1961

[The Peanut]

Remember the horse racing results and other vfl games score updates on the scoreboard

[shanegrambeau]

...I’ve been wondering about this all week- what kind of food could you buy at the ground in 1961? What did people typically eat? Did they bring sandwiches and a thermos?

At the Junction Oval, there were pies, from stalls and from roving sellers; chips and dimmies from stalls, Boon Spa bottles of soft drink - on which there was a half penny refund so an industrious boy might scamper around at thee quarter time or when the game was well within grasp, collect up a few dozen and go home with more money than he went with - plus seeing a Saints win!

Of course, not everyone was so flush as to be able to afford bought food. The die hards, who got to the ground early, would more often than not take their own food and drinks, including the thermos. It was a bit of a ritual. I did this at the cricket more than the football.

Oh, and I almost forgot - there was the man who sold peanuts ' Peanuts - shilling a bag - peanuts!"

Food sounded like it was quite a bit different from what was on offer at Moorabbin in the late '70s. I remember there was this wooden kiosk between the members entrance and the visitor's gate where the ladies made hamburgers and used to fry onion rings to put on them. I wasn't allowed to eat them because they were rubbish. They also had a jam doughnut van where you could buy half a dozen doughnuts for a buck or something ridiculous - only one flavour, hot jam doughnuts of course. I wasn't big on them. I remember they were called 'Herberts'.
After that the Huttons Footy Frank was a popular hot dog on sale eaten with sauce, with a can of Coke or Tresca, I think it was called. That was my go to happy meal back in the day.
They also had chocolates like Chockito bars.

Awesome answers.
Yeah, I think '78 to '80 may have been when junk food really got super nasty. Chiko Rolls which looked like they were starch torpedoes filled with cabbage, gristle, toxic salts etc.
But peanuts. That's healthy. (Before everyone became allergic to them) But Pies too, nice. I love a burger and onion too. Just imagine the Junction Oval, wow. How nice it seems now. Probably to you lot old enough to remember, you thought meh....but to be honest, Moorabbin wasn't the nicest of places in the late '70s and a tram or train down to St Kilda near all the parks seems much nicer.


HOw were people's manners?
Swearing? Fights? Polite? Conservative?

Yeah, the burgers always really smelt nice as you entered the ground. That I do remember.
People swore a lot more, toilet facilities were disgusting, and there were fights occasionally, but they were more drunken arguments than anything else. It was like suburban footy in a sense.

Toilet facilities.
VB Can

Oh man. I wouldn’t say I did this, but I did see the old newspaper curtain, piss straight into the VB can where you stood trick.

[SaintPav]

Maggots dressed in white goal umpires wore long white coats. You could get 4 large full strenth steel beer cans to stand on and supporters carried a blanket round inside the fence at half time for people to throw coins into.

I remember the blanket.

[samuraisaint]

A lot of St Kilda supporters of my generation did get to see Sainters play matches at the Junction Oval- as the away side against Fitzroy. In the late 70s when they started to really improve, and a few years later when we got players like Lockett, Frawley, and Mace the matches there were amazing. It was like having a second home ground. Loved going there. It was a special place, no doubt.

[shanegrambeau]

A lot of St Kilda supporters of my generation did get to see Sainters play matches at the Junction Oval- as the away side against Fitzroy. In the late 70s when they started to really improve, and a few years later when we got players like Lockett, Frawley, and Mace the matches there were amazing. It was like having a second home ground. Loved going there. It was a special place, no doubt.

Don’t get me started ....my conspiracy theory is that Eddie McQuire, and his politician brother influenced the Victorian Government to shut down our bid to play there...destroying the heritage of the ground VFl footy, inner city footy, just so they could find a place to shove cricket off from the MCG...to allow AFL forty ...read Collingwood, unbridled access to it. Disgusting and swineful, swine flu.

But for that era you mention, say up to 1984, when the Roys played their last game there, we were pretty awful.Plugger may have played there I suppose twice? As a kid player.

