THE FORMATION OF GRADUATES LADIES HC
by Julie Podmore
I was chatting recently to a 20-year-old Uni hockey player, who was asking me about my hockey history. She was pretty surprised to hear that A grade hockey was played elsewhere other than on an artificial surface - by someone who might be considered old, but definitely not on her last legs! So I told her about the fields, paddocks and country estates that we were rostered to play on - Sandown Park at Sandy Bay, Queenborough, an Ogilvie High School ground, an indescribably bad surface
in Derwent Park, and a roadside park in New Norfolk. These grounds may or may not have been mown, were of unpredictable evenness, of varying sizes, and were occasionally covered with pools of water, with goal circles that could be better described as mud circles.
Such were the fields that the Graduates Ladies’ Hockey Club played on. ‘Ladies’? - I hear you ask. Well, we didn’t swear (much), we didn’t show off our figures with skin-tight tops, and our skirts were of a very ladylike length. In fact at times we had to suffer the indignity of kneeling on the grass while a formidable lady with a ruler measured the length of indecently exposed thigh! But off the field? Perhaps not ladies! Indeed, in the 70’s, two of the most infamous scullers of the University Hockey Club came from Graduates - Julie Podmore and Rosie Laver.
The club was formed in 1966, and could be described as a ‘home for the aged’, as the impetus for its formation came from the dissatisfaction of members of Uni 2 who couldn’t get into Uni 1 because the ‘oldies’ used to hang around for years after they graduated. So a new team was formed, modelled on a Grads men’s team playing at the time - and took on their colours – blue and gold. It was made up of graduates from the Uni 1 team, a couple of third-year undergraduates from Uni 1, and a couple of
Uni 2 players. It was called Graduates but was still part of the University Women’s Club, and entry to the team was governed by their selection panel. Uni was a strong club, fielding three teams in the ‘A’ grade competition (Uni 1, 2 and Grads) – which inconveniently consisted of seven teams. Those historians amongst you may be interested in the teams playing in 1966 - Methodist, Friends, OTOSA, Wellington, Uni 1, Uni 2 and Grads. Uni 1 had won the premiership in 1965, and in its first season
in 1966, Grads was beaten in the preliminary final by Wellington, who then went on to beat Methodist in the grand final.
The first team (1966) was: Ann Oosting (now Francis), Di Hodgman (now Vertigan), Julie Wells (now Podmore), Hilary Asten (now Hastie), Marg Bryant, Elizabeth Carter, Rosie Hughes (now Laver), Dianne Arnold (now Carrington Smith), Mardi Calder, Margaret Davies and Marj Lucas (now McFarlane). We trained twice a week on the university oval on Sandy Bay Road (no preseason
in those days!) and were coached by Don Proctor, who, amongst other endearing characteristics, used to implore us to sleep with our sticks under our pillows before important matches!
We wore very stylish uniforms - otherwise known as ‘sacks’. The uniforms were only a few years removed from pleats with a cord around the waist - and were considered quite modern. The wearing of shin pads was spasmodic at best - and mouthguards were almost unheard of. In these early years, we were a very serious-minded team. Nights before important matches were spent at the captain’s place with tea and sandwiches - to ensure that the more frivolous members stayed on the straight and narrow! Despite this discipline, we had to wait until 1969 to win our first premiership, beating Wellington 1-0 in the final. (Wellington had beaten us in the grand final in ’67, and in the semi-final in ’68).
In 1970, the character of the team changed considerably. The Sports Council at Uni required all non-fee paying players to pay the University Union fee. This hefty slug on top of club fees was too much for the team, so we disassociated ourselves constitutionally from the university club and became a separate club - but still recruited from Uni and were invited to their annual dinner - all female gatherings characterized by most undignified behaviour (to put it mildly).
Selection then was out of Uni hands and inclusion in the team was a result of the ‘feeling of the meeting’. Criteria for the extension of an invitation to join were that a person be a graduate, a good hockey player and a good sort. The first of these criteria could be waived in exceptional circumstances (viz. Mrs Margaret Pierce and Mrs Jill Mann, both of whom went on to represent Australia), but if potential players weren't graduates, they had to be very good players and very good sorts - we were, after all, interested in winning.
The other criterion, rarely waived, was that potential players had to pass the ‘ASH’ (Australian Standard Handful) test, administered by male supporters only too willing to help. Despite the requirement to be no bigger than a ‘B’ cup, training usually included various exercises to improve our measurements - to little avail.
The one disadvantage of being a one-team club was the fact that we had no one from whom to draw reserves - and by reserves I mean people to fill in when someone was sick or away. We never had anyone on the sideline in case someone was injured! But such was the closely knit nature of the ‘graduates experience’, that past players would come out of retirement, leave their sick beds - or even their maternity beds - to fill in as required. When all else failed, total strangers were dragged in from the sidelines - or even recruited at traffic lights!
