Danihers: The Story of Football's Favourite Family

After a combined 752 VFL/AFL games, the Danihers continue to be involved in football. Since his playing and coaching days finished, Terry has excelled as a country football ambassador for the AFL. At the start of 2009, Neale took up the position of football operations manager for the West Coast Eagles, having coached the Melbourne Football Club for ten years. Anthony’s professional life is the management of Daniher Property Services, and he keeps a keen eye on his son, Darcy, who was drafted to the Bombers in 2007 under the father-son rule. Following in his father’s footsteps, Chris is farming and keeping Ungarie Football Club alive.

Writer Adam McNicol grew up on a wheat and sheep farm outside Manangatang in north-west Victoria’s Mallee region. He didn’t cut it playing footy so he took to writing about it instead. He reports on bush footy for The Age and works as a TV sports reporter with Channel 10. He lives in Ballarat.

the

DANIHERS

the

DANIHERS

TERRY, NEALE, ANTHONY AND CHRIS DANIHER

as told to Adam McNicol

This edition published in 2010

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2009

Copyright © Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher and Adam McNicol 2009

Photographs by Adam McNicol.

Photographs of the picture section are from the Danihers’ private collection.

All other photography of images used in the endpapers and picture section is by Greg Elms,

taken from Edna Daniher’s scrapbooks of her four sons’ football careers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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ISBN: 978 1 74237 324 9

Jacket design by Phil Campbell

Text and picture section design and typesetting by Pauline Haas

Jacket photograph (back) by Monty Coles

Jacket photograph (front) courtesy of Newspix

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FOR MUM AND DAD

WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO ALL WE’VE DONE

WITHOUT YOUR LOVE, SUPPORT AND PATIENCE.

WITH THANKS FROM YOUR BOYS

‘TO SUM UP THE DANIHERS.

FOUR INGREDIENTS. SPIRIT, FANTASTIC. PASSION,

UNBELIEVABLE. LOYALTY AND TRUST, IMPECCABLE.’

KEVIN SHEEDY

CONTENTS

Introduction: The road to Ungarie

1 Daniher country

2 The pride of the district

3 You play anything when you’re young

4 Something a bit special

5 A young bloke coming through

6 A kid named Terry Daniher

7 Fair dinkum about footy

8 A born leader

9 Knockin’ around with blokes

10 Making life a bit more interesting

11 Just another Daniher

12 The Iceman

13 The best player in the club

14 All the glitz and glamour

15 This time it’s different

16 Fingers crossed

17 Loyalty

18 Following in your brothers’ footsteps

19 Hard, tough and talented

20 Pitching in and having a go

21 Doing the old home town proud

22 In footy you just get on with it

23 Grin and cop it

24 You’re the bloody coach, mate!

25 A fork in the road

26 Footy 101

27 Family ties

28 A bit of the old, a bit of the new

29 Sermons laced with hope and energy

30 Footy sucks sometimes

31 The new generation

Football career statistics

Author’s note

Acknowledgements

Jim Daniher

INTRODUCTION

THE ROAD TO UNGARIE

OUR HIRE CAR’S headlights briefly illuminate a sign by the roadside. From the top it reads Ungarie 42, Condobolin 105, Lake Cargelligo 115. A smile creeps across Neale Daniher’s face. ‘When we see the name Ungarie we know we’re almost home.’ The outskirts of West Wyalong disappear as the last rays of sunshine fade. It is May 2008. We are in southern New South Wales, 550 kilometres from Sydney and around 600 from Melbourne.

More than six hours earlier, I collected Neale and his teenage son Ben from the family’s large home in Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs. We drove north, passing through Shepparton and the Murray River town of Tocumwal. Discussions flowed, mostly about footy. It was a Monday morning and Neale expressed his relief at not dreading the day, like he had after a loss when coaching Melbourne. Instead, he could watch the season unfold without the stress of having his job continually on the line. He could simply enjoy the game again. Neale had even joined the media. Before we set off he appeared on Neil Mitchell’s popular radio program on 3AW, discussing the weekend’s results. As it happened, the Demons were the story of the day. Less than 24 hours before, they had staged a remarkable comeback from 51 points down to beat Fremantle at the MCG. Ben was delighted with the result. Despite his dad parting ways with the club, he still loves the Dees.