But to walk down Fitzroy street, have a pizza, a beer, watch live music at a pub, must have been fantastic.

[saynta]

Remember the horse racing results and other vfl games score updates on the scoreboard

vfl results werei in code. You had to buy the record to work out who was who.

[perfectionist]

Remember the horse racing results and other vfl games score updates on the scoreboard

vfl results werei in code. You had to buy the record to work out who was who.

Teams were allocated the same letters for home games so you could work it out most times. We were E and F for our home games. Geelong was R and S for their home games. Carlton were C and D for their home games, etc. So if you knew who was playing who and the home team, you could work it out. Or you could just ask someone who had bought a record.

I remember that when a newspaper published the players' numbers during a finals series, apparently in breach of a "gentlemen's agreement", the VFL changed some of the players numbers. I think that affected us one year.

[samuraisaint]

Don't forget until about 1978 we still had a very handy side during this era.
Remember a very good win or two in the late 70s. As for the 80s see the clips below.

Some of the best Saints footy I have ever seen here (1983):


And a young Locket here (1984):


I was at both of these games - brilliant footy - except when Plugger played on after the half time siren .

[shanegrambeau]

Some of the best Saints footy I have ever seen here (1983):



I was at both of these games - brilliant footy - except when Plugger played on after the half time siren .

WTF????

We kicked seven goals in the second!!! Impressive? Fitzroy kicked 12!!!!! WTF ...was there a rule against defence?

[saynta]

1966. What Melbourne was like when the Saints won the flag

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victo ... 9b56d2cc42

"Yellow Submarine topped the charts, the last Australian executed was about to be hanged and our soldiers were fighting in foreign jungles. On the eve of St Kilda’s return to finals action, take a look back at what Melbourne was like when the Saints last won the flag.

Back in 1966, Homicide and Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight were top of the pops on telly, the HR Holden was our best-selling car, prime minister Harold Holt went “all the way with LBJ” to Vietnam and, after decades of fruitless toil, St Kilda won its only VFL premiership.

In this strange, truncated, disconnected AFL season, St Kilda is holding its own in the eight.

There’s still a way to go, but if the Saints could pull off a fairytale, it would give footy-starved Victorians something to celebrate in such a dismal season.
HOW WE PLAYED THE GAME IN 1966

Coach Allan Jeans had his Saints cherry ripe after the disappointment of 1965, when Essendon defeated St Kilda in the Grand Final – and the Saints came out fighting, with eight straight wins through the opening rounds of the 1966 season.

The side dropped only four games out of 18 rounds to finish a close second in the final four behind Collingwood and ahead of Geelong and Essendon on percentage.

It was another sad year for Fitzroy, which won the wooden spoon with a single win over Footscray (by six points) in round 15 at the Brunswick St Oval.

The Lions became footy nomads after the season when it abandoned the Brunswick St Oval. Thirty years later, Fitzroy was no more.

Essendon knocked Geelong out in the first semi-final with a 10-point win, while St Kilda went down to Collingwood by 10 points in the second semi, sending the Pies straight to the Grand Final and St Kilda to a grudge-match preliminary final against the Bombers.

But the Saints handed Essendon a seven-goal hiding to book their place in the grand final.

The grand final quarter-by-quarter margin was no greater than four points all day.

Kevin “Cowboy” Neale was the Saints’ spearhead up forward, with five goals to his name, two to captain Darrel Baldock and singles to youngsters Daryl Griffiths, Jeff Moran and Ian Cooper while the Magpies also kicked 10 for the day.

Scores were level 25 minutes into the final quarter when Wayne Richardson kicked the ball out on the full for Collingwood, gifting St Kilda a free kick to work the ball forward.

In a passage of scrappy play, the ball passed back and forth across the centre line before centre half back Ted Potter shot out a handpass that was intercepted by Saints half forward Barry Breen.

Breen snapped towards the goal but managed only a behind – one of the most famous behinds in Australian rules history – to put St Kilda one point in front.

