and kicked the goal.


-1985. Beasley charging out of the goal square and marking on the lead, Lally Bamblett mopping up anything he missed and Jimmy Edmond dropping back into the goal square to mark the long bomb.

-Gary Dempsey tapping the ball straight down Ted Whitten Jr's throat who'd then hit Kelvin Templeton's chest with a perfect pass.

-'Tit's Kennedy and Fruicake Ford terrorising any opposition forward silly enough to go anywhere near the ball.

-Brian Royal hobblng out of the player's race on his crutches after his career ending injury and the crowd giving him a standing ovation. Choco looked a bit sheepish at all the attention and just sort of waved one of his crutches and headed back down the race.

-The roar fom the crowd Doug Hawkins got warming up on the boundary in his return game from a knee reconstruction. The Hawk had started on the bench and came halfway through the first quarter. He got up, took off his tracksuit top and the crowd went mad!

[Doggy]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

It's funny how some things stay in your mind.

One moment that has stuck with me is the roar of the crowd when Bruce Duperouzel ran on from the bench for his first game for Footscray on a sunny Saturday arvo at the Western Oval in the early 80's.

[SonofScray]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

The Hyde St Band
The intro music whenever the ground announcer would inform someone their car's headlights were on.
Being able to rush to the race and climb onto the cyclone fence and cheer the boys off/on.
3WRB
Getting a cheery ripe at 3/4 time from the kiosk near the scoreboard.
The old lady who always asked me how my game was in the juniors that morning, sitting down near us in front of the Gent stand.
Mounted police.
The opposition cheersquad being on the wing.

Even with all of the changes when I go down there and close my eyes I can vividly remember all sorts of stuff, different faces and smells, the roar of the crowd etc. I know life goes on but I miss those days and feel that maybe the younger fans have been ripped off a bit these days, all the teams are very similar but for their colours now.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

Buying the Herald on the way out of the ground and having the 3/4 time scores printed in red on the edge of the back page (how did they collect the scores, print them and get them out in 1/2 hour?)

[1eyedog]

Re: Top 20 Whitten Oval Memories

For me, just a sense of place, knowing that you were going to where you felt you should be on a Saturday afternoon. The anticipation of the game at home when waking up on a Saturday morning and the trip to the ground (we use to drive up from Geelong in an old Series 2 Land Rover with no seats in the back). There are not many places in the world external to your own home that give you that feeling.

That will never be replaced.