Bloods ran forever in super-coach Fox’s veins
It was a circuitous journey for Alan McDonald to end up in central Victoria to play for --- and coach --- the South Bendigo Football Club.
Marriage to a Bendigo girl during World War 2 eventually led to a permanent home in central Victoria’s biggest city and a lifetime commitment to his beloved South Bendigo Football Club.
The Bloods’ five-time premiership coach was with then VFA cub Camberwell when he answered a 1940s Bendigo Addy hard-copy advertisement calling for a senior coach for South.
“I asked my wife Phyllis if she wanted to return to live in Bendigo and she nearly jumped off the floor in delight,” he told me, back in September 1995.
McDonald, known to BFL teammates and opponents alike as ‘The Fox’ because of his mastery of tactics and game plans, arrived at the QEO for South Bendigo in 1947 and spent the rest of his life here.
Alan was born in the tiny south Gippsland town of Meeniyan in June, 1918, and played senior footy when he was just 15.
He graduated to Leongatha in the Central Gippsland F.L. and went from there to then VFL club Richmond.
His Gippsland footy record included 30 senior games for Meeniyan (1934-36) and 40 matches with Leongatha (1937-38).
‘The Fox’ played 49 senior games overall with the Tigers in 1939-41 and again in the 1943 season, kicking eight goals in his outings in the black and yellow guernsey.
The Fox earned a best-on-ground performance in the 1940 grand final against Melbourne, won by the Dees 15.17 (107) to the Tigers 10.8 (68).
His VFL career was cut short through service in the Army during WW2 and then when peacetime resumed he spent two seasons with Camberwell.
And even though he went back to TigerLand to coach Richmond from 1957 to 1960 it was with South Bendigo he achieved legendary status.
From 1947 when McDonald took over as the Bloods’ senior coach until 1956 South Bendigo was never outside the Top Four and won five premierships: three of them consecutive flags from 1954-1956.
He played his 200th --- and farewell --- BFL game with South in the 1956 Big Dance.
But there was one thing which stood out in McDonald’s memory and recorded in my September ’95 interview in the Advertiser.
“I’ve noticed in recent years how small the gate takings are compared to my time.
“We used to get crowds of 16,000 to 17,000 to our grand finals. And I never thought crowds at Eaglehawk would get as low as they are now,” The Fox said.
“They always had a champion side when I was coaching, but now they’re ‘down to billy-oh’ compared to the crowds they’d get back in my day.”
As it turned out McDonald was spot-on with his mid-week prediction of the crowd the QEO would hold on grand final day, 1995.
“This grand final will bring back crowds to the vicinity of my day.
“I think it will be a really good game of footy and should bring a lot of people out of the woodwork.”
Although neither of us knew what would happen a few days later it turned out to be Kyneton’s flag.
In that interview of almost three decades back ‘The Fox’ was reluctant to compare South sides of the immediate post-war era with the Bloods teams of the 1990s.
He did remark, however, on the prevalence of handball these days compared with the period when he played and coached.
“You’d generally only handball when you were tackled --- or just before. You’d never handball to anyone when you were running and out in the open,” McDonald said.
That day back in 1995 ‘The Fox’ was keen to pass on his best wishes to the then South playing coach Peter Curran before the big game.
“He’s going for three premierships in a row. I’d like to meet him and wish him very well.
“After all records are made to be equalled and broken. Of course, it has to be said that South’s players don’t seem to be playing as well at this time of the year as they were last year.
“But I think it’s there. The improvement is there,” the master coach added.
Apart from that Sunday’s grand final with South matched up against Kyneton, McDonald was looking forward to a day earlier: the AFL preliminary final with his old cub Richmond up against Geelong.
“I was talking to (coach John) Northey in town recently. He told me about the youthfulness of his Tiger players along with their keenness and their ruggedness.
“He said his players all have ability and they all play AFL footy well.”
But Alan scored nought out of 2 in his weekend footy match-ups.
Kyneton defeated South in the 1995 BFL grand final 18.13 (121) to 11.10 (76) while the Cats downed the Tigers to earn a crack at Carlton in the next Saturday’s AFL ’95 grannie.
“The Fox” was one of the first five Legends inducted into the BFNL Hall of Fame in November 2019.
Much earlier he’d been inducted into the actual Hall of Fame itself in 1996.
Before the five Legends were announced, Alan had passed away in May, 1999, aged 80.
