back then. Prahran won the flag that year. They had the great Kevin Rose coaching them. There weren’t any easy kicks in first division.’
As for that 41-kick performance against Dandenong, he says he had a row with Bernadette the night before the match and skulked off to drown his sorrows. One drink became many, and by Sunday morning he was feeling rough. He phoned Heriot and said it might be best if he sat that game out. Heriot said that was fine, but he should turn up to support his teammates.
When Cook arrived, the coach told him, ‘Strip — we’ve rearranged the side and we need you to ruck all day.’
When he became ill during the match, Cook told the Yarraville trainer he’d eaten a corned beef and chutney sandwich that didn’t agree with him.
‘Forty-one kicks after I hadn’t been to bed. Everyone’s entitled to a bad day now and then,’ Cook says with a laugh.
Apart from the J. J. Liston Trophy, he also won Yarraville’s best and fairest and, in a media award, a $2000 boat, which he put to use at Melton Reservoir and Pykes Creek.
Soon he was testing other waters. Cook had fulfilled his obligations with Yarraville, but for a time said he would be staying with the Eagles.
‘The club helped me when I was down, so I will be sticking by it,’ he told The Footscray Advertiser. ‘I’m very happy at Yarraville — they’re a terrific club.’ He even said he hoped to coach the Eagles one day.
But Cook had no desire to play in Division 2. During the season there had been talk that another VFL club, noting Cook’s undimmed brilliance in the VFA, would target him in 1971.
In crossing from Footscray to Yarraville, Cook broke the VFL’s clearance laws and automatically picked up a twelve-month ban. He would have to stand out of football for a year to earn the right of appeal against his disqualification.
Still, he considered trying to salve old wounds and return to Footscray, at one point even working under professional running coach Cliff Pryde. He also lifted weights four times a week at the Sunshine Sports Club.
Then came an approach from Port Melbourne. Its legendary administrator Norm Goss had seen Cook dominate for Yarraville, and decided the club could do with him.
In fact, Port had tried to filch him when he was in dispute with Footscray in 1969. Bulldog John Jillard told Borough officials that Cook was a fine player, but not always vigilant in picking up his opponent. Goss and fellow official Charlie ‘Dooley’ Chrimes waited for Cook outside his house, finally giving up at 2am. They left a note expressing their interest and urging him to make contact. They heard nothing back.
But by 1970 things had changed. Yarraville played at Port in the last match of the season, and Goss and Chrimes spoke to Cook after the game.
‘I don’t want to play in Second Division,’ Chrimes remembers Cook telling him when they whisked him to the committee room.
‘You won’t have to. You’ll play here,’ Chrimes replied.
Heriot can remember the night Port Melbourne officials visited Yarraville and declared their intention to sign the J. J. Liston Trophy champion.
‘They said they could pay him a lot of money. And we didn’t have the bagfull of money they had. Simple as that. I said to them, “He’s all yours, because we can’t afford that.” And off he went. And what a career he had there.’
Cook says the Port offer wasn’t over the top — ‘they gave me a couple of thousand and said they’d pay me $90 a game’ — and his switch of clubs was more about staying in the top division.
Carrying a transfer fee of $1500, Borough committeeman Ray Downard went to a butcher’s shop in Yarraville to complete the deal. Eagles secretary Bill Curwood was reluctant to release his club’s best player, but he signed the clearance form on a butcher’s block.
Chrimes, eighty-one, says $1500 was a lot of money at the time, but it was one of the best investments Port ever made. ‘When you think of what he achieved, he was worth every cent, I tell you right now,’ he says. ‘To me, he was a great clubman and an extraordinary player. He hardly gave us a bad game.’
Cook disliked Port Melbourne almost as much as he did Collingwood. But he had great respect for it and was keen to play in a successful side. ‘I held them in awe. Everyone was shit-frightened of playing against them because they were so tough. Don’t worry, they had some tough men in that side.’
Heriot was like many football followers in the 1970s: he took pleasure in watching Cook pile up the goals for Port Melbourne. He doubts the Borough would have won so many flags without him.
As Cook crossed the river, beginning an association with Port that would bring him more than a decade of unceasing success, hard times hovered over Yarraville.
The 1970 season was its last in the VFA’s first division, although it did make grand finals in 1977 (under the coaching of former Bulldog David Thorpe) and in 1980 (when coached by future North Melbourne premiership mentor Denis Pagan).
Prominent Melbourne youth worker Les Twentyman steered the Eagles in 1981, and the short-fused John Sharp was in charge in 1982. But dogged by debt and a lack of sponsors, Yarraville dropped out of the VFA shortly before the 1984 season. Its identity was revived when Kingsville changed its name to Yarraville in 1996 and there was a merger with Seddon in 2007.
The Yarraville Seddon website has a history section. And in a photograph representing the period of 1961 to 1976, there is Fred Cook, arms extended high as he follows through on a kick, a glorious image of the club’s last J. J. Liston Trophy winner.
6
FRED Cook started at Port Melbourne in 1971. By the time he finished in 1984, he’d become a towering figure at the Borough and in the VFA, a full forward who was as popular as he was prolific in front of the goals.
He topped the century seven times on his way to 1236 goals, featured in six premierships, captained the club and Victoria, won a best and fairest, and made a record 253 appearances.
He had turned his back on league football, unwisely, thought people in a good position to judge. But his public profile would soar in the VFA and eventually exceed those of many VFL players.
Cook seemed to be everywhere: on Channel 7’s World of Sport, reading out the teams at radio station 3DB, and writing for The Sporting Globe and The Sunday Press. He was also a regular on the sportsman’s night circuit, often accompanied by his pal Sam Newman. They’d turn up, tell a few funny stories and answer some questions. And they’d leave with a few beers under their belts and a few hundred dollars in their pockets.
Few players could land a page 1 photo on the big-selling Sun News-Pictorial, as Cook did in 1978. He had visited a kindergarten in East Bentleigh, and snaps of the burly footballer in full playing gear mixing with the littlies made for a spread in the middle-pages: ‘Fred shows ’em how’.
Flamboyant from top to toe, he was a poster boy for the association, bringing it untold publicity. The VFA made it official when it put him on the payroll as a promotions officer, with executive director Keith Mills saying Cook was as well known among junior footballers as Alex Jesaulenko and Kevin Sheedy.
In a competition crowded with hard men, he bunched his fists only to celebrate his goals
