THE DANIHERS TERRY, NEALE, ANTHONY AND CHRIS DANIHER potx

Jacket design: Phil Campbell Front jacket photograph courtesy of Newspix On 1 September 1990, four brothers made Australian Rules history by playing together for the one team, the Essend

t h e

T E R R Y, N E A L E , A N T H O N Y A N D C H R I S D A N I H E R

The story of football’s favourite family

About the Danihers

After a combined 752 VFL/AFL senior games

spanning three decades, the Daniher boys are

still involved in footy Terry continues to excel as

a country football ambassador and has his own

cleaning services business At the start of 2009,

Neale took up the position of football operations

manager for the West Coast Eagles Anthony’s

professional life is the management of Daniher

Property Services, although his connection with

football remains strong through his son, Darcy,

being drafted to the Bombers in 2007 under the

father-son rule Following in his father’s footsteps,

Chris is farming and keeping Ungarie Football

Club alive

About the author

Adam McNicol grew up on a wheat and sheep farm

outside the tiny town of Manangatang in north-west

Victoria’s Mallee region While trying to get a kick

with the Manangatang Thirds he realised playing

football was not his forte, so he took to writing

about it instead Since completing a journalism

degree at Melbourne’s RMIT University, Adam has

spent most of his time reporting on bush footy for

The Age and working as a television sports reporter

with Channel 10 He lives in Ballarat

Jacket design: Phil Campbell

Front jacket photograph courtesy of Newspix

On 1 September 1990, four brothers made Australian Rules history by playing together for the one team, the Essendon Football Club, something that is unlikely to ever happen again

Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher grew up

in a tiny Riverina town where they played footy

on Saturdays and Rugby League after mass on Sundays They reached the elite level in an era when tobacco sponsorship and a few beers with the opposition after a game were the norm It was

a time when Jim Daniher could throw a teenage son into a trade deal and Kevin Sheedy and Edna Daniher could conspire to make a dream come true But it wasn’t all plain sailing: injuries cut short

a promising career, trading between clubs was largely unregulated, South Melbourne Football Club was shunted off to Sydney and coaching changed dramatically

This is the action-packed story of the period when Aussie Rules went national and football became big business, seen through the eyes of an unassuming bunch of blokes from the bush It’s about how the Danihers endeared themselves to footy fans and became part of football folklore

‘They say nostalgia is the most powerful drug in the universe

If so, this book should be banned.’

KEVIN SHEEDY

DANIHERS

t h e

First published in 2009

Copyright © Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher and Adam McNicol 2009

Photographs on pages (ii) and (viii) by Adam McNicol

Photographs on pages 14, 22, 36, 72, 104, 138, 186, 214, 200 and pages 1 and 8 of the picture section are from the Danihers’ private collection.

All other photography of images used in the endpapers and picture section is by Greg Elms, taken from Edna Daniher’s scrapbooks of her four sons’ football careers

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher The Australian

Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of

this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice

to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: info@allenandunwin.com Web: www.allenandunwin.com

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Daniher, Terry.

The Danihers: the story of football’s favourite family / Terry Daniher … [et al.] ;

as told to Adam McNicol.

1st ed.

ISBN 978 1 74175 651 7 (hbk.) Includes index.

1 Daniher, Terry, 1957– 2 Daniher, Neale, 1961– 3 Daniher, Anthony, 1963–

4 Daniher, Chris, 1966– 5 Essendon Football Club–History 6 Football players–Victoria–History

7 Football teams–Victoria–History 8 Australian football–History.

Other Authors/Contributors: McNicol, Adam, 1978–

796.336099451

Jacket design by Phil Campbell Text and picture section design and typesetting by Pauline Haas Jacket photograph (back) by Monty Coles

Jacket photograph (front) courtesy of Newspix Printed in Singapore by KHL Printing Co Pty Ltd

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Introduction: The road to Ungarie 1

18 Following in your brothers’ footsteps 187

Football career statistics 342

Jim Daniher

THE ROA D TO UNGA R IE

O ur hire car’s headlights briefly illuminate a sign by the roadside

From the top it reads Ungarie 42, Condobolin 105, Lake Cargelligo

115 A smile creeps across Neale Daniher’s face ‘When we see the name

Ungarie we know we’re almost home.’ The outskirts of West Wyalong

disappear as the last rays of sunshine fade It is May 2008 We are in

southern New South Wales, 550 kilometres from Sydney and around

600 from Melbourne

More than six hours earlier, I collected Neale and his teenage son Ben from the family’s large home in Melbourne’s leafy eastern

suburbs We drove north, passing through Shepparton and the Murray

River town of Tocumwal Discussions flowed, mostly about footy It

was a Monday morning and Neale expressed his relief at not dreading

the day, like he had after a loss when coaching Melbourne Instead,

he could watch the season unfold without the stress of having his job

continually on the line He could simply enjoy the game again Neale

had even joined the media Before we set off he appeared on Neil

Mitchell’s popular radio program on 3AW, discussing the weekend’s

results As it happened, the Demons were the story of the day Less

than 24 hours before, they had staged a remarkable comeback from

51 points down to beat Fremantle at the MCG Ben was delighted with

the result Despite his dad parting ways with the club, he still loves

the Dees

Over the river, we headed into the wide open expanses of the Riverina Past Finley, home town of Brownlow Medallist and

