Collingwood Forever

Biography

Debut seasons don’t come much more dramatic than the one experienced by young Les Smith in 1952.

Having played only one game during the season, and that from the bench, he was suddenly thrown back into the fray for the last two games of the season – the preliminary final and Grand Final. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.

Those selections capped a meteoric rise for the local lad. A product of the famed Collingwood Tech, he’d actually been playing with the Collingwood team that played in the Sunday Amateur Football League when the Magpies asked him to come down and train with the under-19s in 1951.

This was the first time Collingwood had ever fielded an under-19 team, and the club scoured the local area far and wide for promising kids to take part. And Les turned out to be one of the best of that bunch.

He impressed in the early senior practice matches, winning a couple of mentions in the newspapers of the day. He played only 10 games for the thirds that year, but still walked away with the team’s inaugural best-and-fairest trophy – a major achievement. He also played eight reserves games that year, and it was clear that the Magpies had bigger plans in store for the defender/midfielder.

Les spent most of 1952 playing in the reserves, but won a call-up to the senior side late in the season when regular back pocket George Hams injured his knee at training. The only major attention he drew on debut was for becoming the first Magpie in four years to have worn the supposedly unlucky No.13 in a senior game.

He was back in the seconds the next week, and it was assumed that’s where he would finish the year out. Instead, Collingwood pulled a major surprise by recalling the 18-year-old for the bench in the preliminary final against Fitzroy.

Coach Phonse Kyne kept his faith in Les for the Grand Final the following week against Geelong, naming him on a half-back flank to replace Peter Lucas in what was considered another bold selection move. Kyne said in the lead-up to the game: “Les Smith, our new half-back flanker, has youth, pace and tenacity – all essentials in a Grand Final. He should fit smoothly into our defence.”

And so he did. Leo Turner was his opponent in the game, and although Collingwood lost the match comprehensively, The Argus noted that Turner “was less (than) notable on Smith.”

It all seemed to be going nicely for young Les, who had been a mad Pies supporter all his life. In the seconds he often played in the centre, but at senior level most of his opportunities came as a back pocket or half-back flank. He was fast and strong, and a good runner who competed in the Stawell Gift.

But unfortunately, Les was called up for National Service and it derailed his career. He could manage only seven reserves games in 1953, in between stints at Puckapunyal and elsewhere, and it was the same story in 1954, when he managed only two. Continuity was impossible to find.

There was a little light at the end of the tunnel when he managed two senior games at the end of 1954. Coming after just two games with the seconds, it showed the senior selectors were still keen on him. But despite 14 more seconds games in 1955, he couldn’t find a way back into the senior team. He had simply missed too much football.

The club refused to let him cross to Carlton midway through 1955, and at the end of the year he moved to Camberwell in the VFA. But he gave the game away after just a couple of seasons there, preferring instead to focus on his work with shoe manufacturers Florsheim/Julius Marlow, where he would spend the rest of his working life.

In the end, Les Smith’s footy career amounted to five senior games spread across three seasons. But he did win our inaugural under-19s best-and-fairest, something of which he remained immensely proud. And if National Service hadn’t interrupted his career, then who knows how things might have turned out.

– Michael Roberts