HONOURING the past is part of the Carlton fabric – from as far back as 1864 when men of stature first convened to form a football club and field a team whose players would soon enough contest the Challenge Cup, through to the 21st century model which now includes the Game Changers.

It is here that the Longford Football Club in the Northern Tasmanian Football Association is to be commended for respecting its own history, in celebration of the life and legacy of the 125-game Carlton forward and 1947 premiership player Frederick James ‘Mulga’ Davies.

More than 100 years after his birth in the Victorian south-eastern suburb of Seaford - and 75 after booting four goals from a pocket in that one-point drought-breaking Grand Final triumph over Essendon - Fred Davies’ enormous contributions to Longford are to be formally recognised with the naming of the Fred Davies Memorial Ground.

A mural featuring a wonderful image of Davies being chaired off the field by his premiership-winning Longford teammates has been installed by the main entrance to the ground. The mural carries a timeline of Davies’s life and sporting legacy – beginning with his Carlton senior debut as a 19 year-old in 1941, his four years of wartime service through to ’46 and of course the ultimate victory of ’47 on the mighty MCG.

Prominently acknowledged across the mural’s vast expanses are Davies’ equally considerable contributions to Longford, which until his appointment as captain-coach in 1955, had not won a Grand Final in almost 30 years since it first competed in the NTFA. Under his watch, the Tasmanian Tigers landed their history-making inaugural premiership in that very season, and followed up with Grand Final triumphs in 1957 (a Tasmanian State Premiership year) and ’58 – the latter completing the perfect end to Davies’s storied career as a 100-game Longford player.

Davies’s tragic and untimely passing from cancer - a day short of his 40th birthday in August 1961 - is also recorded on the mural, as is his posthumous naming as captain-coach and first ruck in Longford’s Team of the 20th Century – an outfit which includes in its starting 18 the former St Kilda and Richmond footballers Barry Lawrence and Michael Roach.

Also recognised is Davies’s late son Ian, who represented the Australian men’s basketball team with distinction at the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympiads, is also acknowledged.

The man accredited with the preservation of the Davies legacy at Longford is Neil Kearney - the respected newspaper and television journalist, and an old schoolmate of Ian’s in the northern Tasmania midlands town.

Five years ago, Kearney, to his eternal credit, led the successful push for the local North Midlands Council to respect Davies’ legacy and save the old wooden ‘Mulga Fred’ Davies Memorial Grandstand from imminent demolition. 

At the time Kearney remarked: “I shudder at the thought of losing this tangible link with the club’s golden era. The grandstand is hardly an architectural gem, but it is dedicated to ‘Mulga Fred’ and it stands as a reminder of the time when our country town boasted the best football team in Tasmania.

“The old grandstand was built more than 50 years ago, and it’s carried Fred’s name for the past 20. It was earmarked for demolition two or three years ago, and it was only days from execution,” Kearney said recently.

“I remember writing that the demolition would amount to an act of vandalism, and it would be a travesty to knock it over. It was only then that former players came out of the woodwork and the old stand was saved.”

For Kearney, protecting the 50 year-old grandstand from the wrecking ball was but part of a personal campaign to keep the Davies flame aflicker.

“The funny part of the story is that I’ve been involved with the Longford Football club all my life. As kids, Ian Davies and I spent every waking hour kicking a footy on that ground,” Kearney said.

“Since Fred took Longford to those triumphs in the ’50s, Longford hasn’t won a Premiership in the NTFA and throughout the years there’s always been this feeling of ‘Don’t talk too much about the Fred Davies era, because it diminishes what today’s club is trying to achieve’.

“But it’s now got to the point where, 60 years on, only a handful of players coached by Fred are still living, and Fred Davies was the greatest man the town ever had. He was a man who was truly respected and loved by the Longford people.”

For Kearney, it was a no-brainer. As he said: “Fred Davies had the most significant impact on Longford of any person in the town’s history. He transformed a mob of mostly farm boys into an irresistible force, winning the NTFA premiership in 1955, the State premiership in 1957, and another NTFA title in 1958”.

With the formal opening of the Fred Davies Memorial Ground fast approaching, and the old grandstand still in place, Kearney can now rest easy. As the local boy proudly declared: “What it now means is that the name of Fred Davies will live on at Longford forever . . . and so will Ian’s hopefully”.

The following poem can be found on a wall of the Longford clubroom:

Mulga Fred

Some years ago to Longford town,
There came a man of high renown,
He came in answer to the call,
To teach our boys to play football,
Come at once the letter read,
That’s how Longford came by “Mulga Fred”.

Now “Mulga Fred” had learned the game,
With a famous club o’er the rolling main,
In Carlton rooms from whence he came,
his name was etched in the hall of fame.

Now “Mulga Fred” quickly settled down,
In that lovely little country town,
A flag it will my mission be,
I’ll not stop this side of victory.

So the years rolled one by one,
Thru’ a lot of work and a lot of fun,
He oft’ times thinks of the job he’s done,
Of a mission filled and flags well won.

Now we recall as the sun goes down,
Of a man who came to Longford town,
A man of high renown they said,
A man we knew as “Mulga Fred”.

We think of the teams he led,
We think of the things he said,
We remember of that letter read
And say with pride: Thanks Mulga Fred”.