Hawthorn star Shane Crawford Once a bustling rural centre, Finley

has been gutted by drought, the water shortage drying up the region’s

rice growing industry We travelled on to Jerilderie, famous for having

its bank held up by Ned Kelly and his gang in 1879 More recently

it was the birthplace of Bill Brownless, formerly a Geelong forward,

now a professional man of the people The rumble of giant trucks

was constant as we continued north along the Newell Highway to

Narrandera, population 6800 ‘We used to always think of this as the

real big smoke,’ Neale remarked as we headed along the main street

Still we drove Past the Barassi Line, a mythical marker, stretching

from south-east New South Wales to the eastern edge of the Northern

Territory The Barassi Line was dreamt up by professor Ian Turner in

1978 to describe the separation of traditional Aussie Rules territory

from that dominated by Rugby League

We continued beyond Ardlethan, where the local footy team once wore an iconic red and yellow jumper with a big star on the front

and were called the Stars The club has since fallen victim to rural

population shifts and is now part of a conglomerate mystifyingly known

as the Northern Jets Its guernsey is the same horrid article worn by

Port Adelaide in the AFL A few minutes down the road we flashed

past Mirrool, famous for being the place where Brownless kicked a

football over a grain silo And so we arrive at West Wyalong and begin

the final stretch

Neale steers the car around sweeping bends, past pine trees standing so straight they seem made by machine We reach Girral, a

hamlet that once boasted a pub and a footy club Now it has a couple of

grain silos and a tiny collection of weather-beaten houses Neale, unlike

his brothers, never dreamt of being a farmer yet he shifts excitedly in his

seat as we turn right and accelerate away from the ghost town ‘From

here on is Daniher country,’ he says enthusiastically, pointing to the

dusty farmland barely visible under the night sky Sitting in the back

seat, Ben offers an opposite reaction Earphones in, he stares intently

at the screen of his laptop He likes visiting the country but it is not his

place

This trip is the beginning of a new journey for Neale It will

be a journey of reflection and, he hopes, discovery With his father,

Jim, about to turn 80, he has decided it is time for the Daniher story

to be recorded The tale will focus on Neale and his brothers, Terry,

Anthony and Chris, and their remarkable achievements The time is

right to consider the tremendous opportunities bequeathed by their

parents’ hard work Throughout their lives the boys have been doers

Now, more than a decade since Chris, the youngest, retired from

the AFL, it is time to take a breath and ponder the mountains they

climbed to play football at the highest level They also hope to shed

light on what they know is a deep family history, but it is this aspect

Neale approaches with some trepidation He knows Jim holds the key,

however he says their father–son relationship has not involved much in

the way of discussion ‘I’m not sure what we’ll get out of Dad,’ he says

‘He doesn’t usually like talking about himself or his boys, doesn’t want

to be a bighead.’

Soon the car slows again and pulls into Danihers Lane Tall eucalypts line the road Every tree, every fencepost, holds a childhood

memory ‘We used to do fartlek training here,’ Neale recalls while

pointing towards a huge gum tree ‘That was one of our stopping

points.’ A speck of moisture hits the windscreen Neale winds down the

window and thrusts his face into the air His smile widens ‘It smells

like rain.’ As he drives along the roughly graded red dirt, he is no longer

the one-time Boy Wonder who could have been among Essendon’s

greatest players He is not The Reverend, who preached the virtues

of the Melbourne Football Club to the masses and almost delivered

the Demons a long-awaited flag Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he is

simply a bloke from the bush again And although it is more than three

decades since he has lived here, when he pulls up outside the modest

farmhouse where he grew up, Neale Daniher is most definitely home

‘It’s going to be a great few days,’ he says, walking towards the front door

There is a feeling of warmth, of strong family ties, as Edna, matriarch of the Daniher clan, greets us at the door She is tiny in every

