This article appeared in SEN Inside Football's December Issue. Subscribe today!
Imagine the reaction in today’s football if the AFL ruled that a newly discovered Richmond star player could not play in the finals.
Kevin Bartlett would be shouting from the rooftops, and the yellow-and-black army would scream blue murder.
In 1920, as Richmond was chasing its first premiership, the League controversially ruled that centreman George Ogilvie, who had burst on to the scene late in the season, was ineligible to play. He subsequently missed a place in Richmond’s first premiership side.
Ogilvie was no run-of-the-mill player. The Bendigo-born footballer made a sensational debut in the last round, attracting glowing praise from the normally conservative football writer Jack Worrall.
The famous old coach wrote in the Australasian: “Ogilvie played magnificently in the centre. In fact he made the best first appearance in metropolitan company that I have ever seen. He is of good physique, has fine resolution and can mark and kick.”
Ogilvie was then named among the best players in the first final. But that would be the full-stop to his League career after just two matches.
I doubt that any two gamer in the history of the competition has ever been involved in the same level of controversy as Ogilvie.
And certainly no other two gamer has received such wide acclaim as a likely champion of the sport.
His was the classic case of what might have been more often ascribed to players who died young — and there were many such cases in Ogilvie’s time as men died on the battlefields of World War I.
Students of cricket history will point to the tragic case of Norm Callaway, a 19-year-old New South Wales batsman who made a record 207 on debut in his sole Sheffield Shield game in 1915, but was killed two years later in France.
George Ogilvie’s sporting career was not ended by an enemy bullet, but by the VFL administration.
The decision did have its origins in the Great War, as the VFL had ruled that if a man had served for three years he could play for any club he wished upon his return to Australia and not be subject to the normal rules that tied players to the club to which they were zoned.
Richmond captain-coach Dan Minogue had played alongside Ogilvie in wartime matches in Europe and, realising the value he could give the Tigers, urged him down from Echuca in 1920.
Fifteen months after returning from the war, in registering for Richmond, Ogilvie stated that he had been on active service for the required time of three years, but it turned out he had been away for only two years and nine months.
That three-month shortfall was enough to make him ineligible to play for the club of his choice. The issue had been raised to the VFL in a letter from Carlton, which drew the attention of the VFL to the fact that Ogilvie was ineligible to play for Richmond and was residentially bound to Essendon as he lived in Yarraville.
Ogilvie’s enlistment papers showed his address as Yarraville. It resulted in an “exhaustive” inquiry at a long sitting of the VFL’s permit and umpire committee. In his evidence Ogilvie stated that he had been on active service for “about three years” but could not give the exact time. Obviously the vague reply didn’t go down well and the committee decided it would instruct Richmond not to play Ogilvie in future matches.
Ogilvie’s grandson, Martin Harrison, says that it is part of family folklore that when Ogilvie walked out of the hearing, one committee member said, “You are a liar, Ogilvie.” Ogilvie promptly flattened him.
He was clearly the wrong man to insult as he had won a boxing tournament on the troopship travelling home to Australia. He and a mate would regularly take to the boxing tents when a troupe of boxers came to town.
The timing of the Carlton complaint was intriguing. It came just days after the semi final in which Carlton had surprisingly knocked off the favourite and top side Richmond in what turned out to be Ogilvie’s last game.
Under the finals system of the time, that meant Carlton would play the winner of the other semi final, Collingwood, with Richmond having the right of challenge (or double chance as we know it today).
After the semi final win over the Tigers, Carlton could justifiably be seen as premiership favourite, and being able to rule out Ogilvie was a definite bonus.
This must have incensed Richmond and it was probably the earliest example of the long-running enmity between the clubs that lasted for decades.
When the Ogilvie story hit the newspapers they also reported that the VFL was likely to inquire into the eligibility of a Carlton player who had arrived from NSW but never been cleared by that state’s controlling body.
