Woodville Warriors 2008

[woodwt]

Woodville Cheer Squad circa 1981!

I never saw the victory sign again after 1981. Dont know what happened to it

[PhilH]

Far out what memories,

Got quite a thrill when someone gave me a heads up re this thread. First time I have ever seen a decent picture of the final Woodville Banner (& my final as a Woodville Cheer Squad Leader).

"Big Bertha" as we called it hadn't been used since July 1988 and we only got permission 3 days out.

I remember working almost all through the night repairing and fixing, It was the same height as the 1987 record setting banner of 30m x 10m used in the 1987 Elim Final but we basically cut the guts out and stuck the edges together.

We finished about 5am the morning of the match, they it was back to Woodville about 10am to put it on the truck.

We had about 40 people help put it up at the game a real merger of the old (pre 1986) and new (1987-1990) cheer squads. For once the security in getting on the ground wasn't an issue.


As for that Prospect Oval photo in 1981 yes that is me bottom left with beanie and pom pom on top. I thought I had since
found ALL the remaining budgets and burnt them. Now it's here forever....

[spell_check]

Far out what memories,

Got quite a thrill when someone gave me a heads up re this thread. First time I have ever seen a decent picture of the final Woodville Banner (& my final as a Woodville Cheer Squad Leader).

"Big Bertha" as we called it hadn't been used since July 1988 and we only got permission 3 days out.

I remember working almost all through the night repairing and fixing, It was the same height as the 1987 record setting banner of 30m x 10m used in the 1987 Elim Final but we basically cut the guts out and stuck the edges together.

We finished about 5am the morning of the match, they it was back to Woodville about 10am to put it on the truck.

We had about 40 people help put it up at the game a real merger of the old (pre 1986) and new (1987-1990) cheer squads. For once the security in getting on the ground wasn't an issue.


As for that Prospect Oval photo in 1981 yes that is me bottom left with beanie and pom pom on top. I thought I had since
found ALL the remaining budgets and burnt them. Now it's here forever....

What do you mean by permission? Was it from who owned the structure of the banner, or was it the SACA, or the club even?

[Leaping Lindner]

Far out what memories,

Got quite a thrill when someone gave me a heads up re this thread. First time I have ever seen a decent picture of the final Woodville Banner (& my final as a Woodville Cheer Squad Leader).

"Big Bertha" as we called it hadn't been used since July 1988 and we only got permission 3 days out.

I remember working almost all through the night repairing and fixing, It was the same height as the 1987 record setting banner of 30m x 10m used in the 1987 Elim Final but we basically cut the guts out and stuck the edges together.

We finished about 5am the morning of the match, they it was back to Woodville about 10am to put it on the truck.

We had about 40 people help put it up at the game a real merger of the old (pre 1986) and new (1987-1990) cheer squads. For once the security in getting on the ground wasn't an issue.


As for that Prospect Oval photo in 1981 yes that is me bottom left with beanie and pom pom on top. I thought I had since
found ALL the remaining budgets and burnt them. Now it's here forever....

You can blame Gerry for that Phil. I got it from him!

[spell_check]

An interesting topic .I was a West Torrens supporter since 1975 .I have been a Woodville West Torrens since the merger.
Interesting topic why not go back to the 60's .Woodville was formed out of an area that was West Torrens.No Woodville how different would have West torrens been.
.

Interesting you should say that because most books I've read almost always state that Torrens had the 2nd biggest supporter base behind Port in the 40's and 50's.
THe formation of Woodville could be attributed to a downfall in support for West Torrens.

I believe Torrens' average crowd in 1963 was of the order of 17,000. There is no doubting that Woodville eked away at their support.

West Torrens from 1947 was
1947 9,099
1948 8,608
1949 9,388
1950 9,164
1951 8,241
1952 9,599
1953 9,444
1954 10,153
1955 10,863
1956 9,113
1957 10,194
1958 9,937
1959 10,685
1960 11,265
1961 11,371
1962 12,709
1963 10,845
1964 9,170
1965 6,956
1966 9,143
1967 7,456
1968 7,982
1969 8,378
1970 7,388
1971 6,805
1972 6,438
1973 7,210
1974 7,325
1975 6,332
1976 4,640
1977 6,306
1978 7,931
1979 6,681
1980 8,670
1981 6,086
1982 5,327
1983 5,450
1984 4,848
1985 6,822
1986 4,929
1987 5,276
1988 5,196
1989 5,784
1990 5,361

Every year between 1947 amd 1964 West Torrens average minor round crowds were above the SANFL average for a minor round crowd. But after that, only 1966, 1978 and 1980 were above the average for those particular years.