Collingwood charged forward again but the siren sounded, leaving the Saints winners in what remains the team’s only VFL/AFL flag since it helped found the league in 1897.

In this St Kilda Football Club clip from 2013, Barry Breen reflects on modern footy, the good old days and that point, complete with archival footage from the 1966 grand final.

The Grand Final was the icing on the cake for Saint Ian Stewart, who won back-to-back Brownlow medals in 1965 and 1966.

Ted Fordham from Essendon was the leading goal-kicker in 1966, with 73 home-and-away goals and three more in the finals.
THE WAY WE WERE

In 1966, Melbourne’s population was 2.1 million, with 3.1 million people in Victoria.

We were at the tail end of the post-war baby boom and in the midst of a wave of European migration.

The federal government was so keen to attract more migrants to Australia that it created a series of films depicting idyllic suburban life in a range of Australian cities including Melbourne and Geelong.

Here’s the Life in Melbourne video, starring a young Elspeth Ballantyne of Prisoner fame, which has been preserved by the National Film and Sound Archive.

As Melbourne’s suburbs spread in all directions, the first edition of the mighty Melways was published to guide us to and through these new frontiers.

The 1966 edition is available for all to see on the Melway website.

You’ll see that Melbourne’s first freeway, the South Eastern, extended only from Punt Rd to Burnley St, construction on the West Gate Bridge and a short stretch of the Tullamarine Freeway, northwest from Mickleham Rd, served only as access for the construction of the new Melbourne Airport.

Australia got decimal currency on February 14, 1966, as this NFSA film explains.

The Beatles were on top of the charts in VFL Grand Final week in 1966 with their double A-sided hit single featuring Yellow Submarine (with Ringo doing the singing) and Eleanor Rigby. It spent eight weeks at number one, through September and most of October.

But the top single for the year was Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.

The Rolling Stones played the Palais Theatre in February. Our own Seekers returned from London for a national tour, while The Easybeats left for London seeking fortune and fame with several number one Aussie hits under their belts in 1966 including the iconic Friday On My Mind.

February also spelled the end of six o’clock closing in Victoria’s hotels, meaning revellers after St Kilda’s big grand final win could toast the team until 10pm – and presumably for days afterwards.

The year 1966 was the peak of the drive-in theatre industry in Melbourne, with 19 drive-ins across the suburbs.

Play School debuted on the ABC in July 1966, and actor Gordon Chater of the legendary comedy The Mavis Bramston Show won the Gold Logie that year.

In 1966, debate raged over the fate of Ronald Ryan, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of prison warder George Hodson as Ryan and Peter Walker escaped Pentridge in December 1965.

Ryan hanged on February 3, 1967 despite a public outcry – the last man executed in Australia.

In politics, Sir Henry Bolte notched up his 11th year as Victorian premier while Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies stepped aside on Australia Day after 16 consecutive years in office.

His successor, Harold Holt, became close to US president Lyndon Johnson, who a month after St Kilda’s big win, visited Melbourne as part of his Australian tour, when Mr Holt pledged that Australia was “all the way with LBJ” in Vietnam.

Australian troops had already had one of their most deadly confrontations with North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong forces in the Battle of Long Tan on August 18 that year.

Eighteen Australians were killed and 24 others wounded when the 108 members of D Company, 6 Royal Australian regiment fought off an estimated 1500 enemy troops, killing an estimated 350 and wounding 500 others, on August 18, 1966.

By November, Mr Holt led the Coalition government to a resounding federal election victory, just before public sentiment began to turn against the war.

Apart from LBJ, Victoria had another significant visitor when Prince Charles arrived at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop preparatory school."

[shanegrambeau]

1966.

Yellow Submarine
Homicide
Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight
HR Holden best-selling
“all the way with LBJ”

In this strange, truncated, disconnected AFL season, St Kilda is holding its own in the eight.