Over the river, we headed into the wide open expanses of the Riverina. Past Finley, home town of Brownlow Medallist and Hawthorn star Shane Crawford. Once a bustling rural centre, Finley has been gutted by drought, the water shortage drying up the region’s rice growing industry. We travelled on to Jerilderie, famous for having its bank held up by Ned Kelly and his gang in 1879. More recently it was the birthplace of Bill Brownless, formerly a Geelong forward, now a professional man of the people. The rumble of giant trucks was constant as we continued north along the Newell Highway to Narrandera, population 6800. ‘We used to always think of this as the real big smoke,’ Neale remarked as we headed along the main street. Still we drove. Past the Barassi Line, a mythical marker, stretching from south-east New South Wales to the eastern edge of the Northern Territory. The Barassi Line was dreamt up by professor Ian Turner in 1978 to describe the separation of traditional Aussie Rules territory from that dominated by Rugby League.

We continued beyond Ardlethan, where the local footy team once wore an iconic red and yellow jumper with a big star on the front and were called the Stars. The club has since fallen victim to rural population shifts and is now part of a conglomerate mystifyingly known as the Northern Jets. Its guernsey is the same horrid article worn by Port Adelaide in the AFL. A few minutes down the road we flashed past Mirrool, famous for being the place where Brownless kicked a football over a grain silo. And so we arrive at West Wyalong and begin the final stretch.

Neale steers the car around sweeping bends, past pine trees standing so straight they seem made by machine. We reach Girral, a hamlet that once boasted a pub and a footy club. Now it has a couple of grain silos and a tiny collection of weather-beaten houses. Neale, unlike his brothers, never dreamt of being a farmer yet he shifts excitedly in his seat as we turn right and accelerate away from the ghost town. ‘From here on is Daniher country,’ he says enthusiastically, pointing to the dusty farmland barely visible under the night sky. Sitting in the back seat, Ben offers an opposite reaction. Earphones in, he stares intently at the screen of his laptop. He likes visiting the country but it is not his place.

This trip is the beginning of a new journey for Neale. It will be a journey of reflection and, he hopes, discovery. With his father, Jim, about to turn 80, he has decided it is time for the Daniher story to be recorded. The tale will focus on Neale and his brothers, Terry, Anthony and Chris, and their remarkable achievements. The time is right to consider the tremendous opportunities bequeathed by their parents’ hard work. Throughout their lives the boys have been doers. Now, more than a decade since Chris, the youngest, retired from the AFL, it is time to take a breath and ponder the mountains they climbed to play football at the highest level. They also hope to shed light on what they know is a deep family history, but it is this aspect Neale approaches with some trepidation. He knows Jim holds the key, however he says their father–son relationship has not involved much in the way of discussion. ‘I’m not sure what we’ll get out of Dad,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t usually like talking about himself or his boys, doesn’t want to be a bighead.’

Soon the car slows again and pulls into Danihers Lane. Tall eucalypts line the road. Every tree, every fencepost, holds a childhood memory. ‘We used to do fartlek training here,’ Neale recalls while pointing towards a huge gum tree. ‘That was one of our stopping points.’ A speck of moisture hits the windscreen. Neale winds down the window and thrusts his face into the air. His smile widens. ‘It smells like rain.’ As he drives along the roughly graded red dirt, he is no longer the one-time Boy Wonder who could have been among Essendon’s greatest players. He is not The Reverend, who preached the virtues of the Melbourne Football Club to the masses and almost delivered the Demons a long-awaited flag. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he is simply a bloke from the bush again. And although it is more than three decades since he has lived here, when he pulls up outside the modest farmhouse where he grew up, Neale Daniher is most definitely home. ‘It’s going to be a great few days,’ he says, walking towards the front door.

There is a feeling of warmth, of strong family ties, as Edna, matriarch of the Daniher clan, greets us at the door. She is tiny in every way, her voice soft, almost a whisper. She smiles broadly, embracing Neale and Ben, before piling home-grown roast lamb, pumpkin, potato and gravy onto dinner plates. Feeding a sitting of five is a cinch for a woman who raised 11 children. It is almost 7 pm. Jim sits at the head of the table, keen to start dinner. He is a big man, with broad shoulders, slightly hunched by old age. A full head of white hair is parted solidly and swept to one side. Gnarled hands, resembling often-pruned trees, rest on the tablecloth. They are the souvenirs of a tough life. But in his old age, Jim has a face that radiates a certain friendliness belying his hard-man reputation. ‘Good to see you fellas,’ he says with his booming voice that knows only one volume. The lamb and vegies are wolfed down. Smiles all round. Edna quietly checks if everyone has enough food and something to drink. Predictably, conversation starts with mention of the weather. ‘Oh, she’s dry alright, she’s bloody dry,’ says Jim. He will keep taking an active role on the farm until he can no longer climb out of his chair. Chris now runs the show, having returned to the bush after finishing up at Essendon. A dry start to the growing season has held back the already planted wheat, barley and canola. Jim offers a critique on Chris’s approach to farming. ‘He’s got a bit of bloody crop over here and a bit over there. He loves bloody driving around. We’ve gone past one paddock four times.’

