We have a saying in Australian football, if you are using the ball around the flanks and not straight through the middle of the ground you are going ‘via the cape’.
This article traces one footballing family’s generational trans-versing of the country before ultimately playing in premierships at VFL level, although truth be known it may or may not have been their ultimate football ambition or even fondest football moment.
James ‘Tuck’ Metherell was born in Tavistock West Devon in 1869 and immigrated to Australia leaving Plymouth and ending up in Port Adelaide with his parents at the age of 15 in 1883.
They, like thousands of Cornish miners, headed to Moonta or ‘little Cornwall’ as it was known on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia to mine copper. It was said that Moonta in the 1920s was more Cornish in customs and culture than Cornwall itself.
Tuck, who was a ruckman, played football for Moonta Turks. The Turks were formed in 1876 and dominated the Yorke Peninsula league in the 1890s. In 1893 Tuck received a call up from the Norwood Redlegs as did several of his Moonta teammates. In 1894 Norwood won the premiership even though being outsiders in the last three games of the year and Tuck was judged by ‘Goalfront’ to be “the best ruckman of the year”. ‘Onlooker’ in The Express and Telegraph said: “The Norwoods had no harder ‘grafter’ than Metherell, whose remarkably fine ruck play deserves all the praise that can be bestowed upon it.”
In 1895, the Norwood football club was gutted by men moving West after Paddy Hannan found gold around what was to become Kalgoorlie towards the end of 1893.
To quote Geoffrey Blainey – “South Australia rich in copper, dreamed of gold,” from that premiership team ‘Tuck’ Metherell was lured to the Golden West along with a host of his talented teammates including Jimmy Poglase, Jack Cullen, Charlie Atkins, Jim Mullaney, Tom Coombe, Ted Hantke, Jack Slee and Os Bertram.
Despite the departures Norwood made a football trip East in a mid-season visit to Victoria, Norwood lost to Melbourne, drew with Collingwood and defeated Essendon.
(Photo by Michael Dodge/AFL Media/Getty Images)
From what I can ascertain the Metherells took a passage on a ship from Adelaide that was actually bound for London and disembarked at Albany where they walked to Kalgoorlie with their belongings like thousands of others.
By June of 1895 Tuck Metherell was vice captain of a new team called the Great Boulder football club and in 1900 became involved in a club called the Warriors which was comprised mainly of men from Moonta. They would eventually be morphed with the famous Mines Rovers of Boulder.
If anyone is interested you might want to google the Cornwall Hotel built in Boulder in 1898, which was built out of local quarried stone mined by Cornishman primarily from Moonta which would be the ‘spiritual’ home to the Mines Rovers for many years prior to the clubs own licensed premises.
Cornishman were in great demand as miners and were generally compensated with higher wages when seeking employment, although most men at Kalgoorlie wanted to stake their own claims.
At one stage in 1903 five Metherell’s were playing for the Warriors, brothers Tuck, Bill (Tish), Samuel (Doc), George and Edward (Bant), by the early 1920s a new club called Moonta Turks sought affiliation to the Goldfields league. It was a club named after the old club in Moonta SA and the huge number of Cornish miners who came from there, Mr Edward Metherell was its inaugural coach and at least one of his sons played.
Tucks brother Bill who had represented WA in the 1908 Australasian championships had moved to Perth and his two sons Len and Jack were playing junior football at Subiaco where Geelong cast an eye over the boys, Len Metherell started his career in 1927 at Western Australian club Subiaco and topped their goalkicking with 49 goals.
He went on to play 45 games for the club before transferring to Geelong where he would play in the 1931 Premiership and coach the club in 1941. His younger brother Jack would join Geelong in 1932, he topped Geelong’s goalkicking in 1934, 1936 and 1937.
His tally of 71 goals in 1937 saw him finish one short of Gordon Coventry who topped the league.
Metherell kicked four goals in that year’s grand final and helped the Cats to their third flag, Jack Metherell went on to captain coach a number of premierships teams at North Hobart, coach Tasmanian rep sides and was eventually inducted into AFL Tasmania’s hall of fame.
Geelong refused to clear Metherell to North Hobart even after the intervention of Tasmanian premier Albert Ogilvie, meaning that Metherell was forced to sit out the 1938 season and coach from the sidelines. When he finished coaching he took up umpiring in the 1960s.
