Ian Heads, Author, Journalist & Sporting Historian
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Vale: Noel "Ned Kelly"

22/6/2020

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​A document written by Ian Heads for the day of the funeral tribute to Noel Bernard Kelly OAM, aka ‘Ned’
 19/06/2020
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“This afternoon of 19/06/2020 - will no doubt develop into one of yarns and memories and tears and laughter.
I suspect however that perhaps more than anyone else, the man whose life is celebrated today would disapprove strongly of any fuss being made.   But there will be fuss, of course: After all, a grand and colourful character of Australian sport and life has departed the arena forever and will be sadly missed by so many who crossed paths with him down the years.
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An unlikely thought from a distant past came back to me on the afternoon I heard the news of the death of the man known far and wide as just `Ned’ a great character of Australian sport and a man seemingly positively indestructible.
Such were his qualities and the legend around him,  that  on the day the bad tidings came through  I was instantly transported back to another day and another  era -  to  a crumpled  magazine clipping from the US that had caught my eye long ago  – telling of the reaction of an American sports journalist when the announcement was made that  the tough and brave   American  boxer  Gene Tunney – who famously survived a long  count in  a bout against the heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey  - had died.
“Start the count ….he’ll get up! “…..hollered the journo at the sad announcement of that day.
 To me there were irresistible elements of the spirit of Noel Kelly in that ancient yarn when the sad news came through of Ned’s death. .
 
It’s a privilege to have the chance of penning these words about Ned, a man I came to know and to admire over the years and …..particularly  so through happy days in 1995 when in a sequence of enjoyable weeks, he and I sat down regularly at interview sessions  and slugged out a book on his adventures in life and rugby league which surfaced in 1996, arriving under the appropriate  title `Hard Man’.
Our shared  literary journey  turned out well, the exercise a considerable enjoyment  largely due to Noel’s irresistible humour  and  to his  straight- down the- middle approach in sharing key moments and favoured yarns gathered in his life at our get-together….  -- the  Kelly style being unswervingly fair dinkum  i.e. dead straight and , no frills  -- albeit with a chuckle never too far away. . From Ned throughout there was no gilding of the lily in the tales he told.  For me, a captivated listener through the gathering process of his memories there was much enjoyment - with most of the interviews conducted in a picturesque setting ……..   gazing out from a veranda at Maison  Kelly  across the long view to his favoured golf  course…….and further still….to the ocean,  with a cold beer in the mix now and then, plenty of laughs,  and some snacks prepared by Noel’s wife Chris to whom Noel would dedicate the book that emerged.. ‘a wonderful teammate through it all’ he wrote in tribute of Chris .
It was in such a beautiful Sydney setting in that year of ’95-’96 that  Noel Kelly originally from Queensland, returned to his beginnings and his memories to unpack and revisit the events and stories of a rich and varied life, `
 At today’s funeral gathering many stories will be told of this unique man of Australian sport. After all,  there is much to share  - considering the  richness of   the varied involvements  of his life, large lumps of it  spent either in the  the blood and thunder of  the  toughest  ball game in the world….  or hard at work…..the fact being  that his work ethic was unflagging throughout his life  laying the framework  for the  loving   family   he cherished…….or now and taking a break and hitting a golf ball around, or joining old football mates for a yarn and a beer.
A foundation reality   of Ned’s life existed in the friendships beyond counting.
His story is widely known and inspirational in its content and this small tribute has inevitable sins of omission. . Hailing from the small township of Goodna near Ipswich he would settle   on rugby league as his game of choice fairly early in life -- the fire lit forever when one of his school teachers took him to watch the annual highlight of Queensland League the annual, Bulimba Cup competition - a three way contest between Brisbane, Toowoomba and Ipswich. Ned was hooked for life.
Of  the tackling  of his story  (as I did) , the first thing to be said is that  the challenge of trying to pin down the full essence of   Ned’s progress in life and  his climb to the heights of international rugby league,  was akin to  trapping lightning in a bottle.
He was all of the following …and much more
A polished after dinner speaker, humourist, loyal friend of many, keen golfer, and steel boots-and all exponent of rugby league -  following a path as tough as any in the stories of  the legendary hard men who had surfaced in the game over the  long preceding years.
 
