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Formation, Failure and "the Professional Viper" (1883-1913)
Formation, Failure and "the Professional Viper" (1883-1913)
Peter Bowers, 2012
This is the first article in a seven-week series on Manly Rugby history. If you were involved in a Grand-Final win or another interesting event and would like to contribute, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Manly Rugby Football Club has a colourful and fascinating history. The early days involved some funny laws, a fierce annual meeting and an angry Council inspector.
Rugby Union was first officially played in the Manly area in 1883 when the 'Manly Beach Football Club' (no, not soccer) announced its formation in local newspapers.
The Manly Club as we now know it was formed in the summer of 1905-06 when what had been a junior club, 'the Manly Federals Football Club' (again, not soccer but rugby), informally merged with Beaches.
In the same summer, Beaches re-named themselves 'Manly District Rugby Union Football Club' and legend has it the Federals contributed the uniform—white jerseys with red collars and cuffs—to the new club, while Beaches contributed the home ground of Manly Oval.
After many attempts, Manly DRUFC was invited to join the First Grade Sydney rugby union competition in April 1906. Success on the field was still a fair way off.
Manly played their first game against the now extinct Newtown, losing 14-0.
While most rugby fans today would glance at the score line and assume two converted tries were the difference, one must remember the different scoring system.
A try, penalty or "goal from mark" were worth 3 points, while a conversion was 2 and a dropped goal 4.
Some old-ish rugger-buggers still argue tries were worth 3 points in the good old days (around 1894-1970) because "try" means three (triple, triathlon, tricycle, triangle, etc).
This is wrong, however, for in the good old days rugby players could spell ("try", not "tri").
In reality, a "try" comes from the earliest rugby games (1871-1885) when a touchdown meant a team could "try" to kick a goal.
Another interesting difference between the game Manly played in 1906 and the one they do today is the "goal from mark". A player who shouted "mark" as he caught the ball from an opposition kick was awarded a free-kick and could take a kick at goal.
These days' marks can only be taken within a team's 22m area and goals cannot be scored from free-kicks.
The mark has developed differently in other Australian football codes. It has become central to Australian Rules, and completely abolished in Rugby League.
Speaking of which, there was tension brewing in 1908 when Sydney encountered a new sport that paid their players.
This was of course Rugby League; a game born in Northern England in 1895 and exported to Australia already bereft of lineouts, rucks and flankers.
The Daily Telegraph reported on 23 March 1908, "The most successful Rugby (union) football meeting ever held in Manly took place in the village on Friday evening [20 March, 1908]".
There was an unusually high attendance with supporters and players coming to contribute "spontaneous applause" and even "outbursts of cheering".
The cheering was largely in support of a visiting Rugby Union official Mr H. D. L. Woods who the Daily Telegraph reported saying, "He need not remind them that professionalism had killed eventually every branch of sport into which it had been introduced.
"They must fight this 'viper' (applause) and beat its attacks back out of reach of their fine game of Rugby football."
Over 80 years later in 1995, our fine game also became professional. No killings were recorded.
An interesting observation in the Daily Telegraph is its reference to "the village" of Manly, which was quite common in the media of the day. People from Manly were "villagers" and Manly Oval was "the village green".
Most other clubs came from what we now consider inner-city areas, so Manly must have seemed almost rural.
While we no longer consider ourselves "villagers", Manly Oval is still widely known as "the village green".
In the early days, the village green looked nothing like it does today. The ground had a different pavilion, which was built in 1910 and called "the best pavilion" in Sydney by the Mayor of Manly.
From 1911 a Tramway looped around the Oval, and provided transport to and from the Spit every 30 minutes. The tramway no longer remains, but transportation problems from the Spit do.
In 1911 the village green made news again when it hosted an illegal rugby game.
The Council had forbid people entering the playing area during matches, however, some "youths" entered the field with a ball at halftime for their own game.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on May 23, 1911, "The council's inspector fought hard to get possession of the ball, and his sprints at times caused great merriment".
"The one solitary policeman present looked on and smiled helplessly."
As soon as the real players returned to the field, the "youths" disappeared and resumed spectating.
During today's halftimes, Manly Oval resonates with enthusiasm and exuberance as hundreds of kids run, kick and tackle on the village green.
Manly Rugby had truly humble beginnings. They finished their first two seasons at the bottom of the ladder (1906-07), steadily improved for the next few years until they peaked at third in 1911 and returned to the bottom in 1914.
Manly has probably never had as good an excuse for losing as the one they did in 1914. Find out why in the next article on Manly Rugby history.
It was a long road to victory, but victory was coming.