The close-knit nature of the team manifested itself in other strange ways, notably the year we took it in turns to be captain; in those days there was no interchange, and players could be substituted only on injury, so the year we had 12 players, we decided each week who wouldn’t play by drawing sticks, and the year we started the season without a goalie because there wasn't a good enough sort on offer. After several hair-raising matches, we persuaded an old Grad to come out of retirement.
Accusations that Grads at this time was elitist were certainly justified, but it was a most successful team - winning the Southern premiership in ’71 (against Uni), ’72 (against Wellington), ’73 (against Uni) and ‘74 (against Wellington), and the State Premiership in ’72 and ’73. Our arch rivals in the second half of the 70s were University - and we lost grand finals to them in ’76, and, most memorably in 1977, when they scraped home 1-0 in a Sunday replay, after drawing with us 0-0 on the Saturday. The author can remember this painful match very clearly - having given birth to a son only 8 weeks previously, and being overweight and very unfit.
A contributing factor to all this success was, I’m sure, the fact that we enjoyed ourselves so much. We had a very active social life - many players’ teas, song-writing sessions in the pub, end-of-season matches against husbands and boyfriends, and even the occasional trip to Melbourne. And as for training on freezing cold nights? I am (publicly) ashamed to say (but secretly proud) that
such nights - ‘Julie trainings’ - were spent at the pub!
In my humble opinion, the best team - ‘The Graduates Machine’ - was the '72 team, which played the whole Southern season unbeaten, and won both the Southern and State premierships 5-1 – a pretty convincing score! This team had six players who represented the state at various times (including four state captains), and three players who represented Australia. But above all, it was a great team, who supported and appreciated each other - both on and off the field.
Long suffering coaches in the years after Don Proctor retired were Jon Burns, Bob Holmes, John Dean, Anne Williams, Bob Phillips and myself - and one year, a triumvirate of current players.
A drastic change in the direction of Grads came in 1978, when Christine Bennett, a crusading ASH graduate with missionary zeal and an empire-building fervour even the Poms would applaud, appeared on the scene. A one-team club was to be no more.
An even more shocking change occurred in 1983, when Graduates acquired a masculine arm, and became NWG. A memorable wake was held for the passing of the old order.
Around 1977, Graduates was having problems maintaining numbers - as women’s teams often do – people get married and move away with husband, or need time off to have children. As a one-team club, we had no other players to rely on to rebuild teams.
In 1977, Christine Bennett, Vicki Rayner, Alison Stevens (Mellor), Leonie Dick (Brennan), Lesley Harrison and Mary Kelly transferred from Uni 1 to Graduates to keep the competition open (Mind you, interrupts Julie Podmore, all these players were graduates of university anyway – and the University club were very strong at the time, winning all six premierships between 1975 and 1980 – it was time for those six players to move on!). This was the year when the regulars raced around picking up anyone in the street, gave them a hockey stick and put them on the field to make a quorum.
Meanwhile, some years earlier, Christine Bennett had been one of the main forces behind the establishment in 1974 of two Southern High Schools teams to play in the southern women’s roster. The impetus behind the entry of these teams into the roster was the mortification that Christine felt when she was coach of the Southern State Schools U16 team in the intra-state carnival –
a team that was beaten by everyone else, and which failed to get one player in the state team. The initiation of Easter Camps with some other former Graduates also helped improve the standard of southern schoolgirls. As these teams developed, the problem arose of where to recommend SHS players to go when they left school – if they weren’t going on to university.
So, despite some strong initial opposition from ‘real’ graduates, Christine Bennett suggested one solution to solve two problems – an amalgamation of the Southern High School teams with Graduates. In 1978, Graduates had four teams – Grads I in 1st Grade, Grads II in 2nd Grade, Grads III in 3rd Grade, and Grads IV in 5th Grade.
Some of those who ‘came through the ranks’ were Lindy Cameron, Robyn Hean, Deidre Johnson, Sharon Lacey, Sally Cooper, Helen Moore and sisters Barbara and Jodi, Marg Anning, Suellen Doran and Meegan Vittorio. Some SHS players made it to 1st grade in this period (1978-82) – and despite the fact that Tracey Cameron, Jo Traynor, Kathy Alexander, Margo Males and Maree Fish weren’t ‘graduates’, they were welcomed with open arms, as they met the original criteria of being good sorts – and very good players!
And they could party hard too!
In 1981, the 1st Grade team finally got back into the premiership records, but the more memorable year was probably 1982, when the Grads team did exceptionally well – being unbeaten for the season, and scoring 105 goals and conceding only 5! But then went on to lose the semi and the preliminary finals!!!! It may have had something to do with the rather unnerving custom in those days of declaring a break in the southern roster (in this case three weeks) at the end of the season to allow state teams to
travel to play – rather a break in focus!)
