He can still see it now, just like it was yesterday. But it’s not yesterday. It is, in fact, more than five decades after the event, yet it remains one of football’s most iconic Grand Final moments. Frank Davis, then playing in just his sixth VFL game for Melbourne, remembers a Collingwood player, he’s not sure who (it was Des Tuddenham, his opponent at the time), kick the ball long over his own head, and as he turned to see where it landed his heart skipped a beat.

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Fifty years ago, three fit, handsome, popular young men converged on a pub in Melbourne’s north where they were photographed together playing billiards. Hawthorn’s Peter Hudson (24 years old at the time), Carlton’s Alex Jesaulenko (25) and Collingwood’s Peter McKenna (24) had just become the first trio in the 73-year history of the VFL to all score 100 goals in the same season: a feat seen as the pinnacle for any full-forward.

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As a biographer, one aspect of the researching process which consumes me is the question, “Did I speak to everyone?” To me, finding as many people as possible to enlighten me on a subject is vital to being able to paint the fullest picture of not only the individual, but also the times they lived through. I never cease asking myself, did I speak to enough people?

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The first VFL Grand Final was played on 24 September 1898, at the Junction Oval in St Kilda, between Fitzroy and reigning premier Essendon (who had claimed the first League premiership the year before, in what was a short-lived, round-robin finals format). On Grand Final day 1898, Fitzroy defeated Essendon by 15 points, creating history by winning the first stand alone, season-ending match to determine the VFL’s premier team. Afterwards, Melbourne’s Sportsman published a sketch of Fitzroy’s standout follower and forward, Mick Grace, one of two brothers (with older sibling and full-forward, Jim) who helped lead the Maroons to victory on that momentous day.

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When Peter Crimmins rose around 10.00am on the morning of Saturday 25 September 1971, he glanced out the window of his Ferntree Gully home and knew he had a torrid afternoon ahead. It was VFL Grand Final day, and the overcast, chilly conditions told him the football was going to spend a lot of time on the MCG turf. Predictions were for a high temperature of just 18 degrees by the first bounce some four-and-a-half hours later, so players of Crimmins’ ilk knew they would be required to ride the bumps and dodge elbows—and anything else that came their way—at the bottom of congested packs, trying to win the ball and send it forward for their team. The rovers, ruck-rovers and centremen who did that best for either Hawthorn or St Kilda would go a long way to securing their club’s second premiership.

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It’s that time of year again: Grand Final day. The best day on the calendar. A day where dreams are played out, or nightmares lived, where moments big or small come to define a footballer’s legacy. Who can forget Carlton’s Wayne Harmes belting the ball to Ken Sheldon in 1979, or fellow Blue David Rhys-Jones’s blanketing role on Hawthorn champion Dermott Brereton in 1987, or the roaming Paul Dear’s dominant display for the Hawks at Waverley Park in 1991, or Andrew McLeod’s blistering runs for Adelaide in 1997 and again in 1998. All are moments that have lived on well after each participant has retired, and all helped secure Norm Smith Medals for those mentioned.

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For a player who former Hawthorn premiership wingman, Rodney Eade, once dubbed “the freak”, it would be safe to assume that skilful and versatile 106-game forward, James Morrissey (1984-93), played with a swagger to match that of his more well-known teammate, Dermott Brereton. Not so. In fact, the initial sight of the young, brash Brereton almost led to the introverted Morrissey losing confidence that he could ever match it in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

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