These following fragments touch on aspects of his story and the way he was:
On the matter of  Ned’s famed direct action approach to  playing rugby league there exists still,  in newspaper files one of many signposts --   - a report on a Monday in 1966  in the afternoon newspaper paper the  Sydney Sun   – accompanied by a dramatic full page poster, the Headline - in its entirety - comprised entirely of just two Words     
THAT RIGHT  !
It concerned the matter of a right hand blow delivered by Ned in the Third Ashes Test played at the at the SCG the previous Saturday- with Great Britain’s Dave Robinson being the unlucky recipient. The page that followed the story in The Sun back in ‘66 - incidentally featured a beautiful high class photo of Ned looking downright handsome…… and as suave as a Paris model.
In another legendary moment, The Kiwi giant Robin Orchard …was also famously transformed to the horizontal by a visitation from a Ned right hand in a Test match in Brisbane.
Such moments as those featured in the Robinson and Orchard stories, raised over the years keen discussion on the pedigree of the important RL tactical manoeuvre of `Retaliate First’.  There is solid support for the theory that Ned was the inventor of the tactic, although the likes of GB’S J Mills with Malcolm Reilly and South Sydney captain and hardman John Sattler contenders for the final too……..
Memory tells me, I first met Noel Kelly in my own rookie days at the time 
 I was learning the ropes with the Daily Telegraph as a somewhat overawed rookie league fan and cadets sports journo.
 I have no specific memory of a `first meeting’ with Ned who I may even have called Mr. Kelly’   -the fact being that we raw cadets were encouraged into that sort of politeness and respect back then in our learning days representing the Sir Frank Packer-owned news sheet.

I suspect our brief encounter took place on a match day in one of the well -worn suburban dressing rooms of the Sydney League scene of the time, a period in the game’ evolution when the RL journos old and new were welcomed into club dressing rooms after matches, with a beer generally thrust into your hand as you passed through the door.. It was a valuable societal nicety   -- an introduction of `new chums’ to rugby league and its people.
Many yarns that circle around Noel and his life will be told here during this afternoon……. and there will be guaranteed  laughter for sure - Ned being  renowned as a man of lively humour and a sharer and teller of tales; the keeper of many football yarns that played their part in helping  good causes down the years, via raising money for such notable organisations as the Men of League through Noel’s standing in the game and his  popularity and humour and tale- telling skills --  this continuing  involvement  being his way of `giving back’ to the game he loved.
So many diverse Noel Kelly stories have been told over the years, such as the arrival of he and Chris to the Big Smoke in an old jalopy in which the only air condition came through rusty the holes in the rear floor.  To join to join the institution that became the club of his heart – The Wests Magpies.
In this tribute to him, I have taken the liberty of briefly using other voices and names to do justice, appropriately throwing the ball to memories shared by two renowned sporting figures of Sydney life whose careers were touched deeply by their long friendships with Ned.
Legends themselves, both men admired him greatly and welcomed involvement in Ned’s book –
One was the doyen of rugby league and boxing commentators, the late – and  legendary - Frank Hyde   the second,  the  enduring and iconic figure of radio broadcasting,   John Laws who shared an interest in boats and boating with Ned and who continues his remarkable broadcasting  career to this day.
In his foreword for the book:  Hard Man:  John Laws, labelled Ned as being…. “no frills”….and “ the quintessential Aussie ” adding,  “if we had more like him  the country would be set even more firmly on course ….and everyone would have done a lot more laughing and  perhaps a lot more drinking!”…….
The observations offered by Frank Hyde   some years ago - of Ned the man and Ned the rough-hewn champion of rugby league started this way: 
“Noel Kelly is what you would call a rough diamond. He played the game of rugby league about as hard as it could imaginably be played and lived his life as a decent, fair and thoroughly likeable bloke.”
“As graceful as a cow on a bike “     was Frank’s tongue in cheeky description of the technicalities of the Second Test try Ned scored at Swinton in the Ashes series of 1963.
In conversation Frank pressed on to throw a light on both Noel’s personal qualities  --and particularly,  events of the  troubled  Kangaroo tour of 1967 - the  famous `Bowler Hat’ campaign’,   mention of which inevitably  conjures up the image of a naked Australian player wearing only a bowler hat  walking  the frozen winter streets of Ikley, Yorkshire.
 I hasten to add that the mysterious and mythical night stroller was NOT… Noel Kelly!!
Said Frank of the 1967 Kangaroo touring team about tough guys Ned and John Sattler:
“They were strong figures in holding things together when rebellion was afoot as what had become a somewhat anarchic tour fell apart. Kelly and Sattler backed by a couple of others offered to deal with anyone who fell out of line. No-one took up the challenge!”…..
That Kangaroo tour was Noel Kelly’s third – a fabulous record.
Mixed among the dramas and the fiery football moments of Ned’s story there is romance too of course as there should be in the telling of any major drama! ….  - notably of his first meeting at a dance at Moorooka, Queensland  with the girl  he would subsequently marry who would become his life’s partner,  Celia Hadaway,   (who would become  known to most-  in life’s fruitful -’journey as `Chris’). In a significantly fortuitous move Chris knocked back Noel’s polite request for a dance ……..the moment being fortuitous indeed…. as Noel would come to realise, owing to the fact that the dance in question was one of which Noel had no clue whatsoever – and especially so of the sequence of the required steps needed to transport a young lady around the floor and would have been very unlikely to have made make a good impression on her.
“I was never much of a hoofer,” Noel observed choosing his words neatly for his book years later….. 
The long punchline is   course is a happy one of love blooming and of the lengthy happy marriage of Noel and Chris and their growing family of and five children.
 
