Borough was as fearless as he was ferocious.
‘Fred Cook was more of a matinee idol than a football star,’ sports writer Garry Linnell said of Cook in 1990. ‘It seemed he was there on television every Sunday afternoon, taking a big grab, kicking a match-winning goal.’
Some veteran supporters dared to mention him in the same breath as Port’s legendary 1950s All Australian ruckman Frank Johnson, who went to South Melbourne late in his career and won the best and fairest in his first season.
As for younger fans, they wore Cook’s No. 5 on their blue and red jumpers, and thrilled at his every exploit. At siren’s end they would besiege him with pens and paper, and he took care to give autographs to all of them. He knew some were from battling families. Football was their weekly highlight and he was their hero. Cook arranged for a printer to run off hundreds of copies of his photograph in his Port Melbourne jumper. He would write a personalised message for any boy or girl seeking his signature.
Alan Wickes, president of the VFA from 1981 to 1984, noticed how well Cook treated his fans, stoking his popularity. When he thinks of Cook, he pictures him on the ground ten minutes after games, signing youngsters’ jumpers.
‘There were a lot of little No. 5s out there,’ Wickes says. ‘But Cookie looked after them. When he was signing for a kid he was probably talking to the dad as well. And that’s a very humane thing, isn’t it? That’s why he was so loved. That was Fred. He wanted to please everybody — but that was probably his weakness.’
After one match, Cook left the field bloodied from a frustrated full back’s fist. His father arranged for him to be stitched. ‘The doctor’s ready,’ he said, motioning him to the rooms. But Cook was surrounded by dozens of young fans. He couldn’t let them down. ‘How can I walk away from this? Tell the doc to wait a bit,’ he said.
More than a few single mothers asked Cook to have a quiet word with their rebellious sons. When he did, their behaviour invariably improved. One lad, who had been refusing to attend school, was startled when his idol turned up at his door and told him it was important he put time into his studies. Picking up his bag, off he went.
At one stage, Cook earned the sobriquet ‘Kissing Fred’. It started when he began greeting his daughters with a peck on the lips as he came off the ground. Soon other littlies were lining up for a smooch. ‘It is like a visit from royalty with Fred bestowing kisses, smiles and head-pats all-round,’ wrote The Herald’s Alf Brown.
Port Melbourne didn’t have to wait to see Cook at his best when he crossed from Yarraville. Under the coaching of former champion Borough forward Bob Bonnett, the recruit polled twenty-four votes to finish fifth in the J. J. Liston Trophy, five behind the winner, Preston’s former Collingwood player Laurie Hill.
Playing all eighteen games, mostly at centre half back, he was second to Jim Buckley in the club best and fairest. Norm Goss junior, who would go on to be a first-class league rover, was third.
But the Borough dropped from third in 1970 to sixth in 1971. Bonnett retired at season’s end. The club’s annual report noted he ‘did his utmost to bring success to the club, but his efforts to win games, at times, fell on deaf ears. It was certain to all supporters that if his instructions had been heeded at all times Port could have easily finished in the final four’. The club hired tenacious 1968 Carlton premiership player Ian Collins to replace him.
Although he had despised it, Cook immediately felt at home at Port Melbourne. Teammates became mates. Supporters smarted over defeats, but were loyal, slapping his back on days good and bad. Mostly, they were good, and it was common for diehards to thrust money into Cook’s hand after games.
After he had performed well in one match, an old-timer on a walking frame inched towards him in the rooms. ‘I thought you played well today, Fred,’ he said, passing him $2. Cook told him to save it for a day when he played poorly. The next week, after Cook found kicks elusive, the supporter reappeared and stabbed the money into his hand. He has never forgotten it.
‘Once you put on that jumper, you were part of a family, the Port Melbourne family,’ he says. ‘I actually felt like I’d been adopted. Mind you, plenty of people reminded me you weren’t a local until you’d put in ten good years. It was a different time back then. Port had the firsts, the seconds, the thirds and the fourths, and if you were a kid growing up in Port Melbourne and you had a bit of ability, you wanted to play football for Port Melbourne. And, by geez, when they got there they’d do anything to win. That’s what made the club so strong. They played for the jumper, right up to the final bell. And Old Man Goss [Norm Goss] looked after everyone.’
Premiership men including Gary Brice, Bob ‘Bullwinkle’ Profitt, Graeme ‘Arms’ Anderson, Vic ‘Stretch’ Aanensen, Graham ‘Buster’ Harland, David ‘Sam’ Holt, Billy Swan and Greg ‘Biff’ Dermott were examples of locals rising to senior ranks and becoming distinguished servants. Brownlow Medal champion Peter Bedford was another.
Brice grew up in Liardet Street, so close to the North Port Oval that he could hear the roar of the crowd on Sundays. He watched Port most weeks and Bonnett was his idol. When mates at school asked him which team he supported, he always said Port Melbourne, not a league side. He started playing for the Port seconds in 1966, after his secondary schooling. Bonnett was captain and coach of the team. Brice had an outstanding league career at South Melbourne and steered the Borough to the 1980, 1981 and 1982 premierships, but he says playing alongside Bonnett was a highlight of his career.
‘What Fred says is exactly right,’ Brice says. ‘It was ingrained in all the kids in Port Melbourne — that was the club to be at. We were in South Melbourne’s zone but they weren’t having a lot of success, so it was always a case of, if you were going to play good football, you were going to go to Port Melbourne. It was a burning ambition of mine to do it.’
When Cook and other players talk of their time at Port, they invariably speak with affection and admiration for Norm Goss.
Watching football at North Port Oval, you take a seat in the Norm Goss grandstand. It overlooks a ground with a white picket fence and carries the eye to surrounding factories, and beyond them a glimpse of Melbourne’s skyline.
The grandstand is named after a man who served Port with tenacity as a player and with distinction as a straight-talking administrator who put the club’s interests above all else. The ground was his second home; if he wasn’t at the family residence in Clark Street (where he and his wife, Lillian, raised nine children), he was at the club.
Norm Goss played in Port Melbourne’s 1940 and 1941 premierships, alongside Tommy Lahiff, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. Lahiff took over as coach of the Port team after the resignation of Frank Kelly shortly before the 1941 finals. Up against Coburg in the decider, Lahiff devised a plan to stop champion Burgers full forward Bob Pratt. It required courage on the part of Goss.
‘Full back Lance “Diver” Dobson was to stick close to the dangerous Pratt, and rugged back-pocket player Norm Goss was to assist Dobson by blocking Pratt’s path and stalling his spectacular leaps at every opportunity,’ wrote Ken Linnett in his outstanding biography of Lahiff, Game for Anything. ‘After the match Goss’s back was a patchwork of stop marks from the boots of Bob Pratt, but he and Dobson had obeyed instructions with vigour and skill.’
Goss had stints at South Melbourne and Hawthorn, playing eight senior games for the Hawks in 1942 and 1943. He returned to Port Melbourne, was elected secretary in 1947 and held the position for three decades. He also gifted the club four senior players: Norm junior, Paul, Kevin and Michael. But he did not set out to make his sons Borough players. ‘I just told them that if they were frightened they should
