Ian Major called the football with Jack Dyer during the 1970's and 1980's at radio station 3KZ. He was a very good game caller and a fine match up with Jack Dyer. Their catchphrases were "The Captain and the Major" and then "And 3KZ is football"
Back in the mid 1970's when I first began to understand it all- radio in Melbourne was so completely different. There was no FM radio only AM radio. The stations were as I recalled them - 3LO, 3DB, 3UZ, 3KZ, 3GL. 3XY, 3AK, maybe a few more that I have overlooked- but they were the mainstream ones.
3XY was for popular music, 3AK was beautiful music, 3GL was the Geelong station, 3DB and 3UZ called the races, 3LO as it is now. 3KZ was a middle of the road radio station (not that I heard them ever play Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep Cheep)
Anyhow back on the football side of things- 6 games on a Saturday just about every week until 1982. If you couldn't go to the match- chances are if Geelong wasn't Footscray's opponent then you may not hear them at all, or they would be 2nd fiddle to the races, should they be on 3DB or 3UZ.
So I would eagerly await Thursday's Green Guide in the AGE Newspaper and it would announce what games were on the television Saturday night and also give the radio descriptions for Saturday. You hoped that we would be on say ABC 3LO- (which had no advertisments- though race caller Joe Brown would do the Melbourne races during games I think for memory?) 3AW with Harry Beitzel, Bill Jacobs and Tommy Lahiff. Bill Jacobs would be on telly next day at the VFA on Channel 0 (then it became Channel 10 circa 1980)
3DB was the racing station with Bill Collins and 3UZ also did races- with John Russell?( I think Bert Bryant may have retired by then)
So your preference was to be on 3AW, 3LO or 3KZ with Ian Major and "Captain Blood" Jack Dyer.
Now if you went to every game it didn't matter if the Footscray game was on 3DB, but if you were sick or no grown ups could be bothered to take you to Waverley, Moorabbin etc then you had to make do with the radio. No pay tv, no internet, no mobile phones in those days- you had to endure the radio and its limitations.
My old man didn't bother going to the Fitzroy v Footscray game at the Junction Oval in 1980. He stayed home and listened to it on the radio, no doubt flicking between the racing channel and 3KZ who were covering that game. I went with my aunt and cousin (his sister and her daughter) Well he missed out on a win- the first Footscray win for the season- in ROUND 11!!! The Bulldogs had been beaten in every game of 1980 up to that day- 11 consecutive defeats and 15 in a row if you want to count the 4 losses from the end of 1979.
Well when we jubilantly arrived back home we gave him a bit of good natured roasting for bailing out - the old man telling us all about what Jack Dyer and Ian Major has been informing him on the radio.
"Look at all those thousands of Footscray fans here- I didn't know they had so many" exclaimed Jack Dyer describing the crowd invasion of the Junction Oval at the end of the game- which the old man relayed to us. Shane Loveless kicked 8 this match- Kelvin Templeton would have got Brownlow votes for sure. The old man then had a go at me for bailing out earlier in the year when I stopped watching the Footscray v North Melbourne game at the SCG- yes SCG not MCG- we played a home game against them in 1980 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
" Now wait on I have a bone to pick with you- that game on telly against North- you took off and on your bike and went around to your mates' house round the block while I sat here and copped watching them disgrace us (we lost by 122 points
) So don't have a go at me" ( By the way I am still mates with these two brothers now- 29 years later) So that was one day when Ian Major brought good news- my old man always liked him and was always (laughingly) frustrated with Jack Dyer and how you didn't know what the score was or were the ball was.
Some years later I finally saw a picture of Ian Major- he looked nothing like what I thought he would look like! Then the old man told me that he was a Footscray man- I was excited by this as there seemed to to be few Footscray supporters in the media in those days.
Geelong has their own radio station and then finally we did to in 1993, when Harry Beizel returned calling games for the 3WRB FM Community Station. A year or so later Ian Major came on board- which was fantastic, a Footscray bloke calling Footscray games.
After the end of season 1996 the club changed as we all know and the great initiatives between 1990-1996 fell away as the club lost its soul in my view.
Anyhow I remember those exciting go ahead years at the club of 1990 up to 1996 and the thrill of having our own radio station and the selectors table on the radio- new additions that showed how Footscray was a forward thinking club and embracing its local community. Ian Major was a part of it- blokes like Harry Beitzel, Graham Dawson, Laurie Sandilands and the The Major now calling for a Footscray radio station rather than other stations calling Footscray games as those men did in the past with 3AW. 3LO and of course 3KZ.
He was great caller Ian Major- a Footscray supporter from the Western Suburbs who kicked on to legend status in Melbourne radio. Thanks for it all- 65 way too young.