Jim grins as he talks, his face wrinkling with lines, like Paul Hogan’s once did. It seems he loves an audience. Slowly conversation turns to football, to the recent debut of Anthony’s son Darcy for Essendon. Then the book is mentioned. And with little prompting, Jim begins passing on his oral history of the Danihers. He talks freely about himself, about playing ‘Rules’, as the native game is known in New South Wales. About suiting up again on Sundays for Rugby League matches. About the journey of his boys from the outback to the big city. Soon Neale is asking questions. He is being introduced to a new side of his father. Ben listens quietly. Jim will barely take a breath until we head back to Melbourne three days later.

The following day we take Jim for a drive. Remarkably, there is no sign on the outskirts of Ungarie proclaiming the town as ‘the home of the Danihers’ and Jim likes it that way. First stop is the footy ground, where Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris began their careers and where Jim ran around for almost three decades. A wide open expanse, it is ringed by a gravel trotting track. The oval is dry, with small patches of green. The tiny brick change rooms are basic to say the least. Battling to find enough players, the once-mighty Magpies are fighting for survival, their struggle matching that of the local community.

Ungarie is a dying town. We drive along Wollongough Street, its broad thoroughfare lined by disused shops. Just a few cars and the odd ute park under the tall gum trees that cast shade along the middle of the road. The place feels empty. Paint peels from the façade of a store once owned by FR Hayes, a legendary local businessman. At one stage he pretty much ran the town and owned half of it. He opened an ever-popular billiard room that Jim says ‘was the hub of the place’. Written on one shopfront nearby are the words ‘Rick and Sue’s WelcomeMart’. Below the fading letters, the entrance is boarded up. Many locals now purchase their groceries in West Wyalong, while others travel the more than 400-kilometre round trip to shop at the big supermarkets in Wagga Wagga. Some journey north to Condobolin, the outpost that produced Australian Idol runnerup Shannon Noll.

We drive slowly past the Town and Country Tavern, painted a deep maroon. Known as the bottom pub, it is a testament to understated 20th century architecture. A large XXXX sign remains atop the small verandah. First licensed in 1935, it closed for the last time in 2006. Colin Baker’s much loved pies and pasties (yes, the baker was a Baker) are also long gone. For Ungarie’s centenary celebrations in 1972, Col handled an order for 14 000 hamburger buns. Eight years later his bread oven, first fired up in 1928, began gathering dust.

A few businesses hang on, despite the prolonged drought which threatens to wipe the entire community from the map. A chalkboard outside the Ungarie Butchery advertises minced beef for $8 per kilo. The Majestic Café stands between two empty buildings and the proprietor still dishes up fish and chips and hamburgers, although the flow of customers is just a trickle. Jim tells us about the times when people would queue at the counter for milkshakes and lollies during intermission at Lampard’s picture theatre. The theatre now stands empty. Back then, floods were the norm. Every couple of years the Humbug Creek would inundate the town. Now the meandering watercourse rarely breaks its banks. Only the Rural Transaction Centre, a one-size-fits-all bank branch, post office and Internet facility, looks alive and modern.

Further up the street, the two-storey Central Hotel watches solemnly over yet another example of Australia’s rural decline. Still called the Top Pub even though it’s now the only watering hole, it is a substantial red brick building erected in the 1950s when times were good and people plentiful. It has four different Tooheys beers on tap, a dining room and rarely used guest accommodation upstairs. Hardy wheat and sheep farmers and the few other workers left in town gather in the bar to solve the world’s problems over middies of New or Old. The publican tries to look on the bright side but admits leasing the Central has not proven to be the smartest of investment ideas. On Wednesday nights a few local footballers might wander in but most weeks only four or five blokes turn up to training.

