| MINES ROVERSAffiliated: Hannans District Football Association (HDFA) 1899-1900; Goldfields Football Association (GFA) 1901-7; Goldfields Football League (GFL) 1908-19; GFA 1920-25*; Goldfields National Football League (GNFL) 1926-87; GFL 1988-present Club Address: P.O. Box 2051, Boulder, Western Australia 6432 Home Ground: Digger Daws Oval Formed: 1899 Colours: Blue and white (initially black and white) Emblem: Diorites Premierships: 1900-1-2, 1906, 1914-15, 1918, 1921-2-3, 1926, 1934, 1936-7-8, 1940, 1946-7, 1949, 1951, 1955-6-7, 1961, 1965, 1967-8-9-70, 1972, 1991, 1993, 1995-6, 2001, 2003-4, 2007-8-9-10 (41 total) League Fairest and Best Awards: William Truscott 1910; Dan Scullin 1914; Whyburn Taylor 1936; Tony Tomich 1938; Lou Daily 1939; Alf Neeson 1947; Ron Billett 1949, 1952 & 1954; Alec Epis 1955; Colin McIntyre 1979; Terry Gordon 1988; Rob Hansen 1998 & 2002; Justin Zecca 2000 (12 winners/15 wins) * Mines Rovers was suspended from the competition during the second half of the 1925 season after refusing to play a match against Boulder City if it was umpired by the unfortunately-named Mr. Pratt. The club resumed its involvement in the league from the opening round of the 1926 season. Mines Rovers, with 37 senior flags, is the most successful club in the history of the Goldfields Football League. Moreover, its player lists, particularly over the first half of the twentieth century, read almost like a 'Who's Who' of Australian football. Formed at a meeting at Powell's Hotel, Kalgoorlie, on Thursday 30 March 1899, the club was originally known simply as 'Mines', and boasted the colours of black and white. It proved successful almost from the start, winning the inaugural Goldfields Football Association premiership in 1900 (see footnote 1), when it may well have benefited from the temporary absence from the competition of reigning premier Boulder City. The overall strength of the team, as well as of goldfields football in general, was readily exemplified during its premiership year when it lost a challenge match against a combined Western Australian Football Association side by just a single point.
The high status of goldfields football was further emphasised with the involvement of its premiership teams in regular state premiership contests against their coastal league counterparts. Mines Rovers participated in such matches on three occasions, but the nearest the team came to success was in 1906 when it held East Fremantle to a draw on Fremantle Oval before succumbing by 19 points in the replay. Dolph Heinrichs wrote of the drawn game: They (Mines Rovers) were, I believe, a better side than Easts in every position except the ruck. Their ruckman, Polglaise, stood fully at 6ft. 3in. (191cm) , and was hailed as a specialist at the hit-in, but throughout the match, although well shepherded, he hardly got his hands on the ball against the terrific leap and pace of East Fremantle's great follower ('Dolly' Christy). The match was one of the fastest and most open ever played on the Oval, with the lead alternating every few minutes, and the result, a draw, was a fitting end to a really great match. The visitors were loud in their praise of this great follower's exhibition, without which we must have been beaten by some goals. (See footnote 3) One of the real characters of early goldfields football was Walter Smith, popularly known as 'the Poet'. Smith, who always took to the field wearing a hat of some description, made his senior GFA debut for Mines in 1906, and later that year established a competition record which still stands when he personally amassed 20 of his team's 25 goals in a match against Boulder Stars (see footnote 4). 'The Poet' later moved to Railways and ended his career, after World War One, with a couple of seasons in the WAFL with East Fremantle.
Dan Scullin was the most celebrated of three brothers to play senior football for Mines Rovers prior to the first World War. Tall, athletic and a superb kick, he was a key reason for the team's re-emergence as a power, culminating in its first premiership for eight years in 1914. That same year, Scullin travelled to Sydney as a member of Western Australia's carnival team, and but for the intervention of war there is no telling what he might ultimately have achieved. As it was, all three Scullin brothers signed up to travel abroad in the service of 'King and country', and none returned. The GFL suspended operations in 1916 and 1917, and when it resumed Mines Rovers, which had won successive premierships in 1914-15, effectively made it three in a row in what was a prelude to one of the club's greatest ever eras, the 1920s. The Mines Rovers team which won the 1921-2-3 flags was one of the finest to don the club's colours, albeit that it was a team of few stars. Indeed, of all the GFL's teams, it is arguable that the Diorites have been the most consistent embodiment of the 'all for one, one for all' team ethic which is so pivotal to Australian football.
Osmetti later turned down a similar invitation from another Boulder City player, 'Blue' Richards, and for much of the 1930s this kind of attitude was increasingly prevalent. One obvious consequence of this was that goldfields teams once again became highly competitive. In 1931, for instance, Mines Rovers defeated a strong South Fremantle line-up by 6 points, while later in the decade GNFL representative teams overcame strong club sides such as Claremont and Port Adelaide, and even proximate West Australian and South Australian state combinations.
During the post-war period, as the profile of the GNFL gradually declined, Mines Rovers continued to enjoy regular premiership success, including three in a row from 1955-7, and a league record equalling four in succession between 1967 and 1970. After scoring a 45 point grand final win over Railways in 1972, however, the club was forced to endure an unprecedented two decade long premiership drought. Since rediscovering the winning formula in 1991, however, the Diorites have been the GFL's most successful club, with their thirty-ninth flag coming via a 14.11 (95) to 13.5 (83) grand final defeat of Kambalda in 2008, their fortieth by means of an 11.12 (78) to 7.7 (49) triumph over Railways a year later, and their forty-first in 2010 courtesy of another victory over Railways, this time by a score of 13.14 (92) to 9.13 (67). A century ago, goldfields football was at the forefront of the game, and while this is clearly no longer the case, as long as clubs such as Mines Rovers endure there will be meaningful and tangible reminders of those times, as well as living evocations of the unique and venerable traditions concocted out of more than a hundred years of passion, energy and selfless commitment. Recommended further reading: Gravel Rash: 100 Years Of Goldfields Football by Les Everett (published by the GFL in 1996). Where now? or Footnotes1. The senior controlling body for football on the goldfields was initially known as the Hannans Districts Football Association. Established in 1896, it altered its name to the Goldfields Football Association in 1900. Return to Main Text 2. During the period 1904-14 Mines Rovers provided a total of 11 interstate representatives, including the captain of the 1908 carnival team in the shape of Bill 'Burly' Trewhella. Return to Main Text 3. Celebrating A Century Of Tradition by Jack Lee, page 40. One suspects that this may be a somewhat exaggerated and biased account, as other sources list Polglaise as one of Mines' best players in this match. The indisputable fact that Polglaise - who gloried in the nickname 'Snob' - was himself no mean ruckman was emphasised when he was selected in the Western Australian squad for the 1908 Melbourne carnival. Return to Main Text 4. The 1906 season was the second and last of Boulder Stars' GFA participation. Return to Main Text 5. Lee, op cit., page 131. Return to Main Text 6. Don Marinko, a star Boulder City player who eked out an illustrious career for himself with West Perth. Return to Main Text 7. Quoted in Gravel Rash by Les Everett, page 77. Return to Main Text 8. The GNFL fairest and best award was known as the Dillon Medal between 1930 and 1946. Return to Main Text |