I might add something else about the Metherell boys and kicking, Len Metherell was described in the Sporting Globe as “doing a kick that is all his own, and I fancy he and his brother are the only exponents of it. The kick is used for passing, and is a punt. The ball is dropped on to the toe and travels through the air like a drop-kick. The astonishing thing about this kick is that Metherell is so accurate with it.”
Metherell when questioned stated that he learnt it from his father – and yes they are actually talking about the drop punt here.
I will just say until doing a bit of basic research I did not know the Metherell brothers and extended family existed, maybe only dedicated Cats fans had heard of them.
I just happened to stumble on the name looking for something else, they are just one example of literally thousands of families who also happened to be involved with the game of Australian football whom made their way to the Kalgoorlie goldfields in the mid 1890s whilst the Eastern states were in a grip of a huge economic depression.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
Bill was a younger brother and in the 1908 WA team was listed as also being born in Tavistock in the UK, hard to pin down as team lists didnt list individual player names but if brothers were in teams it would be listed as Metherell (3) or Metherell (4) etc. He could have learnt the drop punt from his brother via Norwood, he could have learnt it from Nipper Truscott, he could have developed it himself or any other player as Kalgoorlie at the time, as Kalgoorlie was full of players from all over Australia and some of the best players to play the game at the time. Also the drop punt was probably developed by players in different parts of the country in isolation who were not aware of other players using it, it was really only the 1970's that the kick was pushed at junior level uniformly across the country. To give you some idea how many great players were around Kalgoorlie in the mid 1890's onwards this is a good link ....https://australianfootball.com/articles/view/ted%2Browell%253A%2Bgoldfields%2Bchampion/555
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Your article said James 'Tuck' Metherell was born in 1869. Do we know when his brother Bill started to play adult football? It is possible it was the 1890's. If the Sporting Globe article is correct, and Bill taught his son, Len, to kick drop punts, this could indicate drop punts were being regularly kicked by Bill much earlier (around 1890's to early 1900's). This is earlier than many believe for regular drop punt kicking. More details and information on Hugh Hinks and Nipper Truscott's claims to being the first to regularly use the drop punt would be appreciated.
Aligee
Roar Rookie
You may be right and you may be wrong, or you may be a bit of both. * Truscott played with at least 2 Metherell's in 1903 for Mines Rovers, from Trove 20th June 1903 The Evening Star, (i didn't look further after finding one match.) * Truscott represented WA in 1908 and also in that team was Bill Metherell, father of Len and Jack who played for Subi and then Geelong, the boys who stated their Dad taught them to kick the drop punt style.( as per the above article) I would have thought that Truscott would have learnt the kick from AF rather than bring it from Rugby, the need for accurate passing( kicking ) of the ball would have been far more important in the Australian game than rugby - you would have thought.
Doctor Rotcod
Roar Rookie
Supposedly the drop punt was invented by Hugh Hinks of Carisbrook, Victoria in 1907, but I saw somewhere and haven't found it again that 'Nipper' Truscott invented it around 1904 when he played on wet grounds. He had a rugby background,hence "Nipper" but also played competitive lawn bowls, winning an Australian pairs title in 1955
Aligee
Roar Rookie
Hi, thanks for the reply, Sporting Globe Wednesday 17 May 1933, was the date for the bit about drop punts, Jack Dyer was mentioned in a similar type article around the same time period regarding drop punts as some of the first players who used them. I also remember reading something about Collingwood on a Tasmanian tour in 1908 (?) first using the drop punt. Everyone today considers the drop punt par for the course and a skill every footballer has, but you don't have to go back far to see that drop punts were not used by every player, in fact the kick that Collingwoods Twiggy Dunne used to tie the 1977 GF against North Melbourne was what they termed a flat punt from 15 metres out directly in front, Twiggy Dunne was a CHF ! The Metherell boys played together at Subi in the late 1920's and again together at Geelong in the 1930's. https://youtu.be/wGn5QQmbXXk
The Joy Of X
Roar Rookie
Interesting article. Date of the Sporting Globe article? Do you know approximately when, and where, Bill and Len Metherell played adult football? Have you seen other, unreported, articles referring to very early players kicking drop punts?