Ungarie, a place whose history has become indelibly linked with that of Australian football itself, is fading away. Soon it might be just a dusty collection of houses like Girral. From a peak population of 800 it now has just 380 residents. The surrounding district has suffered an even more startling exodus. Out on the land, a whole family was once settled on each 740 acre block. Then, working men were employed to help sow and harvest the crops. Now the average farm is more than ten times the original size. Technology, in the guise of enormous tractors, means a farmer can manage such a vast tract of land on his own.

Jim seems sad at the state of Ungarie, the place where he has lived his entire life. We visit the Catholic primary school, where his sons began their education. Although the weatherboard building is no longer used it sparks many memories. Walking through the overgrown playground, where a couple of goalposts and a concrete cricket pitch can be found, Ben shakes his head. It is like being on another planet, compared to his experiences at the prestigious Xavier College in Melbourne. In just one generation, family circumstances can change enormously.

We leave Ungarie and drive for half an hour to the old sandy ground at Four Corners, where a club existed without a town. Then we travel along bumpy gravel roads to Burgooney, a long-forgotten outpost of Northern Riverina footy. Neale drives, while Jim talks constantly in the front seat, his sentences littered with classic bush humour.

He speaks of his father, Jim senior, and tells us he was a renowned storyteller. He knows the ownership history of every block of land. We are treated to an example of how tough the footy was in Jim’s era. ‘When a fight started in those days the game would stop,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘They would form a ring around them and let them fight. Then, when she was over, they’d start the footy off again!’

Finally we visit Tullibigeal, Ungarie’s arch-rival on the footy field. Neale played in his only senior premiership there in 1978. He and Ben take out their Sherrin and re-enact some of the game. Later Jim tells them of the politics involved with Neale’s selection in the team, because he had been away at boarding school for much of the year. Three generations of Danihers share their history.

When we arrive back at the farm, Edna has laid out some ingredients to make salad sandwiches. She senses it has been a successful and enjoyable morning. Neale continues to ask questions and Jim delights in responding. Edna occasionally chips in, offering some of her countless life experiences. It’s like this for the duration of our stay.

Later in the week, when we begin the long trip back to Melbourne, Neale says, ‘I didn’t know so much of that stuff. Maybe the old man has got to 80 and decided it’s no good taking all those stories to the grave.’ Maybe he just needed to know someone would listen. Either way, so begins the Daniher story.

CHAPTER ONE

DANIHER COUNTRY

ON THE FIRST day of September in 1990, four boys from the bush cemented their place in Australian football folklore. On that early spring afternoon, Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher made history by all playing for Essendon in its 6-goal win over St Kilda. Modest blokes, the Danihers never dreamed they would achieve such a feat. After all, in the 93-year history of the VFL and AFL, never before had a quartet of brothers run out in the same team. As the boys sat in the change rooms, ice-packs on their sore limbs, their knockabout demeanour suggested they might have just played for Ungarie at an oval ringed by cars rather than screaming fans. In their country drawl, they said the occasion had been ‘t’riffic’ and a ‘bloody good show’. They had capped a remarkable journey, one that began in Ungarie, their tiny home town, surrounded by Rugby League territory, amid the dusty plains of western New South Wales. But the Danihers were a football family long before Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris became household names.

In the early part of the 20th century, when the VFL was not two decades old and contained a team called University, a farmer by the name of Jim Daniher dominated matches held in muddy paddocks in north-east Victoria. It was his grandchildren who would bring the family fame.

Jim was a first-generation Australian, and his Catholic faith and Irish ancestry were key parts of his identity. Through stories told by relatives and friends, he knew his father, John Daniher, had been part of an extraordinary exodus. John was just a child when his parents decided to leave their home county of Tipperary. It was the 1860s and the Emerald Isle was a decimated place. The Great Famine, which began 20 years prior, had resulted in the deaths of more than a million people. At least that number fled the country, most to England, the United States and Australia. Before the famine, Ireland’s population had been greater than eight million. Today, despite recent boom times, the total population (counting both the Republic and Northern Ireland) is still only 6.2 million.

Oral history passed down through the generations suggests John Daniher’s father initially worked on the docks in Melbourne before the family acquired a block of farming land near Kyneton. A subsequent dispute over its ownership led to a move north-east, to the tiny community of Miepoll outside Euroa. From there the Daniher history becomes more definite and takes a rather unlikely early turn.