For today’s few words I dug through my dusty home  garage  - one that that doubles as a library (and is  the bane of my wife’s life) ……….and unearthed the following bits and pieces – things that people may not know about Noel Kelly.
He was born in 1936 in the hamlet of Goodna near Ipswich, in hard depression years, one of two sons of a butcher; the family also grew vegetables and kept fowls.
At different times he was all of the following in his travelling life:
  • car salesman,
  • director of a smallgoods company
  • as a boy, a rider in horse shows
  • a horse breaker     
  • Manager of a Sydney Hotel, The Burlington.
  • driver of the Manly Wharf ghost train for a time.
  • The fact that Ned came from a musical family….for years his mum had led a three piece dance band. “We were only battlers,” he said, remembering early post-war days at Goodna “and how”  mum used to take in the soldier’s washing to make a few bob - “And I used to do the ice run, the paper run, and the bread run.”
  • Later he went into the butchery business in Red Hill, Brisbane.
 
Additionally He was a boxer of promise, losing only once - even though he was fighting mature middle-aged men when he was only 14. Blessed with natural common sense Ned pulled the plug on the square ring.  He had been under the guidance of a shrewd trainer who taught him to hit hard with either hand. Said Ned:  “I found that when I tagged a bloke he sat down looking bewildered”.
Subsequently, the price he paid for playing league- at its toughest level – meant that he carried many injuries down the years.
A magazine story in 1971 focused on the subject of Ned’s knees and how they rattled when he walked!
By then he had had three cartilage operations.
In later years came the legacy of a crook back that affected his enjoyment of playing golf, an enthusiastic later- life pastime.
By 1959 he had suffered 16 broken noses through his career, providing nice symmetry with…………………
The 17 times he was sent from the field in his playing days, although not ALL of them related to the rough stuff as Ned would quickly point out - considering the fact his career coinciding with an era of hard fought `fair dinkum scrums’ (every scrum was a war) at a time when the whistle blowers would quite often despatch the hookers from the field on the dastardly misdemeanour of repeated scrum infringements.
Throughout all phases of his affair with rugby league - the Kelly sense of humour remained intact.
In a favourite Ned yarn, one  that brings together  an unlikely mix of rugby league, Ned’s  regular send offs-from  from the playing fields in his career,   and  the bucolic  pastime of gardening , would get a laugh  every time  no matter how many times he trotted it out.
The tale ran roughly  along these lines, with Ned volunteering that anytime  he happened to be working  in the garden and the postie approached, sounding a blast of his whistle  Ned would immediately  head  inside and take a shower  - so many times had he been despatched from the field by the shrill of the whistle in his playing days after some incident or other .
Tales told here today of a great rugby league player and a wonderful character of Australian sport, will barely scratched the surface of a grand bloke and a mighty career which earned him the fabulous bounty of representing his country on three Kangaroo tours of GB and France …the tour being then the  holy grail of the league code.
An enduring image that will stay with me, along with plenty of others, in the matter of the life and times of Noel, `Ned’ Kelly’   is this:  Of the moment that takes place each year at a major Wests Magpies luncheon event of each season……..…..when past players of the club gather on stage near the end for a mini concert, Ned among them, and all bursting into song. I can picture him still – Ned in full voice ……and the thought strikes me on each occasion   -- that his musical mum would have been very proud.  
At fulltime in this gathering of memories of `Ned’, I reckon no better Farewell remarks for Ned could be imagined than those penned by  another important character of the Magpies’ saga , an enduring journalistic figure in recording  the stories of the game, Roy Masters - whose  wrote these words for the Sydney Morning Herald the day after Ned called full time.
Roy considered at the ending of the piece he penned,  “the unstoppable tinnitus that had haunted Ned in his late, fading days” writing:
“Yet the end was peaceful, “Surrounded by Chris, his five children, grandchildren and the sounds from his aviary of beautiful birds singing him to merciful silence”…………
It was a beautiful and appropriate coda for what had been a life so rich and varied.
 
The story of Ned Kelly, footballer, friend to so many,    will remain a treasure of the rugby league game. Never was the going easy for him; all that was achieved came through hard yakka.
 
In bidding to sum him up years ago, I wrote:
 He worked hard, played hard and grew into one of football’s finest men. He did it all with a smile, relishing the cut and thrust of battle and the special mateship that rugged sport can offer.
“Around football he constructed a life built on simple things – love, hard work and  fair treatment of his fellow humans.”


Rest well, Ned.
Ian Heads
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