There was no mention of who raised that question, but it is reasonable to see it as a retaliatory salvo from Richmond. The issue seems to have fizzled out anyway.
How good was Ogilvie as a footballer?
He was said to be a prodigious place kick and perfect drop kick.
John Forbes, a well-known figure in football as the former head of Puma’s marketing, grew up in nearby Mitiamo and says that his father reckoned Ogilvie was the best footballer ever to come out of Echuca. That is high praise as Echuca has produced a long line of quality players headed by the legendary Jack Mueller, of Melbourne fame.
Jack Bisset played alongside Ogilvie in the VFA before Bisset captain-coached South to its famous 1933 premiership.
A great judge of a footballer, Bisset said in an early 1930s speech: “George Ogilvie, who played with Ports around 1920, is the greatest player ever seen. Bunton is one of the best, but he is below the standard of Ogilvie.”
The decision of 1920 left Ogilvie in limbo as he was ordered to stand down indefinitely.
Repeated appeals failed and he decided to flout the league by joining VFA club Footscray as there were no clearance agreements between the two constantly warring competitions.
He incurred a further suspension by the League, but it mattered little as he was already ruled out indefinitely.
The Ogilvie story has been superbly researched by Michael Riley on the website www.boylesfootballphotos.net.au.
After a year at Footscray, Ogilvie crossed to Port Melbourne. There he was involved in another huge controversy when he was one of four Port players offered a bribe to play dead in the 1922 grand final.
A Footscray person had made him an offer in the lead-up to the game that consisted of wages and expenses to return to Footscray in 1923. Then he was offered 20 pounds on the field during the game to stop playing. He ignored it and Port won the game by two points.
By this stage Ogilvie had qualified as an accountant and was working in Bendigo, but would travel down each weekend to play for Port.
He started an accounting business in Echuca, but the strain of travel took its toll and late in 1924 he told Port he could not continue. The club cajoled him into playing against Footscray in late games that were crucial to winning a finals berth.
Against Williamstown he struck the opposition centreman and hostile Williamstown fans gathered outside the rooms. The Argus reported: “Hundreds of people waited until Ogilvie dressed and made his way to the station, but nothing untoward happened.”
Even Ogilvie’s return to Echuca was no simple matter as the competition was aligned with the VFL. Still suspended, he was forced to sit out for three years until the VFL finally relented and lifted its ban to let him play for Echuca.
He was a major force in getting Echuca into a grand final, but had to sit the game out as he was suspended for six weeks on a striking charge. Despite his appeal to the tribunal containing a witness statement from a clergyman, Ogilvie could not get the case re-heard.
He captain-coached Yarraville in 1929, but eventually found his way back to Echuca. Sadly the club was in a poor state partly due to the effects of the Depression and it was dissolved in 1934.
Ogilvie then took up a coaching post with arch rival Rochester. In 1935, still a formidable player at the age of 36, he was part of a Bendigo League team that played against a visiting VFL side. He signed up for a second stint of military service. He actually enlisted twice, the second time understating his age by three years because he was so keen to serve. A cynic could say that for an accountant he was remarkably loose with figures in regard to dates!
Martin Harrison was only six when George Ogilvie died, but remembers him clearly and once asked him about where he got a tattoo of a bird on his forearm.
“Pop said he got it when he was overseas and went to sleep then woke up to find the tattoo on his arm. I reckon they had probably been out on the grog.”
A sporting natural, Ogilvie had been a good cricketer in his youth.
Playing for a combined Bendigo team against the touring Englishmen in 1929 he bowled the great Herbert Sutcliffe and when opening the batting was out cheaply to the great fast bowler Harold Larwood.
His grandson says he has been told that when Ogilvie was asked about the confrontation with Larwood he said: “I didn’t have any trouble with Larwood — I didn’t see the first ball and the second ball clean bowled me!”
A fine lawn bowler in old age, he was a leading figure in the Echuca community and even served as Mayor.
When he died in 1957 it was said to be the biggest funeral ever seen in Echuca.
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