Whispering Jack's travels in time continue ...

A HIGHWAY OF DEMONS by Whispering Jack

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE WEED AND I

I was a young kid in school pants when I discovered my family had something in common with that of champion Collingwood footballer, Murray Weideman — both ran milk bars in Alphington, a working class suburb in the north of Melbourne.

It was 1959.

Murray was much older than me and already a local hero, having played in two Magpie premiership teams, including the infamous 1958 flag which destroyed Melbourne's hopes of making it six in a row from 1955 to 1960.

His nickname was The Weed but because he was a pretty tough bastard, they also called him "The Enforcer". Later, he had a brief stint as a professional wrestler (aka actor). By contrast, my most courageous act was to "dob" on a thief stealing snowballs from the confectionary section of the business.

Weideman must have been quite a lad with the women. He married a Miss Australia winner. I was more interested in comic books and stamp collecting than girls back then.

Though we had little in common, the Weed and I were brought together in dramatic circumstances on one cold wintery evening.

We were only a few decades and three or four miles away from Squizzy Taylor territory and it was still hard to make a quid in the inner northern industrial suburbs. This was a tough neighbourhood where petty crime and violence, often fueled by alcohol were rife. On occasion, opposition supporters were farewelled at the end of local sporting contests by angry mobs swinging axe handles in their direction as they ran to their vehicles only to discover missing hub caps and sometimes, even tyres.

Naturally, there was illegal betting everywhere and although that was mainly on the horses or games of two up, football was also on the agenda. It seems that one particular gang had bet heavily on Hawthorn to beat Collingwood and wanted to influence the result by intimidating the participants. And who better to intimidate than the best player?

One night a fusillade of shots rang out in the street, leaving several bullet holes in the front shop window of the Weideman family milk bar. On the morning after, the local constabulary arrived at our nearby premises to ask questions. Did we know anything about the incident? I was terrified and thought my father was going to be arrested. I still can hear him repeating the words Sergeant Hans Shulz later made famous on television, "I hear nuttink, I see nuttink I know nuttink!"

Of course, we were innocent but given that we were the nearest opposition business and were foreigners to boot, we were naturally the prime suspects in the eyes of the law. The fact was that during his entire lifetime, dad only found himself in the vicinity of a gun barrel when the weapon was pointed at him in the camps by the Nazis or by vigilante Poles when he came home to reclaim his family’s home after the war. The milk bar story was widely reported in the newspapers and the threats against Weideman continued (Collingwood even hired private detectives to tail him to games). After a while, the furore died its natural death.

The Weed was tough but he was far more than a hit man of the game. He stood only a tad over 6 feet and an inch (about 187cm), then a good height for a key backman or a centre half forward and he could really play; he won the Copeland Trophy for Collingwood's best and fairest player in 1957, 1961 and 1962. He often locked horns with Melbourne's hero Ron Barassi and it was always worth the cost of admission alone just to watch them in the contests.

We got our revenge for '58 when we beat the Pies on a rainy Saturday afternoon in September, 1960 to record an 11th Melbourne premiership and in doing so, kept the old foe to a record low grand final score of 2.2.14. That evening, proudly serving in the store wearing my red and blue jumper with the famous Barassi number 31 on my back, I was euphoric enough not to mind the torrent of abuse coming from the disgruntled, toothless, drunken Magpie fans passing in as they made their way home to steal the odd snowball. By the time we repeated the dose four years later, Weideman had retired from VFL football and the family had sold the milk bar to a family of Richmond supporters so the humiliation of the black and white army prevailed in the area for at least another decade and more after that.

His retirement came not before the Enforcer caused havoc in his final game for his team against Melbourne. It was Round 16, 1963 at the MCG and the Pies were out of the finals race while the Demons were in hot form and heading for their tenth finals series in a row. Despite its superiority over the old enemy (they won 19.15.129 to 10.8.68), the home team was reminded that there was no love lost from the soon to retire tough man of football.

Players went down like nine pins and more likely than not the hulking figure of the Collingwood skipper was seen standing over limp, prostrate bodies. In a different time and a different place, those punches have made him champion of the world. Those who were bowled over that day included, in no particular order, Frank "Bluey" Adams, Kerry Rattray, Hassa Mann and Tony Anderson. It was a fitting swan song to Demonland given the torment he and his team suffered throughout his long, illustrious career.

The Weed dabbled with mixed success in coaching, both in the country and interstate and he returned for an uneventful two years at the helm of Collingwood which sunk to its first ever VFL wooden spoon under his stewardship. The last defeat of that forgettable stint was a loss to Melbourne at Victoria Park. His son Mark, also played for the club but injuries curtailed that career and he came nowhere near the qualification requirement to bind the next generation of Weidemans to the Collingwood Football Club.

The stands at Victoria Park are now silent; the surrounding suburbs are the playground of the gentry, more cafe society than working class. Milk bars are a dying breed, replaced by 7/11s and convenience stores that operate out of petrol stations and by the supermarkets that trade until late at night all week long. The underworld has moved elsewhere and the enmity between Dees and Pies is virtually in armistice mode.

And while ghosts with shriveled black and white scarves might still wander through Grange Road, Alphington on windy nights, there's not a snowball's hope in hell that you could convince them that a young Sam Weideman has emerged from leafy Vermont in Melbourne's eastern suburbs to become a Demon.

Great stuff as usual Jack; I still marvel that my mother lived through 10 Demon premierships and I was a babe in arms for my only one.

Jack, remind us, how on earth did you become a Melbourne supporter?! (I suspect a strong-minded mother!)

Excellent reading thank you Jack. My whole Family back in the 60's and 2 generations before that, were and are Collingwood supporters. Luckily I had the honour of representing The MFC mid '60s and have been a supporter ever since.