[PhilH]

Permission from the Club, spelly

In 1987 (1st year as leader) we made banners from scratch. the Old Cheer squad doing majority of the work of the massive 1987 Elimination Final banner. (a five week job utting it together). Of course we lost by 100+ points and so it sat through the off-season waiting to be used again. However the banner was so big, the SANFL set new size restrictions meaning the WCS would have the league record (300m2) for all time but we could not use it at Football Park or Adelaide Oval.

After 1987 the Woodville Football Club kindly had one of our sponsors (Port Displays) build a banner with a plastic frame accross the top and edges. It saved a lot of time and money but made it VERY HEAVY and we could never strech it out properly when raising. It also reduced room for pictures (which we had no skills to do anyway) or any lengthy slogans.

I used to have a bit of a love hate releationship with the WFC heirachy from time to time who really didnt know how to handle this 18-19yo leader running around passionately trying to regrow a cheer squad from the clubs junior supporter base.

For reasons I can't remember in 1988 we went behind the clubs back and redid the big banner at the Port home game. Displaying some early media savvy some 20 odd years ago I got Ten News to run a story on the record size and the Football Budget did an article as well all under the clubs nose. Suffice to say the club was not impressed at such an initiative & the positive publicity so we were told in no uncertain terms that "Big Bertha" was retired never to be used again. (Woodville also lost the game and I think with it a shot at the 1988 finals).

However in the chaos of the final on field weeks of the WFC in 1990 we applied to use it for the clubs last ever name. The club agreed but it left us little time to ressurrect. At least at the third attempt Big Bertha finished a winner.

I guess it's ironic that for my issues with the WFC administration some 20 years later I would "be punished" by becoming a Marketing Manager at an equally struggling club just so I could get a final understanding of where they were coming from.

[spell_check]

Thanks for that Phil, I wondered why you needed permission to use a banner!

[MagareyLegend]

West Torrens never have been disbanded. They should have been relocated to the north east - Golden Grove/Tea Tree Gully and all would be sweet.

Very poor foresight again by an over-rated SANFL administration including Leigh Whicker & Max Basheer

[Adelaide Hawk]

West Torrens never have been disbanded. They should have been relocated to the north east - Golden Grove/Tea Tree Gully and all would be sweet.

Very poor foresight again by an over-rated SANFL administration including Leigh Whicker & Max Basheer

At the risk of upsetting the old Woodville fans, I think the near-sightedness was in 1959 when they added another club from the western suburbs.

[Leaping Lindner]

I still reckon this is the biggest banner raised in SA but it's hard to judge. I know that after the next week when we raised the same size banner again they introduced size restrictions at Footy Park. It's the 1983 Elimination Final by the way.

[MagareyLegend]

Nick, I played in that game (North v South) and sadly I don't recall the banner - I guess that indicates how focussed the players are when they run out.

Sensational banner though - in hindsight!

[Leaping Lindner]

Nick, I played in that game (North v South) and sadly I don't recall the banner - I guess that indicates how focussed the players are when they run out.

Sensational banner though - in hindsight!

Being the first finals series in 8 years we wanted to make an impression!
I just checked your stats for that game and I think you can be forgiven for not remembering the banner! HOW many marks again???

[MagareyLegend]

No comment.

Great memories of a great day and the beginning of the resurgence of NAFC I reckon.

[woodwt]

Phil

What about in 1990 our famous banner JUST ****** WIN!!

[PhilH]

On the basis that crepe paper lengths were always 50cm high (still are) the North banner was 10m high (you can count the 20 checkers on the side). I doubt it is 30m long as per Woodvilles in 1987.


Oh yes WoodWT the famous (or infamous) Just f****G win banner of 1990.

I have told the story once before on this site but given the linking of all good things Green & Gold here I will tell it again.

