Ray Montgomery (umpire)

Last updated

Ray Montgomery
Personal information
Full name Raymond Montgomery
Date of birth 1929
Date of death(2009-08-01)1 August 2009
Other occupation Railway worker
Art teacher
Umpiring career
YearsLeagueRoleGames
1952–1964 WANFL Field umpire
1965 VFL Field umpire
1966–1972 WANFL Field umpire

Ray Montgomery (1929–1 August 2009) was an Australian rules football umpire. Montgomery umpired in the West Australian National Football League (now known as the West Australian Football League) and the Victorian Football League. [1] [2]

Australian rules football Contact sport invented in Melbourne

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, or simply called Aussie rules, football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of eighteen players on an oval-shaped field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by kicking the oval-shaped ball between goal posts or between behind posts.

Umpire (Australian rules football)

An umpire is an official in the sport of Australian rules football who adjudicates the game according to the "Laws Of The Game", the official handbook of Australian Rules Football.

West Australian Football League

The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The WAFL is the third-most popular league in the nation, behind the nationwide Australian Football League (AFL) and South Australian National Football League (SANFL). The league currently consists of nine teams, which play each other in a 24-round season usually lasting from March to September, with the top five teams playing off in a finals series, culminating in a Grand Final. The league also runs reserves and colts (under-19) competitions.

Contents

Working life

He began his working life as a coach builder for the Western Australian Government Railways at the Midland Railway Workshops. After going to teacher's college he became an art teacher, becoming an Arts Master at Churchlands College. [3] [4]

Western Australian Government Railways

Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) was the operator of railway services in the state of Western Australia between October 1890 and June 2003. Owned by the State Government, it was renamed a number of times to reflect extra responsibility for tram and ferry operations that it assumed and later relinquished. Its freight operations were privatised in December 2000 with the remaining passenger operations transferred to the Public Transport Authority in July 2003.

Midland Railway Workshops railway workshops in Midland, Western Australia

The Midland Railway Workshops in Midland, Western Australia were the main workshops for the Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) for over 80 years.

Playing career

Montgomery played football at school and in the Temperance League before playing reserve grade for Swan Districts. His playing career was brought to an end by a cracked vertebra. [4]

Swan Districts Football Club

The Swan Districts Football Club, nicknamed the Swans, is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). The club is based at Bassendean Oval, in Bassendean, an eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia. The club was formed in 1932, and joined the then-Western Australian National Football League (WANFL) in 1934, acting as a successor to the Midland Junction Football Club, which had disbanded during World War I, in the Perth Hills region.

Vertebra bone in the spinal column

In the vertebrate spinal column, each vertebra is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, the proportions of which vary according to the segment of the backbone and the species of vertebrate.

Umpiring career

Montgomery commenced umpiring football with Metropolitan Juniors in 1949. [1]

WANFL

Montgomery joined the WANFL umpiring panel in 1950 and was soon umpiring league football, making his debut in a match between East Fremantle and Swan Districts at Fremantle Oval in Round 4 of the 1952 season. [5]

East Fremantle Football Club

The East Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Sharks, is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). The team's home ground is East Fremantle Oval. East Fremantle are the most successful club in WAFL history, winning 29 premierships since their entry into the competition in 1898.

Fremantle Oval Wikimedia category

Fremantle Oval is a stadium in the centre of Fremantle, Western Australia, located on Parry Street. It currently has a capacity of 17,500 with terracing and a members area holding 750, though capacity was capped at 10,000 for Fremantle AFLW games. Fremantle Oval was originally used for cricket, but in 1895 hosted its first game of Australian rules football and Australian Football quickly became the main attraction leading to the development of the ground. It is located between the Fremantle Hospital, Fremantle Markets and the Fremantle Prison.

In 1959 Montgomery officiated in his first grand final, between East Perth and Subiaco at Subiaco Oval. [6]

Grand final final match of a championship which determines the ultimate winner

A grand final is a game that decides a sports league's championship winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest competitions to feature a grand final were Australia's AFL and NRL. They influenced other competitions such as soccer's A-League, the National Basketball League, netball's Suncorp Super Netball and European rugby league's Super League to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.

