Given names of Grand Final coaches 1925-2020

Recently I was thinking about how the opposing coaches for the 2007 Grand Final had the same Christian or given name. These two men are actually both legally Marks, yet both of them are 95% of the time referred to as “Choco” and “Bomber”

Mark is not usually the first thought for either- they are just Choco and Bomber. This is so different from Tommy Hafey- he is always Tommy.  No one calls him ‘Haffers’ or ‘Hafe’ – he is always Tommy.

I pondered then in how many other Grand Final years, had the competing coaches sported the same given name? Naturally 1954 was the first Grand Final that came to mind for FNWB and it was even closer to home for me as two men that I have known since the beginning- I refer to as Uncle Charlie and Uncle Norm. Both of these men are Footscray supporters.

So the next step was to list all the other names, to discover the number of Grand Finals from 1925 that saw coaches with the same Christian name. I initially decided to start from 1954 onwards then extended the search back to the war, then to 1931 and the introduction of the Page- McIntyre System, before settling on 1925 when Footscray moved into the VFL from the VFA.  So missing out from the table and the images are the likes of Syd, Chris

The images above may hopefully explain most of the given names of men to have coached in Grand Finals from our first season in the Victorian Football League in 1925 through to the 2010 Grand Final draw and its replay.

So here are the coaches and their given names- presented in three situations.

(1)  Their genuine given name- James, John, Francis and Louis, rather than Jock, Jack, Checker and Billy

(2)  The more known used first name as in the second group of those four men above. There are some variations especially for blokes who coached in multiple Grand Finals.

(3) Is both names of the two competing coaches put together to make one full sounding name of a person. John Allan or John Thomas are two examples.

So here is the list, with different shadings. They change in 1931 as the Page-McIntyre finals system is implemented. One of the coaches in 1930 has different shading. The reason for this relates to how many Grand Final wins did James ‘Jock’ McHale actually coach.

Although most know of him as Ron, Norm Smith used to call Ronald Dale Barassi- Ronnie.
There is no particular placement in this initial chart as to which name is first or second. Also names that can be abbreviated usually are, particularly in the past- prime examples are Richard narrowing to Dick.
However one that wasn’t was Richmond’s Francis Bourke. He never was called ‘Frank’ Bourke and his 1982 rival has publically never been known as ‘Dave’

Barassi is on his own in all the Grand Finals that he was a coach in. For the last Saturday in September and the first Saturday of October 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978 for the purpose of this we could never have the Two Ronnie’s’

‘All we could get in VFL and AFL Grand Finals from 1925 to the upcoming next season of 2011 are the ‘Two Marks’

The longest serving V.F.L coach was Jock McHale who coached 8 Premierships teams during his tenure of 1913-1949. However whilst it was 8 Premierships, Jock was there in charge for 7 Grand Final wins. The 1930 Premiership was won with Jock McHale at home unwell dealing with a strong bout of the flu. One of Jock’s able assistants- Robert (Bob) Rush coached the team that afternoon against Geelong, so Robert and Bob is written there in that list instead of James and Jock. This was the last year before the much better Page-McIntyre finals system was implemented in 1931
Bob Rush incidentally had a roof named after him at Victoria Park. Exactly like what we had at Footscray, with our E. J. Smith stand in the outer, Collingwood had their roof in the outer that was known as the R.T. Rush Stand. The words ‘Stand’ is technically incorrect- as they were in essence glorified massive long roofs above terracing, rather that an actual Grandstand. Both the E. J. Smith and R. T. Rush stands/roofs no longer exist now. They were both still standing in 2005, but now just memories of the past.

Billy Jack	1933 Grand Final ‘Billy’ Schmidt (Richmond) Jack Bisset (South Melbourne) (Louis ‘Billy’ Schmidt)
John Edward	1961 Grand Final John Kennedy (Hawthorn) Edward Whitten (Footscray) (Teddy Whitten) (E.J Whitten)
Mal Michael	1992 &1994 Grand Final Malcolm Blight (Geelong) Michael Malthouse(West Coast)
Kevin Neale (Cowboy Neale)	2000 Grand Final Kevin Sheedy (Essendon) Neale Daniher(Melbourne)
Paul and John	2005 Grand Final Paul Roos (Sydney) John Worsfold (West Coast)
John and Paul	2006 Grand Final John Worsfold (West Coast) Paul Roos (Sydney)
Mark and Mark	2007 Grand Final Mark Thompson (Geelong) Mark Williams (Port Power) (Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson) (Mark ‘Choco’ Williams)

So who are the images and the given name connection?