It's part of Hampden league folklore, a grand final known as the 'bloodbath'. Now, some 35 years on from the 1985 decider, JUSTINE McCULLAGH-BEASY takes a look back at that infamous match.
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MARK 'Butch' Robinson's jaw was broken in two places but he never considered leaving the field.
He was just happy to be there. A young defender, only 20, playing in a Hampden league grand final.
Around him was carnage. Bruised and battered bodies, casualties of a serious all-in opening-term brawl.
"I remember going for the ball in the first quarter and then a melee started after that," Robinson told The Standard this week, some 35 years on from the infamous 1985 'bloodbath' decider.
"There was a number of them during the game. There was myself and another two or three who had facial injuries."
Robinson, now 55, played on adrenaline. He battled on to be one of Colac-Coragulac's best in what is considered the most brutal grand final in the league's 90-year history.
"When you're young you just get on with it, you don't dwell on it too much," he said.
"You're a young player in a side with established players like Brian Brown and Stephen Theodore, and the Colac-Coragulac club was very successful in that era so we were glad to be involved."
The severity of Robinson's injury didn't dawn on him until the Tigers, in full celebration mode after their 22.14 (146) to 14.6 (90) victory against South Warrnambool at Reid Oval, were on their way home.
"It probably wasn't until we got to Terang that I realised and Brian picked it up too," he recalled.
"He said 'you're in a bit of trouble'. The jaw was all swollen.
"We had the celebrations, they used to walk down the (Colac) main street of a night time, and then the next day I was off to Geelong to get the jaw repaired.
"It was broken in two places and I had to have it wired up for seven weeks and once I got that out of the way I had a delayed holiday and a delayed start to tennis season."
Brown, the father of three-time Brisbane premiership star Jonathan, played in the Tigers' back line alongside Robinson that day.
"He never came off and I kept saying 'you all right?'. He was a quiet lad and he just kept saying 'I'm right, I'm right' and kept playing," the premiership coach reflected.
"He was one of our best players and ended up having 25 touches. It was an unbelievably courageous effort.
"I remember after the game he said to me 'what do you reckon? have a look at this' and you could see the gap in his teeth."
The incident was among a spate as the game turned ugly.
The Standard reporter Steve Waldon wrote "the match seemed destined to become a bloodbath in the first term".
"A number of unsavoury incidents led to vicious brawls during which battered players littered the ground and an army of trainers were required to nurse injured players to their feet," his match report read.
"The incidents which triggered the fighting were behind-the-play and, while one is tempted to state in print what thousands at the match saw, it would be unfair to name names as few reports were made by the umpires.
"Those players reported can count themselves unlucky as they should be fronting the tribunal with about 15 others whose punches escaped the umpires' notice."
Brown, speaking this week, said he'd seen "nothing like it" before or since.
"We got word they might try and take us on physically a bit which was probably a mistake as it turns out as we were a bit more of an experienced side and had a bit more finals experience," he said.
Ironically Brown went on to coach South Warrnambool's under 14 side in the 1990s for eight seasons and "bygones were bygones".
He liked tough football but believes the '85 grand final antics were "over the top".
"I was really disappointed with the way it all turned out. I suppose you deal with what confronts you when the time comes," Brown said.
"We ended up with three of the blackest eyes on three blokes I've seen. I am not sure what damage they ended up with."
Robinson, who now works for Colac Otway Shire, has let sleeping dogs lie too.
He is grateful such acts have been, for the most part, stamped out of football.
"When you're young things like that worry you but when you're older you realise that people probably do things on the footy field they wouldn't do in other places, especially in that era," he said.
"Now you'd get put in jail if players carried on like that on the footy field but it was just a different time."
The over-riding memory for Robinson is the joy of becoming a premiership player.
"We just got on with playing football. I am pretty sure we ended up winning - because you don't forget these things - by 56 points which in the end was a comfortable win," he said.
Mark Owen and Stephen 'Shorty' Anderson were 17 year olds playing in their first grand finals for South Warrnambool.
It was to be Owen's only decider with injury ending his career prematurely in 1987 while Anderson, who played four games for Collingwood in 1991, featured in nine grand finals in Roosters' colours for three premierships.
The way the '85 grand final unfolded was eye-opening for both who avoided the melees.
"We got a flogging that day. I was in the back pocket, just watching the ball go over my head," Owen recalled.
"There was a bit of an all-in brawl. I was there to play footy.
"It was a bit frustrating, you are there to play footy and people are down the other end fighting.
"It was the mentality at the time. There was a couple of people taken to hospital, so it was nothing to be proud of."
Anderson, now 52, recalled South, coached by Kevin McVilly, trying to intimidate Colac-Coragulac without success.
"It was pretty scary. I didn't get involved in the fights and saw it all happen from the forward pocket," he said.
"We had some tough players playing. And Colac had some tough boys playing too.
"It started on the wing and my player ran in there and I watched him go in and unfortunately he copped a good one and by the time he got back to me he had a big black eye.
"At the end of it there would have been seven or eight Colac guys lying on the ground.
"They still beat us by 10 goals which was a pretty good effort."
Biff aside, there were significant players for both sides that day in front of a crowd which paid $20,000 to watch.
Tigers veteran Peter Moore was dropped on the eve of the finals before earning a recall.
"He'd really struggled all year and he would agree with me, I probably should have dropped him midway through the year, and I left it and come the last home and away game I dropped him," Brown said.
"It was probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make.
"We took a punt on him and brought him back for our first final and he was our best player.
"In the grand final when all the blues were happening, he kicked three goals in the first quarter.
"He set it up, as the fights were happening, he was kicking goals. That was experience."
Some players, such as former Fitzroy 53-gamer Brown and ex-St Kilda utility Theodore, who had notched 134 matches with the Saints, came with impressive resumes and made their mark for Colac-Coragulac.
Others went onto bigger things after the '85 decider.
South Warrnambool had five under 18 players take to the field - Wayne Schwass, Richard Umbers, Chris Holmes, Anderson and Owen.
Four of them moved into VFL-AFL ranks - four at league level and one in the reserves.
Schwass was the pick of them with 282 games, a North Melbourne premiership and best and fairests at both the Kangaroos and Sydney.
"It was pretty special. I always laugh, the other four went onto play at AFL-VFL level and I went to district league," Owen, who moved to Russells Creek in his late teens, said.
"I probably sneaked into that team, I played about 12 senior games and I reckon the others were more consistent over the whole season."
Owen, who is a Warrnambool Surf Lifesaving Club life member, hung up the boots after suffering a compound fracture in his leg at 19.
"The plastic surgeon, I can remember at the time, said 'you'll definitely go back and play' and I said 'no, I won't'," he said.
"They took stomach muscle out, bone off my hip and skin off my thigh. It probably took 12 months to get over. They said it was the equivalent of a motorbike accident."
The 1985 bloodbath is part of Hampden league folklore but the fiery tensions were doused long ago. Opponents became teammates.
Robinson played with South opponents at interleague level and Brown and Owen have worked together for a long period of time at Warrnambool's Emmanuel College.
"We got to know more of the South Warrnambool blokes a few years later with interleague football, blokes like Jock O'Connor, John 'Goose' Maguire and Lyle Johnson," Robinson said.
"They were as good as any blokes you'd meet when you're involved in football."
Owen said Brown had made a positive impact on south-west footballers across more than three decades.
"Browny is really easygoing, a great guy. He might be one of those white line fever guys," he joked.
"He is a lovely guy off the field and he'd be in the zone once he gets on the oval."