East Perth Football Club Australian rules football club in the WAFL

The East Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Royals, is an Australian rules football club based in Leederville, Western Australia, current playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Formed in 1902 as the Union Football Club, the club entered the WAFL in 1906, changing its name to East Perth. It won its first premiership in 1919, part of a streak of five consecutive premierships. Overall, the club has won 17 premierships, most recently in 2002. The club is currently based at Leederville Oval, which it shares with the Subiaco Football Club, having previously played home games at Wellington Square and Perth Oval from 1910 to 1999. The current coach of East Perth is Jeremy Barnard and the current captains are Kyle Anderson and Patrick McGinnity.

Subiaco Football Club Australian rules football club in WAFL

The Subiaco Football Club, nicknamed the Lions and known before 1973 as the Maroons, is an Australian rules football club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). It was founded in 1896, and admitted to the WAFL in 1901, along with North Fremantle. The club is currently based at Leederville Oval, having previously played at Subiaco Oval.

During Round 1 of the 1956 season Montgomery reported Jack Sheedy for using abusive language towards him, to which Sheedy responded at the tribunal by swearing on a bible that Montgomery had reported the wrong player. Despite the theatrics, Sheedy was found guilty of the charge. [7] [8]

In 1963 he made a complaint to the WANFL over an incident that occurred after he had umpired a match between East Fremantle and South Fremantle at East Fremantle Oval. He alleged that as he was walking out of the ground, a player drove a car toward him, attempting to run him over. [9] [10]

He retired in 1972 having umpired 308 WANFL league matches including five grand finals. [1] [11]

VFL

While studying art at the Melbourne Technical College Montgomery umpired two league matches during the 1965 Victorian Football League season. [12] [13]

Later life and legacy

Montgomery was responsible for redesigning the Swan Districts logo after Swans coach Haydn Bunton, Jr. suggested it needed livening up. [4]

After retiring Montgomery took up bowls and was a member of the Manning Bowls Club for over three decades. [4]

The award for best WAFL field umpire is named the Ray Montgomery Medal in his honour. [1]

In 2002 Montgomery was named as one of three field umpires in the WANFL Umpires Association Team of the Half Century. [14]

In 2004 he was inducted into the West Australian Football Hall of Fame. [15] [16]

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  1. Five players kicked 100 goals, a number equalled in the major leagues of VFL/AFL, VFA/VFL, or SANFL, only in the 1939 VFA season.
  2. Frank "Scranno" Jenkins won the Sandover Medal in his debut season of senior football with a record high under the 3-2-1 voting system of 34 votes.
  3. In the second round, East Fremantle broke their own 21-year-old record for the highest score in league history.
  4. East Perth drew three games in one season, a feat equalled in major Australian Rules Leagues only by VFA club Moorabbin in 1958 and West Perth in 1960. The Royals could easily have drawn a fourth game but for crowd acclamation preventing umpires from hearing the bell against Subiaco on Foundation Day. No senior Australian Rules team at any level is known to have tied four matches in a season, but Geelong’s Under-19s did so in 1971.
  5. Swan Districts, with Ted Holdsworth kicking at least six goals in each of the first ten games, reached their first finals series in only their fourth WANFL season. Holdsworth was to reach his 100 goals in two fewer games than George Doig took in his 152-goal 1934 season, but concussion and a broken hand eliminated the prospect of a new record.

The 1973 WANFL season was the 89th season of the Western Australian National Football League. It is most famous for Subiaco breaking the longest premiership drought in the history of the competition, winning for the first time since 1924 after having been a chopping block for most of the middle third of the century. Under the coaching of former St Kilda champion Ross Smith, the Lions, as they became christened in July, bounced back from two disappointing seasons to lose only two of their final sixteen home-and-away games for their first minor premiership since 1935, then in a low-scoring Grand Final comfortably defeated a much more hardened West Perth team.

The 1938 WANFL season was the 54th season of the Western Australian National Football League, and saw Claremont, under champion coach Johnny Leonard who had transferred from West Perth, win its first premiership after losing two Grand Finals and drawing the first one this season. The blue and golds were to win the following two premierships before a long period near the foot of the ladder after Claremont Oval was gutted by a fire in 1944.

The 1972 WANFL season was the 88th season of the various incarnations of the Western Australian National Football League. It saw East Perth, after five Grand Final losses in six seasons and a frustrating seven since their last premiership in 1959, break the drought against a Claremont team that had achieved its first minor premiership since Johnny Leonard’s days, despite kicking into the wind after winning the toss.