In 1887, John Daniher married Miss Ellen Danaher, herself from a local Irish clan, at St John’s Catholic Church in Euroa. That Ellen’s new surname sounded just like her maiden name certainly turned a few heads. Three years later, she and John welcomed Catherine (known as Kate), the first of their three children. On 22 January 1890, Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris’s grandfather, Jim, was born. But just as the family prepared for its third addition, John was tragically killed after being thrown from his buggy during a trip back to Miepoll from Euroa. He died at the scene, having broken his neck. Only a few days later John junior (usually referred to as Jack) was born.

Losing the head of the household placed enormous pressure on Ellen. Yet, like so many pioneering women, she possessed an unbreakable will to succeed. With the help of her community she raised the three kids and ensured they would have a positive future. Despite the later departure of her sons, and of Kate when she married farmer Patrick O’Connel, Ellen lived out her days on the property at Miepoll. She died aged 70 in 1948, and left the land to her brother Michael Danaher.

Jim first brought the Daniher name notoriety on the footy field when just a teenager. Tall and wiry, he received at least one best and fairest award while playing with the Longwood Football Club. With no reserves or juniors in those days, it was a case of taking to the field against grown men or not at all. Jim later repeated his success at nearby Euroa, where he won a premiership in 1913.

Around this time, the New South Wales government began opening up large tracts of the Riverina, to be allocated under the Closer Settlement Scheme. Since white settlement, the area had been divided into enormous sheep and cattle properties. Their leases, including that of the 15 000 acre Ungarie Station, were taken back by the government and the land subdivided. Opportunities to settle on the newly surveyed blocks were advertised all over Australia. Inspired by the idea of relocating to the wide open plains, both Jim and Jack entered the ballot for a piece of red Riverina soil. Although some were set aside for servicemen lucky enough to return from the horrors of Gallipoli and the Great War, they were both awarded 740 acre allotments. Neither of them had laid eyes on the place.

Late in 1914 the brothers finally decided to take a look at their new assets. Due to a lack of finances, they took the extraordinary step of making the 485 kilometre journey on bicycles. Pedalling their way up and down hills, over barely made dirt tracks, they took a few weeks to complete the trip. Impressed by what he saw, Jim immediately made plans for a permanent move north. But maybe due to the arduous bike ride, Jack decided it was not the place for him, handing control of his block to Jim and returning to Victoria, where he later joined the police force.

During 1915, Jim settled on the property at Ungarie, which he named ‘Hillview’ in honour of the farm at Euroa which he had left behind. Judging by stories contained in local history books, he would have lived in a rudimentary tent on his own for at least a year while the task of clearing the land began. In between felling the large eucalypt, pine and currajong trees, he constructed the first fences, necessary to prevent his horse from escaping. Given the need to cart water out to the block from the Humbug Creek, 8 kilometres away, the horse was Jim’s most valuable asset.

Along with an enormous workload and the lack of basic provisions — without running water there were no luxuries like showers or plumbed toilets — isolation and loneliness were major problems. As a consequence, the settlers were quick to establish sporting clubs in Ungarie to provide a vital social outlet. Although the tiny town was in Rugby League territory, the great number of expatriate Victorians meant an Australian Rules club was among the first to be established. Jim Daniher played a major role in its formation. According to an obituary published in the West Wyalong Advocate upon his death in 1959, Jim ‘occupied various positions in the club for many years, including that of patron’. He ensured Ungarie adopted black and white for its guernsey after he had worn these colours at Euroa. Pictured in an early team photo in which players are wearing a mixture of horizontal and vertical stripes, Jim was a tall man for his time, his broad shoulders and arms bulked up by days spent bringing down trees with an axe. Legendary for being a great storyteller, he was very popular among the players and would often entertain large numbers of men at the local pub with tales of his many experiences.

Football matches were roughly organised affairs, with teams made up of whoever felt like having a run. Some away games were held close by at now forgotten places like Girral and Calleen. On other occasions the team would travel up to 80 kilometres by horse and cart to take on men from settlements like Lake Cargelligo, while racial tensions were stirred when contests were staged against an Aboriginal side from the Murrumbidgee Reservation. Predictably, Jim Daniher was among Ungarie’s best players in its formative years. He helped them win a premiership in 1923 and the medal he received remains a treasured possession at the family farm. Surviving records from the time note that club membership was five shillings for men and two shillings and sixpence for ladies. Visiting team members and followers paid one shilling at the gate.

