Jack Wilson Forsook Aussie Rules for Round Ball Code

By Joe Galli - Sports Novels, June 1950 (Edited version)

Local boys don't always make good in sport, but Jack Wilson (pictured on the right playing for Victoria) of Middle Park is one who did this year.

Of the three Victorians chosen to represent Australia in the present soccer tour of South Africa, Wilson was the only 'native son.' His team mates - Tom Jack and Doug Kennedy - are both Scottish born, and both learned their football there. (Kennedy later withdrew due to family responsibilities)

John Ronald Wilson, to give him his full name, has been kicking the spherical soccer ball around from just about the time he could stand on his own two feet.

Upon learning that, it was no surprise to hear Wilson murmur : "I love this game above all other forms of sport."

To most people living in the very citadel of the lusty "Rules" game (and especially when its within hailing distance of the "Swans" - South Melbourne - headquarters on the banks of the Albert Park Lake), it might be hard to imagine an Australian born lad so completely wrapped up in soccer - a foreign game to some locals.

Jack Wilson is one of many Australian boys, who have played competitive soccer for ten years. He has played Aussie Rules too. He knows what he wants, and which game he prefers.

And here's something else to chew the rag over.

Wilson's wife was a die hard Aussie Rules follower before she met her now famous husband, but you couldn't kid her to go see a game these days - not even if you flew into the ground aboard a helicopter and had luxurious plush seats, afternoon tea, and what else on hand for her. No not even to see her cousin Don McKenzie play for the Redlegs - Melbourne, whose home pitch is the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

"Bonnie, besides being my greatest fan, is also my severest critic", Wilson told me. "She sees every game I play and always tells me exactly how I performed."

"Infact", he added, "she is the first one I ask about my form"

Obviously a happy couple, I cannot imagine either of them getting 'het-up' over any lapses of form on Jack's part - although women do tend to take these things seriously.

"My wife is every bit as keen as I am about the game now, and she knows as much about it as anyone else: said Wilson admiringly.

One thing Jack's wife doesn't have to worry about is what to give him for lunch before a match, for, believe it or not, he is one footballer who eats nothing at all in Saturdays during the winter months.

"Why so Jack" I asked.

"I just can't eat anything on playing days because I am very nervous until the gam,e gets underway, " replied Wilson, in so calm and phlegmatic a manner, that I still couldn't credit it.

"You don't look the nervous type," I thought aloud.

"Maybe not", said Jack, "but every Saturday morning it's the same thing - that jittery feeling in the pit of the stomach."

"Many footballers and other sportsmen, engaged in strenuous games refuse to have liquids on the day of competition, Jack how about you?"

"In that regard I am terribly unorthodox and I suppose break all the rules in the book on training. I have several cups of tea," was Wilson's reply.

Yet on that strange diet he plays a strenuous 90 minutes of football in the afternoon, after which he has a real solid dinner - and no wonder.

"Jacky" has lived in Melbourne's close handy bayside suburb of Middle Park all his life. He was born there 25 years ago (on August 16, 1925), was educated there, married there, learned to play soccer there, and his team's headquarters are only a few minutes walk from his home.

In short, Wilson's life has always centred around Middle Park. He is a real local boy who loves his own district.

There was an exception of course, when he did a 4 year stint with the Navy as a signal man and saw active service on a number of small ships.

Now a strapping fair-haired youth standing 5ft 9in tall and weighing 10st 10lbs, Wilson got his soccer enthusiasm from a father who'd played the game in England, and three brothers - all of whom played with Middle Park before the war forced them to quit.

At school Wilson had to play Australian Rules, but at the age of 14 he rebelled and formed a schoolboy club of his own.

This club played on Saturday mornings, so that Jack, who meantime had joined South Melbourne united, a junior team, had another dose of football in the afternoon, as a curtain raiser, then spent the rest of the day watching the big fellows in action.

"I guess I learned a lot that way," was Wilson's laconic comment to my opinion that that was a lot of soccer for a small boy. It was his first taste of the real thing, and the more he had the more he wanted.

