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CHAPTER 1
Clive Churchill
Full name Clive Bernard Churchill
Birth date 21 January 1927 (died 9
August 1985)
Place of birth Newcastle, New South Wales
Nickname/s The Little Master, Tigger
Major teams South Sydney, Northern Suburbs (Brisbane), New South Wales, Queensland,
Australia
Position Fullback
Immortals year of induction 1981
Clive Churchill has repeatedly been known as 'The Little Master' and rated as being the greatest player in rugby league history.
Rugby League Week (1991) and The Daily Telegraph (2000) ranked Churchill number one in the list of the game's so-called greatest players, and in 2008 he was named fullback in the Australian Rugby League (ARL) Team of the Century. In The Sydney Morning Herald, South Sydney committeeman Jack Purcell said that Churchill's nickname came from 'The Master' himself: 'Dally Messenger was with Clive at the SCG one day and they passed under the famous photograph of Dally that hung in the members bar. Dally pointed to the words "The Master" under his photograph and said, "If I'm The Master, you're The Little Master."'
Churchill was exceptionally gifted at what sounds like basic aspects: running, passing, kicking and tackling. But, moreover, he was 'fast, elusive, tough, unpredictable', as Collis and Whiticker commented in Rugby League: 100 years in pictures. Churchill stood out, as he went above and beyond what was expected of fullbacks. Rather than merely defend from the back or become involved in a kicking duel, Churchill was adventurous and creative. He could turn defence into offence and was adept at chiming into the backline. With his ability to step, swerve and throw dummies, Churchill was a constant threat when he had the ball. While he set up a lot of tries, he was also a strong and uncompromising defender as he played above his weight, and he saved plenty of tries.
In That's Rugby League (McNeice and Collis, 1996), Churchill's club teammate and one-time Test teammate Bernie Purcell commented: 'He was a typical little man – a really cheeky little bugger on the field. I think it sums up all the great footballers, they're seconds in front of other players on the field and in that time they can do untold damage ... and he used to. He didn't give two hoots if they were big men, front-row forwards or anything.' Purcell said Churchill didn't like kicking duels and 'just couldn't get the distance' during one such duel with Newtown's Gordon Clifford in a club match. Then the Souths fullback turned around and kicked towards the Ladies' Stand. Purcell recounted: 'I said, What did you do that for? And he said the people are out here to watch us play football, not to kick to one another. Anyway, he said, Don't worry, we'll score a try instead ... we won the scrum, he came into the backline, gave it to [Ian] Moir and Moir raced 50 yards to score under the posts. He turned to me and said, "Isn't that better than kicking it to one another?"
'That's the sort of player he was.'
Veteran rugby league journalist Alan Clarkson, who went to secondary school with Churchill, reported in The Sydney Morning Herald in April 1985 when the league legend was fighting for his life: 'I have been following rugby league for more years than I care to remember and of all the players I have seen, I rate Clive Churchill as No I.
'There are no ifs and buts about that statement, no apologies to those who rank among the immortals of the game.
'Whatever they were to the game, their class, skill and flair pale in comparison to Churchill's.
'He was a football magician who mesmerised Sydney and international opponents for more than a decade.
'The real tragedy is that his incredible football exploits have never been really at any length on film. Present-day players and most rugby league followers probably believe people like me are exaggerating the marvellous and exciting feats of this man Churchill.
'There is always the danger with legends that the years will embellish their record and put an aura around them they do not deserve. But whatever has ever been said about Clive Churchill is true.
'He was, very simply, the greatest.'
Clarkson also echoed Bernie Purcell's sentiment that Churchill was cheeky. Clarkson deemed that Churchill was no angel, as he 'played the game as hard as he could' and often gave 'a bit more than he received. He lived his football life dangerously. Churchill rarely weighed more than 66kg yet hurled insults and raspberries at some of the biggest and toughest footballers of his era.' At http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/churchill-clive-bernard-12317, Bede Nairn reported that Churchill's 'mercurial side-stepping, swerving and changing of pace were spiced with gibes and gestures at his opponents in the style later made famous by the boxer Muhammad Ali'.
Intriguingly, try-scoring was not among Churchill's assets. He never scored a try in his 37 Tests for Australia, which is quite astonishing. Meanwhile, he crossed the stripe 13 times in his 164-game career for his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs. He didn't score a try for Souths from 1947 to 1950 before registering five tries in 1951, and in his last five years with the Rabbitohs he scored just three tries. While his lack of tries in no way diminished his worth as a player, it showed how different the fullback role was in his day compared with Billy Slater's day. Yet it will always be Churchill – rather than Slater or any other fullbacks, including Graeme Langlands – who is credited with revolutionising the role of rugby league fullbacks.