The 1939 WANFL season was the 55th season of the various incarnations of the Western Australian National Football League. It is best known for West Perth's record losing streak of twenty-seven matches up to the fifteenth round, an ignominy equalled by Peel Thunder in their formative years but never actually beaten. The Cardinals finished with the worst record since Midland Junction lost all twelve games in 1917, and were the first WANFL team with only one victory for twelve seasons. In their only win, champion forward Ted Tyson became the first West Australian to kick over one thousand goals and he just failed to replicate his 1938 feat of leading the goalkicking for a bottom club. Subiaco, despite a second Sandover win from Haydn Bunton won only three matches, and Swan Districts, affected by the loss of star goalkicker Ted Holdsworth to Kalgoorlie, began a long period as a cellar-dweller with a fall to sixth.

The 1940 WANFL season was the 56th season of the various incarnations of the Western Australian National Football League. It saw Claremont win its third consecutive premiership, but its last before returning to the status of cellar-dweller it occupied during its first decade in the WA(N)FL – between 1943 and 1978 Claremont played finals only five times for one premiership. South Fremantle, after a lean period in the middle 1930s, displaced perennial power clubs East Fremantle and East Perth as the Tigers’ Grand Final opponent, and established some of the basis, in spite of three disastrous wartime under-age seasons, for the club’s fabled dynasty after the war.

The 1941 WANFL season was the 57th season of the various incarnations of the Western Australian National Football League. Owing to the drain of players to military service in World War II, the league was forced to suspend the reserves competition until 1946, and ultimately this was to be the last season of senior football in Perth until 1945 as the supply of available players became smaller and smaller and the Japanese military threatened northern Western Australia.

The 1969 WANFL season was the 85th season of the Western Australian National Football League. It saw continued dominance by the three Perth clubs and Subiaco, who occupied the top half of the ladder constantly from the fourth round onwards, and finished four games clear of the other four clubs, who were all in a “rebuilding” mode with varying success – late in the season both Swan Districts and Claremont fielded some of the youngest teams in the competition's history, whilst the Tigers, who fielded thirteen first-year players including Graham Moss, Russell Reynolds and Bruce Duperouzel, began disastrously but four wins in five games paved the way to impressive record from 1970 to 1972. Among the top four, Perth failed to achieve a fourth consecutive premiership that at one point looked very much in their grasp due to the overwork of Barry Cable which robbed him of some brilliance, early-season injuries to key players Iseger and Page and a couple of surprising losses to lower clubs, whilst East Perth, who won consistently without being impressive for most of the season, failed for the fourth time in as many seasons in the Grand Final, this time to West Perth and in a much more decisive manner than any of their Perth defeats.

The 1946 WANFL season was the 62nd season of senior football in Perth, Western Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Football community mourns Montgomery". West Australian Football Commission. 5 August 2009. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  2. ↑ O'Donoghue, Craig (6 August 2009). "Monty a great of umpiring". The West Australian. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  3. ↑ Davidson, Ron (2008). Fremantle Impressions (2nd ed.). Fremantle Press. pp. 186–189. ISBN   1-921361-47-6.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Head, Ron (5 August 2009). "Vale Ray Montgomery". Memory Lane. Footy Goss. Archived from the original on 11 July 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  5. ↑ "Montgomery". WAFL Online. West Australian Football Commission. Retrieved 24 March 2010.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. ↑ "Grand Final Umpires 1953-1959". www.wanflua.com.au. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  7. ↑ "East Perth - Part One: 1902 to 1960". Full Points Footy. Archived from the original on 28 March 2009. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  8. ↑ Devaney, John (2008). Full Points Footy's WA Football Companion. Lulu.com. p. 84. ISBN   0-9556897-1-6.
  9. ↑ "'Hit Run' Attempt - Car Claim By Umpire". Sydney Morning Herald. 18 April 1963. Retrieved 24 March 2010– via Google News Archive.
  10. ↑ "Umpire Seeking League Ruling". The Age. 18 April 1963. Retrieved 24 March 2010– via Google News Archive.
  11. ↑ "300 Club". www.wanflua.com.au. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "Montgomery New Umpire". The Age. 20 May 1965. Retrieved 24 March 2010– via Google News Archive.
  13. ↑ "Career Field". Australian Football League Umpires Association. Archived from the original on 22 February 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  14. ↑ "WANFLUA - Team of the Half Century". West Australian Football Commission. Archived from the original on 6 May 2010. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  15. ↑ "Hall of Fame Inductees". West Australian Football Commission. Archived from the original on 11 October 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  16. ↑ "Raymond Montgomery". WA Football Hall of Fame. West Australian Football Commission. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
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