It was the weekend of my 21st birthday, after a very promising start to the 1990 season the Warriors had lost 5 straight and were about the bundled out of the five. Coming up a crunch game at Woodville against West Torrens.

A month or so the Geelong Ch Squad put up a banner saying simply "Just Win", it worked that week

Since 1988, the Woodville Cheer Squad had a tradition of always doing a banner Friday Night under the Barry Jarman Grandstand for Saturday home games but I had other commitments preparing for 21st on the Saturday night thus the banner had to be done quickly.

As anyone who has done banners can attest to, the lettering can take forever & I had to leave early.

Putting on "Just Win" in large letters was a good solution to this issue.

As it turned out I left before completion and left it to a couple of the kids to finish and lock up.

One of them in a fit of wisdom decided to do "F****ng* in small lettering about 15cm high and stick it on the banner thinking it would be be just a personal message to the players, surely no one else could see it.

I got told about it the following day just before the end of the reserves game so I took out a roll of packing tape to cover over the lettering once we unrolled the banner. As fate would have it the wind blew the banner up as we unrolled it and before we got that under control the team ran out and so up she went.

To be honest I thought nothing further about it through the whole match, which Woodville went onto win and I left pronto to get home for the 21st.

Of course what none of us realised was that dark green lettering on a gold background could be seen a mile away regardless of how small the size.

By the time I got home there was a call from the General Manager (no mobiles back then) and suffice to say it wasn't to wish me happy birthday. There was to be a meeting first thing Monday Morning & I had some explaining to do.

As many of the cheer squad members turned up to the 21st they passed on the news they had picked up was that this had caused a lot of comotion around the club and we were in serious trouble.

Well I fronted up for the meeting, took full responsibility and apologised where possible. As far as I was concerned that was the end of any banners for 1990 (bar finals) and whilst the club refused my offer to resign & wind up the squad I certainly wasn't planning to be leader in 1991.

It looked like the issue was dying a quick death, (the WFC reckoned it may have been very different it we had lost) until Wednesday night when it was raised on KG & Hookseys show on 5DN. Then all hell broke loose at least for the next week or so. What made it worse was that the club refused to comment on the issue or let me say anything to anyone in the manner of an apology. With parents pulling their kids out of the squad it looked like three and a half years of pretty hard work building up the squad into a large and loyal supporters group for the club was being ruined. Whilst I laugh now it was very difficult and embarrassing at the time.

One thing I do recall was attending the state game between WA & SA at Football Park a week or so later and receiving a mocking standing ovation from the other clubs cheer squad members when I arrived. It was probably the first time I saw a funny side.

As it turned out Woodville as the Warriors was only in existance for another few months. When the merger was announced we wanted to go out with a bang* so asked to do one more banner ressurecting "big bertha" for the last match against Torrens. The club agreed and the result was the picture at the start of the thread.

In retrospect the incident taught me a couple of lessons that would be useful in later life
1) be careful who you delegate authority to
2) what is aceptable language on the hill may not be in other circles
3) facing up to responsibilities is a better solution than running away from them
and most importantly
4) no matter how bad a situation might seem at that moment, time will eventually give it perspective and even a chance to laugh about in later years.

[PhilH]

Finally just on that North banner. I count 48 horizontal squares = 24m long or 240 square metres, compared with the Warriors 1987 Elim FInal which was 30m x 10m = 300 square metres (ie 25% bigger).

[woodwt]

Who remembers this!

I miss my peckers and Warriors days

[Dogwatcher]

Phil H - i love your story mate. Thanks for sharing it.

[PhilH]

I used to love those patches

Still got my 1982, 1983, 1984 & 1985
(Believe it or not there wasnt a patch for 1986)
and some copies of 87,88,89 & 90

I just missed out on the 1981 patch but got the Woodville Cheer Squad one (didnt have a year)

Its next to the SA Cheer Squad 1989 patch for the SA v VIC game at the MCG.

[woodwt]

I used to love those patches

Still got my 1982, 1983, 1984 & 1985
(Believe it or not there wasnt a patch for 1986)
and some copies of 87,88,89 & 90

I just missed out on the 1981 patch but got the Woodville Cheer Squad one (didnt have a year)

Its next to the SA Cheer Squad 1989 patch for the SA v VIC game at the MCG.

I have lost my 81 & 85 patches