Churchill excelled as a five-eighth at Marist Brothers Hamilton in his schoolboy playing days, and won a number of premierships while at school. Like a lot of other youngsters he took to the field barefooted, but he still kicked goals from all sorts of distances and angles. Clarkson remarked in The Sydney Morning Herald: 'I remember going along to watch the school's nine-stone representative team play the final and Churchill cut the opposition to ribbons. A week later he backed up in another final, this time for the eight-stone team and despite protests from the opposition, played and ripped them apart to chalk up another win and at the same time earmark himself as something very special as a footballer.' Clarkson also recounted that Churchill was 'the king of the school; a football genius even at 15'. With the sports master insistent that his players must never tackle above the knees, 'Churchill developed his incredible tackling ability then and despite his lack of size, was one of the greatest front-on tacklers the game has seen', Clarkson wrote.
Still in his teens, Churchill joined the Central club in the Newcastle competition. He started at five-eighth but found his feet at fullback after being urged to play there. The future of the Central club was in jeopardy due to the imminent formation of Lakes United, and so Central decided that winning the 1946 reserve grade competition would help their cause. Central consequently stacked the team with first graders, and Churchill lined up at fullback in the star-studded team that went on to win the decider 10-6 against Waratah/Mayfield.
After being promoted to first grade for Central in 1947, Churchill represented Country Seconds and quickly found himself playing for South Sydney, having greatly impressed Sydney talent scouts. Churchill played in the last two rounds of the 1947 New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) season, with the Rabbitohs losing 25-20 to Newtown and beating Norths 19-14. Having failed to win a game in 1946, Souths also missed the 1947 and 1948 play-offs, but Churchill stamped himself one of the best in the business as he became an established Test player. Souths won the 1949 minor premiership but St George proved too good in that year's finals, beating Souths 16-12 in the first semi-final and 19-12 in the grand final.
The start of the 1950s heralded a golden era for the Rabbitohs and for Churchill. He was the NSWRL player of the year three times in four years, and The Sun-Herald best and fairest on another occasion. Souths won all bar one premiership from 1950 to 1955, and was desperately unlucky not to win the 1952 decider as well. Churchill missed the 1952 and 1955 grand finals, having been on a Kangaroo tour on the former occasion and injured on the latter occasion. Despite captaining Australia and sometimes NSW from 1950 to 1955, Churchill did not skipper his club until his final year as a player in Sydney – 1958 – as Jack Rayner was the Rabbitohs' captain-coach during the period of dominance.
In an early season match against St George at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in 1953, Churchill scored one of the best ever individual tries after he made the extra man following a scrum around Souths' quarter line. With a swerving run, sidestep and change of both direction and pace, Churchill beat multiple defenders before being hauled down five yards shy of the try line then having momentum carry him across for the try. Later in the game he was cautioned for rough play and, for the first time in his career, was sent off as he subsequently offended the linesman who reported him. In The Canberra Times, Churchill said he had told the linesman: 'You want to keep your eyes open.'
The champion fullback showed his prowess in the 1954 decider, which was the first compulsory grand final in the NSWRL club competition after grand finals had only been played in previous years if the minor premier lost a semi-final or final. Churchill was involved in the opening try of the decider when he fielded the ball from a Newtown kick and linked with Ian Moir, who swerved brilliantly on his way to the try line. With the Rabbitohs clinging to a 12-10 lead in the final 10 minutes, Churchill played a pivotal role in two quick tries to Les Cowie to swing the game Souths' way. Churchill chimed into the backline from the Souths side of halfway in the lead-up to Cowie's first three-pointer. In the lead-up to the next try, Churchill performed his regular deed of producing clever footwork to leave defenders in his wake. Although he lost his footing while finding open space, Churchill produced a clever pass to set up the try.
Despite Churchill missing the 1955 decider, Souths would not have been in the position to push for a grand final berth, let alone win the premiership, without some magic from 'The Little Master'. He gave no better example of living up to his nickname than he did in the penultimate round before the play-offs. The Rabbitohs had won only three of their first 10 matches of the season before winning six straight, but they still needed to topple the higher-placed Manly and St George to be able to reach the finals.
Souths' chances appeared shot when Churchill suffered a broken arm in the first six minutes against Manly. With replacements not allowed, Churchill braved intense pain as he played on. He received a painkilling injection at half-time, and bizarrely used cardboard for padding in the second half. Souths trailed by three points in the dying stages before a try in the corner levelled the score, but a draw would kill off the Rabbitohs' finals chances. The injured Churchill stepped up to take the sideline conversion attempt, and although he appeared to miscue his kick, the ball dropped over the crossbar to seal a two-point victory.
Churchill was unable to play again all year, but the Rabbitohs incredibly stretched their winning streak to 11 matches to take out the premiership. Many of Souths' wins involved overcoming a deficit in the second half, and Newtown lost a heart-stopping decider 12-11 when a tough and potentially match-winning penalty kick landed agonisingly beneath the crossbar as full-time loomed. Churchill's heroics in the second last round of the regular season were considered the focal point of Souths' unlikely surge to premiership glory. He had played in 99 successive representative matches, until he was mysteriously left out of the Sydney versus France match in 1955.