Having spent seven years setting up the farm on his own, Jim returned to Euroa after the 1923 footy season to marry Eileen Cullen. The service was held at St John’s Catholic Church where his parents had married. Once the celebrations had wound up, the couple returned to Ungarie and began their life together at Hillview. They had six children in the next nine years. John (once again nicknamed Jack) was born in 1925, followed by Mary in 1927. A year later, the father of Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris arrived. Named after his father, Jim junior would become a local sporting legend in his own right, as would Leo, born in 1930. The fifth born, Joan, tragically died at three months of age. Terese rounded out the family when she entered the world in 1934.

Despite their new family commitments, the Daniher family continued to strongly support their community. Jim senior’s passion for Aussie Rules saw him play the game well into his forties, on one occasion even running out alongside his oldest son. He also embraced the rival code, serving as president of the Ungarie Rugby League Club. In later life he was a keen lawn bowler. Away from sport, he was a director of the Condobolin Pastures Protection Board for 18 years and a member of the Ungarie Hospital board of directors. Eileen also was active within many groups, among them the Country Women’s Association, the Agricultural Society, and the Patriotic Committee. She was, according to an article in the West Wyalong Advocate, ‘willing to assist every worthy and charitable organisation’.

A devout Catholic, Jim took an active role in building the first church at Ungarie, spending many hours carting timber to the site. When the church was firmly established in the district, he became a close confidant of the local priest. Jim and Eileen later played an active role in welcoming the Sisters of St Joseph when they were invited to set up a convent in the town. The Danihers subsequently helped build a primary school, to be run by the sisters. They did all this while surviving droughts, floods, mouse plagues and dust storms, not to mention trying to make the farm profitable.

Eileen died suddenly on Mother’s Day in 1950, aged just 55. ‘One of the best known and most highly esteemed ladies in the Northern Riverina,’ according to the obituary in the West Wyalong Advocate, her funeral was among the largest in Ungarie’s short history. The article written about her life also provides a glimpse of prevailing attitudes at the time. ‘Despite home ties, Mrs Daniher displayed very commendable interest in public affairs,’ it read. Unfortunately she did not live to see any of her children marry.

Nine years later Jim died, aged 69. A huge number of people attended his funeral, held in the church he helped build. Demonstrating the political leanings of the bush at the time and its broad Catholic support, wreaths were sent by the Temora Electorate Council of the Australian Labor Party and the Ungarie branch of the ALP. Of course, among many others was a floral tribute from the Ungarie Australian Rules Football Club. Jim had claimed the town for the native game. On the field his boys were already bringing local kudos to the Daniher name. And given the players that would emerge in the ensuing decades, the code has plenty to thank him for.

Jim, Jack and Leo

CHAPTER TWO

THE PRIDE OF THE DISTRICT

THE SONS OF Jim Daniher senior were a fearsome trio on the football field. Jack, Jim junior and Leo wore Ungarie’s unique black and white horizontal stripes from their early teens until they could barely walk. The boys began their love affair with the game at home on the farm where their father ensured they always had a ball to kick around the paddocks. It was never the finest piece of sporting equipment; mostly it was a leather casing stuffed with barley grass. ‘Well, he never grew a crop so he didn’t have any straw,’ jokes Jim, reminiscing about the time. At school the young lads preached the values of the Victorian game to fellow students more inclined to throwing passes. However, by growing up on the footy frontier where Rules and League met head-on, they had no option but to become proficient at both codes.

All the boys attended the Eugalong Primary School, a tiny building located close to Hillview. Later they attended Ungarie Central for a time, although Jack and Jim went on to further their education at the Forbes Catholic College. By the time football could resume in the Northern Riverina following World War II, all three brothers had finished school and returned to the family farm, although Jack would later move into town and pursue a new career as a shearer.

In 1946, when Ungarie’s team took the field for the first time in five years, the Danihers immediately established themselves as key players. In particular, Jim became the one to watch. The tallest of the trio, he was skilful, could play in any position and was renowned for his toughness. Having suffered a broken arm one season he asked the league if he could play with a cast on. When the response was no, he insisted on getting the plaster taken off each weekend so he could play. He ran around for the afternoon with the broken bone shielded by a few bandages. Upon finishing the game Jim would get the doctor to set him a new cast.