way, her voice soft, almost a whisper She smiles broadly, embracing

Neale and Ben, before piling home-grown roast lamb, pumpkin, potato

and gravy onto dinner plates Feeding a sitting of five is a cinch for a

woman who raised 11 children It is almost 7 pm Jim sits at the head of

the table, keen to start dinner He is a big man, with broad shoulders,

slightly hunched by old age A full head of white hair is parted solidly

and swept to one side Gnarled hands, resembling often-pruned trees,

rest on the tablecloth They are the souvenirs of a tough life But in

his old age, Jim has a face that radiates a certain friendliness belying

his hard-man reputation ‘Good to see you fellas,’ he says with his

booming voice that knows only one volume The lamb and vegies are

wolfed down Smiles all round Edna quietly checks if everyone has

enough food and something to drink Predictably, conversation starts

with mention of the weather ‘Oh, she’s dry alright, she’s bloody dry,’

says Jim He will keep taking an active role on the farm until he can

no longer climb out of his chair Chris now runs the show, having

returned to the bush after finishing up at Essendon A dry start to the

growing season has held back the already planted wheat, barley and

canola Jim offers a critique on Chris’s approach to farming ‘He’s got

a bit of bloody crop over here and a bit over there He loves bloody

driving around We’ve gone past one paddock four times.’

Jim grins as he talks, his face wrinkling with lines, like Paul Hogan’s once did It seems he loves an audience Slowly conversation

turns to football, to the recent debut of Anthony’s son Darcy for

Essendon Then the book is mentioned And with little prompting, Jim

begins passing on his oral history of the Danihers He talks freely about

himself, about playing ‘Rules’, as the native game is known in New

South Wales About suiting up again on Sundays for Rugby League

matches About the journey of his boys from the outback to the big

city Soon Neale is asking questions He is being introduced to a new

side of his father Ben listens quietly Jim will barely take a breath until

we head back to Melbourne three days later

The following day we take Jim for a drive Remarkably, there is

no sign on the outskirts of Ungarie proclaiming the town as ‘the home

of the Danihers’ and Jim likes it that way First stop is the footy ground,

where Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris began their careers and where

Jim ran around for almost three decades A wide open expanse, it is

ringed by a gravel trotting track The oval is dry, with small patches of

green The tiny brick change rooms are basic to say the least Battling to

find enough players, the once-mighty Magpies are fighting for survival,

their struggle matching that of the local community

Ungarie is a dying town We drive along Wollongough Street, its broad thoroughfare lined by disused shops Just a few cars and the odd

ute park under the tall gum trees that cast shade along the middle of

the road The place feels empty Paint peels from the façade of a store

once owned by FR Hayes, a legendary local businessman At one stage

he pretty much ran the town and owned half of it He opened an

ever-popular billiard room that Jim says ‘was the hub of the place’ Written

on one shopfront nearby are the words ‘Rick and Sue’s WelcomeMart’

Below the fading letters, the entrance is boarded up Many locals now

purchase their groceries in West Wyalong, while others travel the more

than 400-kilometre round trip to shop at the big supermarkets in Wagga

Wagga Some journey north to Condobolin, the outpost that produced

Australian Idol runnerup Shannon Noll.

We drive slowly past the Town and Country Tavern, painted a deep maroon Known as the bottom pub, it is a testament to understated

20th century architecture A large XXXX sign remains atop the small

verandah First licensed in 1935, it closed for the last time in 2006

Colin Baker’s much loved pies and pasties (yes, the baker was a Baker)

are also long gone For Ungarie’s centenary celebrations in 1972, Col

handled an order for 14 000 hamburger buns Eight years later his

bread oven, first fired up in 1928, began gathering dust

A few businesses hang on, despite the prolonged drought which threatens to wipe the entire community from the map A chalkboard

outside the Ungarie Butchery advertises minced beef for $8 per kilo

The Majestic Café stands between two empty buildings and the

proprietor still dishes up fish and chips and hamburgers, although

the flow of customers is just a trickle Jim tells us about the times

when people would queue at the counter for milkshakes and lollies

during intermission at Lampard’s picture theatre The theatre now

stands empty Back then, floods were the norm Every couple of years

the Humbug Creek would inundate the town Now the meandering

watercourse rarely breaks its banks Only the Rural Transaction Centre,

a one-size-fits-all bank branch, post office and Internet facility, looks

alive and modern

Further up the street, the two-storey Central Hotel watches solemnly over yet another example of Australia’s rural decline Still

called the Top Pub even though it’s now the only watering hole, it is

a substantial red brick building erected in the 1950s when times were

good and people plentiful It has four different Tooheys beers on tap,

a dining room and rarely used guest accommodation upstairs Hardy

wheat and sheep farmers and the few other workers left in town gather

in the bar to solve the world’s problems over middies of New or Old

The publican tries to look on the bright side but admits leasing the

Central has not proven to be the smartest of investment ideas On

Wednesday nights a few local footballers might wander in but most

weeks only four or five blokes turn up to training

Ungarie, a place whose history has become indelibly linked with that of Australian football itself, is fading away Soon it might be just a

