Legend: Champion Tongala footballer Bob Dawson, pictured here on his 90th birthday, has died at the age of 102.
Photo by
Julie Mercer
Just as one of its younger players, Harley Reid, is demanding headlines with his sublime football skills, another of the Tongala Football Club’s greatest players has left us.
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Three-time league best and fairest winner Robert James (Bobby) Dawson passed away earlier this week at the grand old age of 102.
Dawson was also St Kilda Football Club’s oldest living player and also the Goulburn Valley Football League’s oldest living Morrison Medallist.
St Kilda recruited Dawson as a 20-year-old from Elmore in 1941 and he spent one year with the Saints, playing four games.
When he made his debut with St Kilda against Melbourne in round four he had never seen the famous MCG ground or even a photo of it.
A superbly fit, skilful, quick rover-wingman standing 169cm (5ft 7in) and renowned for his blind turn, Dawson began playing senior football in the strong Bendigo League at his home town of Elmore at the age of 16.
The 1925 Brownlow Medallist and St Kilda Hall of Fame member Col Watson, who later farmed at Cooma near Kyabram and is buried in the Kyabram Cemetery, recommended Dawson to the Saints after watching him play a game in the Bendigo League.
After the war Dawson returned to country football where he proceeded to etch his name into country football folklore.
Remembering a great: Tongala champion Bob Dawson (centre) with his sons Peter and Robert.
Photo by
Supplied
In 1946, back with his home club Elmore in the Bendigo Football League, he’d won the Michelsen Medal for the league’s best and fairest award.
Elmore switched to the Echuca District Football League in 1947 and he was runner-up for the league’s best and fairest honour, the Cook Medal.
He went one better in 1948, winning the medal.
Moving to coach Tongala in the Goulburn Valley Football League, he shared Tongala’s best and fairest in its premiership year of 1949 with captain-coach and former Collingwood and Melbourne player Dave Newman, grandfather of Kyabram’s triple premiership coach Paul Newman.
Dawson was the last living member of that Blues side which secured its maiden flag by defeating Kyabram.
In the 1950 season, Dawson won Tongala’s best and fairest award again and also the league’s Morrison Medal.
After his playing days Dawson played a role in a push to establish the GVL thirds competition. He coached Tongala junior teams for almost two decades in the 1950s and 1960s.
He also ran a successful family Friesian dairy farm on the outskirts of Tongala with his late wife Nance and they raised three children Peter, Kaye and Robert.
Dawson was also very active in the local RSL sub-branch.
He lived out his final days at the Rocky McHale Hostel in Tongala and has left a lot of history and memorable moments with his passing.
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