After the war, South Melbourne United, which had earlier established a mighty record by winning the Junior Cup four years in a row with Jack as captain, was not reformed and he joined a new club - Park Rangers - with whom he now plays in the 1st Division of the Victoria Soccer Association's League Competition.

Jack's position is inside-left, "I'm just about useless elsewhere," he explained with pointed finality.

Wilson has risen to the top rank of soccer with the suddenness so peculiar in sport. He moved fats once the break came.

Last year was his first as a representative footballer. He was invited to play in the state trials and showed such form that he was selected to play for Victoria in the international match against the touring Yugoslavia team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Jack is still proud that he was a member of that doughty team, because they tied the visitors after the latter had sliced victoriously through their earlier opponents in NSW and Queensland, supposedly the stronger states.

Then he played for Australian Eleven at Adelaide, but there the Yugoslavs scored another crushing success.

Jack Wilson has now earned the greatest possible honour in being chosen to play for Australia abroad.

"My selection came as a big shock," Jack told me, "although I knew my name was among those nominated by Victoria."

Wilson, although right-handed, is a left foot kick.

"It's a family characteristic, " he said, "as my father and brothers (Roger and Joe) also kicked left foot."

Park Rangers, although they have never finished top of the Victorian League ladder have carried off the Dockerty Cup during the past two years. And before that in 1947 they were runners-up.

"By a strange coincidence", said Jack, "South Yarra were our opponents in all three Cup finals. This I believe is a record for Australia, if not the world."

Wilson says that these Cup games are of a vastly different nature to the ordinary home and away matches. "It's a far more vigorous type of football, Jack explained, "and the atmosphere is sometimes terrifyingly tense, which is natural enough, because there is no second chance for the losing team."

Jack hasn't played Aussie Rules since he was a schoolboy, but he did follow it for a few years during the war. "When soccer faded out temporarily in those years, I became a Jack Dyer fan and I saw as amny games that the 'Tigers' played in as my service duties permitted. However, I think there are far too many rules in the Australian game, which make for too many hold-ups and very crowded play. Also the failure to bring in the 'order off' rule frequently means that a good man is victimised by a 'basher' who doesn't worry about disqualification. Ofcourse there is no denying the fact that Rules is a spectacular game, but it does lack the science of soccer."

Wilson, keen on his sport, trains three times a week - Tuesday and Thursday evenings and again on Sumday mornings. He neither drinks nor smokes and doesn't fuss about what he eats - his wife is the best judge of whats good for him.

Jack is grateful to his teammates for the support they have given him on his way up the ladder to soccer fame and also to coach Frank Thorpe, who unfortunately had to give up his post with Park Rangers this year.

"Frank has had a wonderful coaching record in Victoria and I know I owe my ability to his solidity. He's had our team wonderfully fit during the past three years, which is why we have had such outstanding success in our quest for the Cup."

Jack has a good many relatives in South Africa, so the trip should be a pleasant one for him. And they will be barracking for Australia too, providing Jack has taken over a goodly supply of fluffy koalas and kangaroos to bribe then with!

"I have Aunts in atleast two of our playing venues - Germanstown and Salisbury so there'll be more of a personal element in the barracking for me", added Jack.

Wilson, like several other soccer enthusiasts I have spoken to recently, is confident of the games future in Australia during the coming years.

"With so many migrants coming here soccer countries in Britain and Europe, we can look forward to a great expansion soon. There will be more tours by Australian teams abroad and more visits by overseas teams here. The next may be by an English team to Australia in 1951."

"Our big chance will be the 1956 Olympics, because forty or more countries will be represented, which will give the people here an opportunity of seeing many of the world's finest players in action. You know, that's another point in which soccer has the wood on Australian Rules. It's an international game, and we can dangle the prospect of international representation before the eyes of schoolboys, maybe with telling effect later on."

Jack Wilson, Australian, Victorian and Park Rangers' inside-left rates it a great thrill to be playing soccer for his country abroad, a sentiment echoed by any international sportsman you are likely to meet.

And Mrs Wilson, who'll be keeping the home fires burning, rates it an awfully high honour to be the wife of a sportsman wearing the green and gold of Australia abroad.