Brothers in arms

Mo Monckton reflects on the great days of his time at the Pakenham Football Club. 169169 Picture: DAVID NAGEL

By David Nagel

It’s doubtful there’s been a more iconic sporting image taken in the 100 years since the Thomas family of Pakenham moved its business to the Main Street of town in 1917.
Two families, 11 siblings of the Bourkes and Moncktons, and a newspaper -the Gazette – that would all grow to become palpable parts of the fabric of this great town and its nearby surrounds.
And the only two survivors from this magnificent image, taken of the Pakenham football team of 1955, encapsulate the very essence of a football club.
A wide cross-section of the community comes together to share an undying love for the greatest game on earth – perfect.
On the extreme left is now 80-year-old Michael Bourke, a white collar practitioner of medicine. A doctor who has delivered great news over the years but also wiped the smiles from faces – like the joyous 11 that adorn this photo.
Second from right is Mo Monckton, an 83-year-old concreter who still rises to earn a quid to this very day.
“And I’ll keep working until I fall arse-over-head and can’t get back up again,” Mo says, followed by a raspy giggle, from his Pakenham home last week.
Mo Monckton is a character, as hard and as tough as the coarse aggregate he still bonds together each day, and as character filled as the houses that get built upon those slabs.
From his rough veneer, which includes a right hand minus the top knuckle on his middle finger courtesy of a saw-mill accident on May 5, 1955 – or “the fifth of the fifth, ’55” as Mo likes to put it – to that rebellious sparkle in his eyes, and the cheeky grin that would have saluted a million wisecracks over the years.
And his memory and wit, well they’re as sharp as ever as he works his way through the photo from right to left, starting with his brother Doug.
“All of them are gone you know, bar me,” he says, pointing to his brothers, from right, Doug, Frank, Mick and Pat.
“Doug was playing senior football at Pakenham at 14, full back, he could kick the ball from the goal square into the middle of the ground, he was a beautiful kick,” Mo remembered.
“He missed five or six games with a broken collarbone that year and still came runner up in the West Gippsland best and fairest – he went to Richmond. Frank was the youngest one of our family, and he looks it too doesn’t he, and Mick … yeah Mick.”
People who know the Moncktons, ever since they moved to town from Cobram in 1949, say Mick’s death hit them hard.
“Mick and Tommy Goldsack were working in a pit in Officer, a wheel came off a passing truck and the wheel hit him and he died, he was only about 24 or 25,” Mo said, before quickly moving his index finger to Pat and tapping it a few times.
“Pat was only five foot one but he would beat any full-forward. Remember Frosty Miller? He couldn’t get a kick against Pat. Our coach (Ray) ‘Cracker’ Jackson told him that the only thing stopping him from playing league footy was that he was too short.
“Looking at this brings back a lot of memories. We knew everything about each other the two families, if a blue started the rest of us would protect the other, it was like family, you hurt our family, we hurt you.”
Mo had a reputation for being a hard man, and if anyone touched one of his siblings … lookout.
“I was 19th man at Cora Lynn one day, had the dressing gown on and was walking around the boundary when Matty Cunningham, who had just got back to Cora Lynn from Fitzroy, elbowed my brother Pat,” Mo said.
“I was waiting for something to happen, you know, for someone to sort him out, but no bastard did anything. So I threw the dressing gown off, jumped over the fence and I was after him, and she was on, an all-in blue. I couldn’t catch the bastard because everyone got in the way.”
He also remembers having an accidental run in with his former Pakenham coach Billy Drake after Drake’s transfer to Nar Nar Goon.
“Drakey told us if you play football, you don’t care who the person is you’re playing against, it’s all about the jumper you’re playing in, for Pakenham against his team, and that was the most important thing,” he said.
“He went to Nar Nar Goon and they were going real good, he was coming down the ground, I’m coming this way, Pat’s coming the other way and we hit him, and we broke the poor bastard’s collarbone. He was fine with it after the match; he said it was my job to stop him when I did.”
He also remembers games against Yarragon as being particularly spiteful.
“Games against Yarragon were always a blood bath,” he said.
“A bloke from Yarragon had a reputation as a sniper, he hit Bobby Knight and Bobby got up and chased him and they ended up running out of the ground and ending up near the bloody highway,” he laughed.
Mo has always been a hard worker, and even a bout of leukaemia over the last five years hasn’t slowed him down. He and his crew pour two house slabs per week and he shows no signs of stopping.
“The reason I keep going is if I stop working I’ll get sick, or at the very least go backwards,” he said.
“During hay season, it was up at 4am, cart hay until quarter to seven, have breakfast, work at the sawmill, knock off at four and then back in the paddocks until 11pm,” he said.
“That happened right through the hay season. At the end of it we had enough money to go on a holiday, pay our insurances, buy all the kids their books for school; it’s just what we did.”
Mo said looking at the old corrugated iron change rooms brought back some memories.
“The old Rec Reserve used to get very wet and muddy and at the end of the game we all used to run like buggery to get into the sheds first, because if got in first you got a hot shower, and if you didn’t you got a cold one,” he said.
“We didn’t have to walk down the main street to get to training; you could just cut through the paddocks at the back of the shops. When I was working in Gippsland I used to travel from Bairnsdale to Pakenham on Friday night, play football on Saturday, and then go back on Sunday, I only did it because I loved it, you wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He and his wife still live in the same place they bought for 300 pounds in the same year they got married in 1955, 300 metres from the post office at the train station end of Bald Hill Road. A house a stone’s throw away from the then Gazette office and where they brought up their five boys Daniel, Neale, Trevor, Steven and David. They now have nine grandsons, two granddaughters, 14 great grandchildren and another on the way.
They’ve had very good offers to sell, but there’s a slight problem.
“I would have to go and buy some acres, because I’ve got that much shit, bloody trucks, timber, everything, I couldn’t move to another house like this again,” he said
“And you know what; I don’t think we really want to move anyway.”
Mo finished his football career at age 35 before coaching juniors at both Cora Lynn and Pakenham, where he coached a junior side to a premiership.
Winning premierships was a way of life for the Bourke family of Pakenham.
Michael Bourke has lived in Leongatha for the last 50 years but still has a lasting memory of that unique side from 1955.
“I feel very proud whenever I look at that photo,” the 80-year-old told the Gazette.
“I’ve got it hanging up on the wall here at home and it always brings back some great memories. If you loved sport you were always at the football club, watching our heroes like Norm ‘Widow’ Jackson and Ray ‘Cracker’ Jackson.
“Peter Ronald, he was a famous face around town and played full back at Pakenham. My brother David was the first of our generation to play for Pakenham, in 1949 I think, and from that point forward there was always a Bourke in the team.”
Bourke said the football club had a special way of bringing the community together.
“Whenever a new person came into town the first question we would ask would always be ‘Do you play football,” he said.
“A man called Paddy O’Brien, he came to town and worked in the bank, stayed at Purves Pub and almost became part of the Purves family. He played football and that made him a big part of the town back in those days. Everyone knew everyone quite quickly back then. It was good, we were a strong team, hard to beat but Drouin was always our nemesis.”
Bourke recalls the Pakenham Gazette as being a weekly staple of the football diet.
“The football club was certainly an important part of the culture of the town, everyone followed it closely and all the players couldn’t wait to get the Gazette during the week,” he said.
“Even when I moved to Leongatha, my brother David would make sure he sent me a copy each week. The Thomas family, Herb and then Ian, they were very committed to covering local sport.”