Collingwood Forever

Terry Waites’ first season in League football was anything but conventional.

It began with a tug-of-war over his services between two VFL clubs, featured a mid-season debut in a lightning premiership played to mark the Queen’s coronation and ended with a Premiership medal after playing as a key forward in a Grand Final that was just his seventh game of football.

Any way you look at it, that is a hard debut season to top. And unfortunately, that’s the way it turned out, too.

Terry had been a star at Scotch College, playing mainly on a half-forward flank, spending three years in the first 18 and being vice-captain of the team in 1952 when Scotch won the APS premiership. He actually played in two flags that year, having also been a part of the Old Scotch Under-19s. He was also a highly talented cricketer who spent three years in the first X1 (he was invited to train with Hawthorn and Footscray to play District cricket with them in the summer of ’53).

His performances at Scotch were enough to spark a fight for his services. Hawthorn had residential rights over him and invited him to training, but Terry’s dream had always been to play with the Pies. One day he read in the newspaper that Collingwood was about to have its first training run for the 1953 season. So without any grand plan in mind, he simply decided to turn up.

There was a table with a notepad on it, where would-be players had been asked to fill in their name and details. Terry duly filled out his form and sauntered down the race like he was meant to be there. After a bit of running, kick-to-kick and general training, he was hauled to one side and asked to meet secretary Gordon Carlyon. He told the Pies he wanted to play for them. So they made sure they played him in a practice match the next weekend. They also made sure he complied with League rules by turning up to Hawthorn’s training. Then Carlyon and Co got to work.

It was a messy situation, but luckily the Hawks were at the same time trying to get ‘Skeeter’ Coghlan across from Collingwood. Terry then made it clear that he preferred the idea of Victoria Park, and would rather go back and play with Old Scotch in the Amateurs than play with Hawthorn. So the two clubs ended up dealing: Terry made his way to Victoria Park and Skeeter got to Glenferrie Oval.

Terry started with the seconds and quickly made a name for himself. He was “tall and lithe and pacy”, as one newspaper described him, and seemed for all the world like an ideal half-forward flanker. He also had good skills, was a fine kick and with good game awareness. “Waites is lively and clever, and marks soundly, if not spectacularly,” said The Age.

He was chosen to make his debut from the bench against Hawthorn (of course) in Round 5. But he had little impact after he came on for Jack Hickey and was dropped for the next game against Richmond.

Just three days after that, however, on Tuesday June 2, the League had scheduled a Lightning Premiership in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Terry played that day and did so well that he forced himself into the starting 18 for the game against Footscray the following Saturday.

He did well on his full debut in that game. Jack Dyer later wrote: “I liked him the first time I saw him kick a football. In his first game, it was at Footscray, he made a number of mistakes but he quickly rectified them. He is a thinker as well as a footballer. He has pace, marks well and leaves little to be desired.  In his first game he was switched to the centre after Bob Rose had taken a hiding. He immediately succeeded where Rose had failed.”

Terry kept his place for the next three weeks, then returned to the seconds. By the time of the second semi-final against hot favourites Geelong, he hadn’t been seen at senior level for eight weeks. So it was a massive surprise when the Pies named him in the team for the second semi. And even more surprisingly, they named him at centre half-forward.

Percy Beames, writing in The Age, summed up the reaction of most observers to the bold selection move.

“The selection of Waites as centre half-forward will come as a shock to even the most ardent Collingwood supporters,” he wrote. “Until chosen last night, Waites … had not been considered other than as a half-forward flanker or a wingman. I cannot see [him] being a danger against John Hyde, who has no peer as a centre half-forward. With his weight and strength Hyde is likely to brush aside the lighter Waites when manoeuvring

for position. He is a better mark and should take the honors in the air, and has the pace

to challenge Waites in ground play.”

Kevin Hogan in The Sun was similarly surprised. “It is asking a lot of an almost raw recruit to make a success of the key job in a semi-final. He has plenty of pace, however, and will probably keep on the move.

So it’s fair to say that the critics weren’t a big fan of the move.

But they were wrong.

It turns out that the Magpie selectors knew what they were doing. Waites had played a good game against Melbourne on the MCG during the year and they felt his mobility could be an asset again on the big ground during the finals. So they sent him out with instructions to keep moving all day, and to run Hyde off his legs. And that’s exactly what he did.

The mobile Waites took the vastly more experienced Hyde to the cleaners and left him gasping for air. Terry was named among our best players, and the Pies won straight through to the Grand Final.

Two weeks later, the pair met again. The Grand Final was only Terry’s seventh game of senior football, and most observers doubted whether he could repeat the trick on Grand Final day. But selectors and coaches kept faith with the tactics that had worked in the semi-final – and incredibly they worked again. Hyde was once more left confused and exhausted by Terry’s constant movement, and the Pies hung on for a famous Premiership.

In all, Terry must have looked back on 1953 with immense pride. He’d come straight from school, played seven senior games, and played a pivotal role in two huge finals victories. His career looked like it was only heading one way.

But then injuries intervened. Or rather, one big injury. He was playing against Essendon when he was bumped fiercely by Doug Bigelow. His stops caught in the ground as he fell and he dislodged his cartilage completely out of the knee socket.

Terry had an operation but it wasn’t successful, as was so often the case with knee surgeries in those days. Even worse, the knee became infected while he was in hospital. He started training again in 1955 but broke down during pre-season. He managed to play a few seconds games, but broke down again. The Magpies retained hopes that he might recover and named him on the list for 1956, but again he could only manage a few games. Richmond were interested in him mid-season but he didn’t pass their medical.

And that was that. That knee injury restricted Terry Waites’ VFL career to only 12 games, with one goal, and he did not play after 1954. Instead he spent his life in the car industry, firstly with Holden and Ford and then operating a successful Mitsubishi car dealership. But as frustrating as that cruel twist of fate must have been for him, at least he could always take comfort from knowing he’d played a key role in one of the Magpies’ most underrated Premierships.

– Michael Roberts