GOAL!

I’d like to share a story with you about two of my uncles, Len and Jack Gray.

In their day, both Len and Jack were VFL umpires.

After returning from World War 2, Uncle Len became a VFL umpire along with his younger brother, my Uncle Jack. Both men umpired with distinction for many years. Len later became a goal umpire when he felt he had become too old to run the field all match, while Uncle Jack continued field umpiring and later became an umpire’s adviser.

After his umpiring retirement, Jack’s job was to go to VFL games to watch and report on the match performances of the VFL umpires. Many times I remember my dad saying that Jack saw to it that a certain umpire would be umpiring in the country this weekend, thanks to Uncle Jack’s umpire’s report. Family legend has it that Jack was responsible for sending umpire Harvey Lyons to the country after Lyons’ several ordinary performances in the late 1970’s. I vividly remember developing a passionate dislike for Umpire Harvey Lyons because of what I saw as his obvious bias against my beloved Bombers.

Sadly, Uncle Len passed away last week at the grand old age of 87. Jack told a few funny stories at Len’s funeral about their umpiring days. One in particular made everyone laugh.

In the old days, the goal umpire would always leave his position in the goal square to run down the field and break up fights on the football ground. This particular day was semi final day at the MCG in the 1950’s. Len was goal umpiring this day, while Jack was watching from the grandstand. A brawl broke out amongst the players in the centre of the ground so Len left the goal square at the city end of the ground to run all the way to the centre of the MCG to help break up a fracas.

The field umpire in his wisdom decided that the best way to stop the fight was to bounce the ball and get the game under way again.

Of course, the ruckman for the team kicking towards the city end goal got the tap out to the rover who booted the ball towards the goal with the missing goal umpire.

Goal umpire Len panicking that he would miss the moment, sprinted back down the ground towards the goals as fast as he could. His long white coat almost tripping him up on a couple of occasions, holding onto his hat on his head the whole way, while the footy was being booted closer to the goal. Racing against the speed of play, Len made it back to his position at the goals just in time to see the ball sail over his head between the big sticks. Doubled over and well and truly out of breath, Len gallantly signalled the two fingers to indicate the goal.

If you have any great footy stories why not share them with us via DGES Footytalk.