There’s still a way to go, but if the Saints could pull off a fairytale, it would give footy-starved Victorians something to celebrate in such a dismal season.
HOW WE PLAYED THE GAME IN 1966

Coach Allan Jeans had his Saints cherry ripe after the disappointment of 1965, when Essendon defeated St Kilda in the Grand Final – and the Saints came out fighting, with eight straight wins through the opening rounds of the 1966 season.

The side dropped only four games out of 18 rounds to finish a close second in the final four behind Collingwood and ahead of Geelong and Essendon on percentage.

It was another sad year for Fitzroy, which won the wooden spoon with a single win over Footscray (by six points) in round 15 at the Brunswick St Oval.

The Lions became footy nomads after the season when it abandoned the Brunswick St Oval. Thirty years later, Fitzroy was no more.

Essendon knocked Geelong out in the first semi-final with a 10-point win, while St Kilda went down to Collingwood by 10 points in the second semi, sending the Pies straight to the Grand Final and St Kilda to a grudge-match preliminary final against the Bombers.

But the Saints handed Essendon a seven-goal hiding to book their place in the grand final.

The grand final quarter-by-quarter margin was no greater than four points all day.

Kevin “Cowboy” Neale, Jeff Moran

Melbourne..2.1 million, with 3.1 million Victoria.

tail end of the post-war baby boom

European migration

films depicting idyllic suburban life

first freeway, the South Eastern,

Eleanor Rigby. It spent eight weeks at number one, through September and most of October.

But the top single for the year was Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.

The Easybeats left for London

February also spelled the end of six o’clock closing in Victoria’s hotels,

The year 1966 was the peak of the drive-in theatre industry in Melbourne,

By November, Mr Holt led the Coalition government to a resounding federal election victory, just before public sentiment began to turn against the war.

Love this stuff.

I was too young so I wonder badly....

It seems like a harsh world then. All the trees were cut down and the sun was blazing everywhere without shade.

When I visited Hampton again in the 90s - 00s I was stunned by how all the trees in the streets had grown and how much softer and shadier it was.

I tell myself these things to try not to romantisize too much..because I long for it a bit.

Dog s*** footpaths, cigarette smoke offices, smokey backyard incinerators, cars revving in driveways (people used to work on them), etc.,

But still I can't help thinking it was kinder too. You could work a job and expect a modest pension, enough to get by with dignity.

It was conservative and parochial, but I think it was friendly too..and people used to walk to school and walk generally.

I would have hated to have been in the military then. That damn draft. That damn war.

Because I love the music and fashion from the mid 60s I assume it was cool times, but we were not London or Liverpool. That's for sure. Go ask the Easybeats, who would find out soon enough.

HR Holden? The XP Falcon was cooler.

[stevie]

I’ve always found it randomly cool that England won their only World Cup Final ( and only appearance in a Final) two months before the Saints won their only flag.

And mention of the Beatles in that article...in the middle of the World Cup Final and the VFL Grand Final was the release of ‘Revolver’. IMO the best album ever made

[shanegrambeau]

1966 was sure a seminal year in so many ways...England World Cup. My mate is a die hard Everton fan. They won the FA cup. Muhammad Ali went bonkers beating everyone. But culturally wow...1966 has nascent punk and psychedelia mixed with the tail end of mods and beat music ...it was a real change. And Vietnam was now a serious mess.

But 1961 really intrigues me too.

It seems so 1950s.
Apparently there was a federal election and Labor almost pinched it. Which is not the narrative I understood, which was basically once Chifley was done, it was Menzies and Liberal all the way up to Whitman. In 1963, in another election (why just two years?) Labour got absolutely smashed. Probably because I was born and people realized that nothing could ever be fair again.

I fight nostalgia like any of my distractions and escapes.

But tell me, was life in 1961 a happy time? Was it grim? I know it was Cold War and all that, but the population was relatively young. I believe there was a sudden recession in 1961 too. No idea why.


2021 - ..it will be the 60th anniversary of St Kilda beating Richmond by keeping them to that beautiful Tiger scoreline of 0.8.8. We should make a song about that score line and sing it from thee stands when we beat em next year.