Souths came third in the next two years without making the grand final, as the Dragons began their run of 11 straight premierships. Rayner's retirement after the 1957 season paved the way for Churchill to take on the captain-coach role, but 1958 was a disappointing year for the Rabbitohs. They came eighth in the 10-team competition, having lost 53-8 to Wests in June and 40-4 to a champion St George outfit in the final round. Churchill parted ways with the Rabbitohs at the end of 1958, as he was unhappy that his bonus was halved; he took up an offer with Brisbane Norths. The Nundah club won the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL) premiership, despite Churchill missing the finals series due to coaching the Kangaroos in their tour of England and France.
Returning to NSW, Churchill co-coached Moree in the latter part of 1960, with Moree winning the Group 5 grand final against Armidale. Churchill took on the captain-coach role at Moree in 1961, his last year as a player; Moree reached the grand final but went down 22-8 to Warialda. According to Moree rugby league stalwart Alf Scott, every Group 5 match featuring Churchill drew a crowd as if it were a grand final. Scott remarked in the Moree Champion: 'When Clive Churchill was here every time we used to have a home game, people would park their cars at the ground at 6am so they had a good seat for the game and it didn't matter who we were playing.'
Churchill was yet to take part in an interstate series involving NSW and Queensland when he made his Test debut in 1948. Noel Pidding played at fullback as Australia squandered a winnable position in the first Test, which New Zealand won 21-19, before Churchill was brought in for the second and final Test, which Australia won 13-4 in Brisbane. It was the first of Churchill's 37 Test appearances, which included three matches in the 1954 World Cup. Having played in Australia's 3-0 Ashes series loss in 1948-49, Churchill and his teammates had the small satisfaction of winning the two Tests in France. In 1949, Churchill was in another drawn series with the Kiwis after Australia again lost the first Test. In 1950, Churchill was appointed captain of his country at the age of 23. Australian selectors could not settle on a long-term captain, trying out Joe Jorgenson, Ron Bailey, Len Smith, Wally O'Connell, Bill Tyquin, Col Maxwell and Keith Froome in the role between 1946 and 1949. NSW captain Johnny Hawke appeared next in line, but injury forced him out of the 1950 Ashes.
As fate would have it, Churchill reached the grandest of heights when he led his country to its first Ashes series win in 30 years. The signs weren't good, as Australia lost the first Test 6-4 in appalling conditions at the SCG, with the rub of the green going Great Britain's way a number of times. Australia had much better luck in the Brisbane Test as the tourists had a few tries disallowed and had two players sent off for dissent in the final 20 minutes.
Australia's 15-3 victory in Brisbane set up a decider in Sydney, where conditions were again atrocious following heavy rain. A heap of river sand was spread between the quarter lines, but further rain fell on the morning of the match. Churchill and opposing captain Ernest Ward landed a goal each before Ron Roberts scored for the hosts with 14 minutes left, and Australia hung on to win 5-2 in the bog hole-like conditions. Churchill's contribution was not as conspicuous as that of Roberts, but 'The Little Master' produced a copybook head-on tackle below the knees to halt a charging Ernie Ashcroft. Teammates Keith Holman and Jack Troy chaired their skipper off the field, the players being caked in mud. It was a special moment in Australian sport, and occurred two years after Australia's Invincibles cricketers had an undefeated tour of England.
Unfortunately for Churchill, Australia won only one more series and lost six under his captaincy. He led his country to 11 wins and 16 losses, including two losses and a win in the 1954 World Cup. It was not until 2009 that his record number of 27 Tests as captain was overtaken, by Darren Lockyer. Despite his substandard results as Test captain, Churchill's tenacity and durability were commendable nonetheless, and rarely if ever did he deserve to be singled out as a scapegoat for an Australian defeat.
Plenty of the losses must have hurt, however. In 1951, Australia lost a series to France for the first time as the touring French team won the deciding Test 35-14, which was Australia's biggest Test defeat at the time. Churchill was overshadowed by diminutive French fullback and captain Puig-Aubert, a feeble tackler but fine kicker who tallied 18 goals in the three-match series. At home against New Zealand in 1952 and away against France in 1952-53, Australia squandered a 1-0 series lead. The second Test against the Kiwis in 1952 was particularly embarrassing for the Australians, as they were crushed 49-25 in Brisbane. The 24-point margin has since remained the biggest loss by an Australian Test team. In away series against Great Britain in 1952 and New Zealand in 1953, Australia lost the first two Tests before winning the dead rubber.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Immortals of Australian Rugby League"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Liam Hauser.
Excerpted by permission of Rockpool Publishing.
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