Roy Cazaly
Template:Short description Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates
Template:Infobox AFL biography
Roy Cazaly (13 January 1893 – 10 October 1963) was an Australian rules footballer who played for South Melbourne and St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also represented Victoria and Tasmania in interstate football and, after his retirement as a player, turned to coaching. Known for his ruck work and high-flying marks, he inspired the common catchphrase "Up there, Cazaly!" which, in 1979, became the title of a popular song, securing his place in Australian folklore.
Cazaly was one of 12 inaugural "Legends" inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
FamilyEdit
Cazaly was born in Albert Park, a suburb of Melbourne, on 13 January 1893. He was the tenth child of English-born James Cazaly and his wife Elizabeth Jemima (née McNee). James Cazaly was a renowned sculler and rower in Melbourne. Just before 6 July 1878 he was eliminated in a semi-final for the sculling championship of Victoria by the eventual victor, Charles A. Messenger.<ref>Argomene, The Second Match Between Christie and Messenger for £100 and the Championship of Victoria, Launceston Examiner, 11 July 1878</ref> Elizabeth was a midwife and herbalist from Scotland.
FootballEdit
Cazaly learnt his football at the local state school, quickly becoming its first-choice ruckman. He tried out for VFL side Carlton Football Club in 1910, but quit the club when he injured a shoulder in a reserves match and could not get the Carlton medical staff to treat it.<ref>Atkinson, p. 83.</ref>
St KildaEdit
Cazaly crossed to rival VFL side St Kilda and made his senior debut in 1911 during a players' strike, when many of St Kilda's regular senior players refused to play as a result of a dispute with the club's committee over dressing rooms.<ref name="RecordR19-2011">Template:Citation</ref>
One of nine new players in the team, Cazaly played his only First XVIII match for St Kilda against Carlton, at Princes Park, on 29 July 1911.
The other new players were: Alby Bowtell, Claude Crowl, Peter Donnelly, Alf Hammond, Otto Opelt, Rowley Smith, Tom Soutar, and Bill Ward – and, including that match, and ignoring Harrie Hattam (16 games), Bert Pierce (41 games), and Bill Woodcock (65 games), the very inexperienced team's remaining fifteen players had only played a total of 46 matches.
Cazaly played 99 matches with St Kilda.
South MelbourneEdit
In 1920, he left St Kilda, signing with South Melbourne. He coached that club in 1922, and won South's most consistent player award in 1926.<ref>The Argus, 14 February 1927</ref>
During the depression of the early 1930s, he worked on the Melbourne waterfront and played with waterside workers in a midweek football competition.
VFL fameEdit
Cazaly was Template:Convert tall, which is short for a ruckman, but his high leap made up for that, and he was incredibly fit. He was famous for his ability to take spectacular marks despite his relatively small stature, and South Melbourne teammates Fred "Skeeter" Fleiter and Mark "Napper" Tandy would simultaneously yell "Up there, Cazzer",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> originating the phrase that would become synonymous with Australian rules football. He initially developed his marking ability by jumping at a ball strung up in a shed at his home, and held his breath as he jumped, an action that he believed lifted him higher. He also possessed the capacity to kick a football over 65 metres.Template:Citation needed In 2009, The Australian nominated Cazaly as one of the 25 greatest footballers never to win the Brownlow Medal.<ref>The Australian, 22 September 2009, retrieved 2009-09-22</ref>Template:Failed verification
Post-VFL and coaching careerEdit
In 1928, Cazaly played for the South Melbourne Districts Football Club, including in a losing VFL Sub-Districts grand final in 1928.<ref name="smdfc1939">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="vafasmd">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
He departed Victoria at the end of the year and headed for Launceston, Tasmania, before returning in 1931 to coach Preston in the Victorian Football Association (VFA).
His subsequent return to Tasmania was punctuated by stints as non-playing coach of South Melbourne in 1937 and 1938, and coach of Camberwell . In 1941, at the age of 48, he was nominally their non-playing coach, but did don a guernsey for a few games late in the season.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was non-playing coach of Hawthorn in 1942 and 1943, and non-playing assistant coach of South Melbourne in 1947.
While coaching Hawthorn, he was reported to have given the club its nickname the "Hawks", because he saw it as providing a tougher image than their original nickname, the "Mayblooms".
LegacyEdit
Cazaly is known to have played 322 premiership matches (198 in the VFL and 124 in the Tasmanian leagues), and 354 total career senior games (including 14 intrastate matches for the NTFA in Tasmania, and 18 interstate matches, 13 for Victoria and five for Tasmania). If his matches for Preston and Camberwell in the VFA are included, then Cazaly played in 343 premiership matches and 375 career senior games. Cazaly also played country football for Minyip in 1925, and in a mid-week football competition during the 1930s.
Cazaly retired from competitive football in 1941 at the age of 48. Later, he coached (non-playing) New Town to a number of Tasmanian Football League premierships.
The famous cry "Up there, Cazaly" was used as a battle cry by Australian forces during World War II.<ref>"From 1911 to 1920 Cazaly played for St Kilda Football Club, without pay, winning the club's 'best and fairest' award in the last two seasons. In 1921 he transferred to South Melbourne, where he formed "The Terrible Trio" ruck combination with 'Skeeter' Fleiter and rover Mark Tandy. Although relatively shonly 5 ft 11 ins (180 cm) and 12½ stone (79 kg), Cazaly was a brilliant high-mark. He practised the skill daily, leaping for a ball suspended from the roof of a shed at his home. He could mark and turn in mid-air, land and, in a few strides, send forward a long accurate drop-kick or stab-pass. Fleiter's constant cry "Up there Cazaly" was taken up by the crowds. It entered the Australian idiom, was used by infantrymen in North Africa in World War II, and became part of folk-lore" (Counihan, 1979).</ref> It is also the title of a famous song, released in 1979 by Mike Brady and the Two-Man Band.
After his retirement from football, Cazaly was involved in many business ventures. In later years he ran a successful physiotherapy business in Hobart which, in the years before his death, was managed by his son, also called Roy. Roy junior played for New Town FC after World War II. Cazaly senior, known for his extraordinary fitness well into his later years, although he was in ill-health in the five years before his death on 10 October 1963, at the age of seventy, in Lenah Valley, a suburb of Hobart.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Cazaly was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996 as one of the inaugural twelve Legends. In 2003, Cazalys Stadium in Cairns, Queensland, was named after him.
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
- Atkinson, G. (1982) Everything you ever wanted to know about Australian rules football but couldn't be bothered asking, The Five Mile Press: Melbourne. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book
- Counihan, N. "Cazaly, Roy (1893–1963)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1977.
External linksEdit
- Counihan, N. Cazaly, Roy (1893–1963) in Australian Dictionary of Biography
- Roy Cazaly snr
Template:Australian Football Hall of Fame Legends Template:Tasmanian Team Of The Century Template:Trevor Barker Award Template:St Kilda Football Club captains Template:Sydney Swans coaches Template:Hawthorn Football Club coaches Template:Sydney leading goalkickers Template:1924 Victoria State Football Team