The club secretary of the time was captivated by the uniform worn by Ganmain players at a knock-out carnival. ‘They had the white shorts and a red jumper with a white V,’ Jim remembers. ‘They had all the same guernseys and all the other teams had stray guernseys.’ Desperate to smarten up his team’s on-field appearance, the secretary decided Ungarie should ditch its black and white colours. He ordered two new sets of red and white jumpers. ‘But he got it wrong,’ Jim continues. ‘Instead of being red and a white V they were white with a red V. The bloody red V ran into the jumpers. They used to call us the galahs!’ Given Jim’s appetite for a contest, few of his opponents dared rib him on field about Ungarie’s pink jumpers.

With the Danihers making their presence felt, Ungarie was competitive but couldn’t stop arch-rivals Tullibigeal, a fellow bunch of farmers and labourers from 40 kilometres north, winning three successive flags. In 1949, West Wyalong entered the Northern Riverina League and brought with it the Griff Evans Cup, to be awarded to the competition’s best-and-fairest player each season. Now an established local footy star, Jim won the cup in its first year and the Daniher name has since been engraved on a further nine occasions. Leo took it home in 1951.

Once again wearing black and white stripes, Ungarie finally broke its 15-year premiership drought in 1950. It was the first of many flags for the Daniher brothers. ‘We had a big fella playing full-forward, Norman Stidwell,’ Jim says. ‘He was like a draughthorse and he could not turn. Anyhow, we were neck and neck and it rained at three-quarter time, poured. We were into the last quarter, about half way through it. The ball came up and Norm came out to the flank, grabbed the ball. He was a strong, big bugger. He ran over about two fellas and he was going cross-ways across the field. He threw the ball on his boot and it went straight up and through the goals. That was the turning point of the game. Never forgot that.’

Celebrations involved warm beer (fridges were an unaffordable luxury) and a dance at the local hall. The Danihers were all among the most influential players.

Footy in the Northern Riverina was still rough and ready. Teams rarely trained. Given they all did plenty of manual labour, and the game was played at walking pace compared with today, fitness was not really an issue. Occasionally the boys would get together on a Wednesday evening and let fly with a few drop kicks. Ungarie players travelled to away games along potholed roads, standing up in the back of a truck. The starting time of the matches would vary according to the standard of each side’s transport. One week Ungarie’s truck broke down and it was 4 pm before the team arrived at its destination. A game consisting of 10-minute quarters was played, finishing in near-darkness. In later years the Ungarie boys enjoyed the relative luxury of a school bus, in which they all had a seat for the journey.

Playing fields were often marked out in a paddock. In wet years the Ungarie ground would become waterlogged and unplayable so the men would simply find a piece of higher ground in a paddock close by and mark out an oval there. Jim reckons Ungarie held matches in every paddock that adjoined the town. Away games were played on all sorts of surfaces. The patch of dirt used by the Four Corners Football Club was one of the finest examples. Flying High, a publication released for Four Corners’ fiftieth anniversary in 1987, gives an insight into its history:

Much time was spent by local men at organised working bees to prepare an oval. First they cleared the timber, which sometimes had to be cut off below ground level. This was very hard work as the dirt had to be removed from around stumps with a pick and shovel. All the fallen timber was stacked and burnt after the completion of the clearing. Then the whole area was harrowed to loosen and even out the ground. A single furrow plough, drawn by a draughthorse, marked the line of the boundary.

The playing area’s initial circumference was rather misshapen, leading to each side having one very deep pocket and another shallow. But once the locals learned that it gave them a greater home-ground advantage, the shape was never changed and the ground was never enclosed by a fence. ‘They played it to perfection on a windy day,’ Jim recalls. ‘They had a great old player, Dud Ireland, a big torpedo kick. He’d kick it out this dead wing and it would take you half a bloody quarter to get it back.’

The Four Corners area got its name from being situated at the point where a quartet of giant sheep and cattle stations met, before they were carved up for closer settlement. At one stage the area had its own school and hall, although it was the footy team, wearing its maroon jumper with a yellow V, that was the pride of the district. Four Corners, mostly men from the surrounding farms, and Ungarie enjoyed many spirited battles. Often the ball would get stuck in the branches of a huge gum tree, which stood close to the boundary. Sometimes the game was stopped for ten minutes while the Sherrin was rescued. At most grounds, facilities were rudimentary to say the least. There were no showers to use after the games, rather the players would not get to wash until they returned to their homes. Flying High provides another wonderful description of the early arrangements at Four Corners:

Wheat bags had been opened down both seams and sewn together lengthwise and attached to a tree and three other