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WHO IS the greatest man to ever play league football?
There are some worthy contenders. Fighter pilot and Melbourne dual-premiership player Keith Bluey Truscott would win some votes. Others may consider another Demon, Jim Stynes, for his work with youth, while politicians like Maurice Rioli,flamenco tops, Don Chipp, Ray Groom or Neil Trezise might have their supporters.
For this writer, and surely many others, the greatest person to play league footy is not in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. He didnt captain his club or win a best and fairest.
At 157cm he was the equal third-shortest league player ever. He had small hands but fast legs. He played 54 games for Fitzroy 1932-37 and kicked two goals. No slouch, he was selected in the 1935 Victorian team.
He was the fourth player in the VFL/AFL to identify as indigenous (some early Aboriginal players might not have wanted to identify due to racism) after Joe Johnson, Norm Byron and Norm le Brun.
The individual in question is Doug Nicholls. If that was the end of his story,tee shirt foot, he would be little more than a footballing footnote.
However, Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls, as he became known, was a lifelong fighter against prejudice,los angeles galaxy store, a tigerish advocate for his people, a man of peace and compassion.
Pastor Doug was born in 1906. In 1927 he arrived in Melbourne and slept in empty fruit boxes at Victoria Market. Within half a century he would be sleeping in the Governors house in Adelaide.
In between times he became a Church of Christ pastor, boxed with Jimmy Sharmans troupe, and starred as a professional sprinter as well as playing league footy. He went on to become one of the first indigenous Justices of the Peace, the first indigenous Father of the Year, and the first indigenous Australian to be knighted.
Nicholls came to Melbourne after being invited by Carlton, but in one of footballs most shameful episodes he was shunned by some or all of the players. They didnt want to train, play or even sit with a black man. They said he smelled.
Carltons loss was the gain of Northcote in the VFA, where he played for five years and participated in a premiership.
When he was recruited by Fitzroy he repaid their faith by finishing third in the 1934 best and fairest behind Brownlow Medallists Haydn Bunton and Chicken Smallhorn.
His daughter Lillian Tamiru still barracks against Carlton with a vengeance, but she doesnt blame all of the Blues adherents. “Years later I was at a Fitzroy game and this elderly Carlton lady came up and sat with me and started crying her eyes out,” Ms Tamiru recalled.
“She said,barca shirt 2011, When I realised who you were, memories came back to me of the racism your Dad went through.
“Oh, I said, I didn’t realise it was so bad. She just cried and said, They wouldn’t even let him into the rooms. Dad never talked about it to me but it took me back to conversations I’d overheard a few times,dortmund shirts, and I thought ah.”
No man with the dignity of Pastor Doug would hold onto that slight forever. When he ran a church in Gore Street, Fitzroy, he would put on an annual Sportsmens Parade. “The church would be packed out into the streets and wed have to have a loud speaker out on the footpath,” Ms Tamiru said.
“Wonderful footballers from Fitzroy but also from Carlton would come along, and I remember Ken Fraser from Essendon doing a reading. Thered be boxers, jockeys, everyone.”
Indeed, it seemed like everyone sought Pastor Doug out from time to time. He met the Pope, he met the Queen, but he also met hundreds of down-and-outers.
In 1941 Pastor Doug was called up for war service and appointed batman to Major Corr. However there were problems in the overcrowded Aboriginal community in Fitzroy and the Victoria Police successfully applied for his release from war service to quell community problems.
For most of the 1950s Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls lived beside the Northcote football ground where he was employed as a curator. More than just his family home, it was also a halfway house for paroled prisoners, a training ground for indigenous activists, a pastoral care facility, an office for the emerging Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, a drop-in centre for indigenous people from around Australia, and a meeting place for sporting greats and showbiz stars.
On any given night you might have bumped into Harry Belafonte rubbing shoulders with an Olympic athlete. In the back room, relatives from the mission at Cummeragunja, where Pastor Doug was born, might be sharing space with a teenage mother just released from Winlaton.
Longer-term visitors to the Westgarth Street house included a host of brilliant boxers like Australian champions Elley Bennett, Dave Sands, Jack Hassen, George Bracken, Ron Richards and Bindi Jack.
Gentle, tragic artist Albert Namatjira moved in for a time. “He was the most darling old man,” Ms Tamiru said. “I dont think hed been off the mission before he came and stayed with us. He was the humblest, humblest of men.”
International visitors to the church or the Nicholls home, or both included Belafonte, Louis Armstrong, the Ink Spots, Winifred Atwell (Pastor Sir Doug took her to the football in the afternoon; she played the church harmonium that night), celebrated baritone William Warfield, and Todd Duncan, the first man to play the stage role of Porgy.
The presence of celebrities didnt distract from the work at hand however: overcoming racism and improving the situation for Aboriginal Australians.
“It wasnt just his work it was his life,” his daughter said. “He was on call 24 hours a day. Westgarth Street was like a call-in place, like a small mission.
“Dad was a short man but an absolute giant. I can do it, so can you, lets go forward. That was always his attitude.”
For 15 years he funded this work through his job as curator at Northcote. To their great credit, the trustees of the Northcote Football Ground didnt raise objections to the procession of visitors to the Nicholls home.
During cricket season he would prepare the pitch then roll it with the assistance of Dolly the horse and a dray. Late at night or in the early morning he would run laps of the ground to keep in shape.
After spectators had left games he would pick up the litter and clean up after everyone. He was into his 50s, and been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, before he left this job.
There can never be unanimity on a question as subjective as greatest ever Australian. However, Pastor Doug stands out in any company. To this writer, his only credible rival is the magnificent Sir Edward Weary Dunlop.
And yet he is not a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
Consider this, from the Hall of Fames criteria: The committee considers candidates on the basis of record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship and character. The number of games played, coached or umpired or years of service is a consideration only and does not determine eligibility.
Ability? Integrity? Sportsmanship? Character?
His record is less glittering than most inductees, although it swells when augmented by his deeds in the VFA and as the first indigenous player for Victoria.
But taken as a package, he surely qualifies. Perhaps one day soon hell take his rightful place among the games greats.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
This article was first published during the AFLs Indigenous Round, highlighting the relationship between the game and Indigenous Australia.
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