dusty collection of houses like Girral From a peak population of 800

it now has just 380 residents The surrounding district has suffered an

even more startling exodus Out on the land, a whole family was once

settled on each 740 acre block Then, working men were employed to

help sow and harvest the crops Now the average farm is more than ten

times the original size Technology, in the guise of enormous tractors,

means a farmer can manage such a vast tract of land on his own

Jim seems sad at the state of Ungarie, the place where he has lived his entire life We visit the Catholic primary school, where his

sons began their education Although the weatherboard building is no

longer used it sparks many memories Walking through the overgrown

playground, where a couple of goalposts and a concrete cricket pitch

can be found, Ben shakes his head It is like being on another planet,

compared to his experiences at the prestigious Xavier College in

Melbourne In just one generation, family circumstances can change

enormously

We leave Ungarie and drive for half an hour to the old sandy ground at Four Corners, where a club existed without a town Then we

travel along bumpy gravel roads to Burgooney, a long-forgotten outpost

of Northern Riverina footy Neale drives, while Jim talks constantly

in the front seat, his sentences littered with classic bush humour

He speaks of his father, Jim senior, and tells us he was a renowned

storyteller He knows the ownership history of every block of land

We are treated to an example of how tough the footy was in Jim’s era

‘When a fight started in those days the game would stop,’ he says with

a chuckle ‘They would form a ring around them and let them fight

Then, when she was over, they’d start the footy off again!’

Finally we visit Tullibigeal, Ungarie’s arch-rival on the footy field Neale played in his only senior premiership there in 1978 He

and Ben take out their Sherrin and re-enact some of the game Later

Jim tells them of the politics involved with Neale’s selection in the

team, because he had been away at boarding school for much of the

year Three generations of Danihers share their history

When we arrive back at the farm, Edna has laid out some ingredients to make salad sandwiches She senses it has been a

successful and enjoyable morning Neale continues to ask questions

and Jim delights in responding Edna occasionally chips in, offering

some of her countless life experiences It’s like this for the duration of

our stay

Later in the week, when we begin the long trip back to Melbourne, Neale says, ‘I didn’t know so much of that stuff Maybe

the old man has got to 80 and decided it’s no good taking all those

stories to the grave.’ Maybe he just needed to know someone would

listen Either way, so begins the Daniher story

DA NIHER COUNTRY

O n the first day of September in 1990, four boys from the bush

cemented their place in Australian football folklore On that early spring afternoon, Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher made history

by all playing for Essendon in its 6-goal win over St Kilda Modest blokes,

the Danihers never dreamed they would achieve such a feat After all, in

the 93-year history of the VFL and AFL, never before had a quartet of

brothers run out in the same team As the boys sat in the change rooms,

ice-packs on their sore limbs, their knockabout demeanour suggested

they might have just played for Ungarie at an oval ringed by cars rather

than screaming fans In their country drawl, they said the occasion had

been ‘t’riffic’ and a ‘bloody good show’ They had capped a remarkable

journey, one that began in Ungarie, their tiny home town, surrounded

by Rugby League territory, amid the dusty plains of western New South

Wales But the Danihers were a football family long before Terry, Neale,

Anthony and Chris became household names

In the early part of the 20th century, when the VFL was not two decades old and contained a team called University, a farmer by the

name of Jim Daniher dominated matches held in muddy paddocks

in north-east Victoria It was his grandchildren who would bring the

family fame

Jim was a first-generation Australian, and his Catholic faith and Irish ancestry were key parts of his identity Through stories told by

relatives and friends, he knew his father, John Daniher, had been part of

an extraordinary exodus John was just a child when his parents decided

to leave their home county of Tipperary It was the 1860s and the

Emerald Isle was a decimated place The Great Famine, which began

20 years prior, had resulted in the deaths of more than a million people

At least that number fled the country, most to England, the United

States and Australia Before the famine, Ireland’s population had been

greater than eight million Today, despite recent boom times, the total

population (counting both the Republic and Northern Ireland) is still

only 6.2 million

Oral history passed down through the generations suggests John Daniher’s father initially worked on the docks in Melbourne

before the family acquired a block of farming land near Kyneton

A subsequent dispute over its ownership led to a move north-east, to

the tiny community of Miepoll outside Euroa From there the Daniher

history becomes more definite and takes a rather unlikely early turn

In 1887, John Daniher married Miss Ellen Danaher, herself from

a local Irish clan, at St John’s Catholic Church in Euroa That Ellen’s

new surname sounded just like her maiden name certainly turned

a few heads Three years later, she and John welcomed Catherine

(known as Kate), the first of their three children On 22 January 1890,

Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris’s grandfather, Jim, was born But just

as the family prepared for its third addition, John was tragically killed

after being thrown from his buggy during a trip back to Miepoll from

Euroa He died at the scene, having broken his neck Only a few days

later John junior (usually referred to as Jack) was born

Losing the head of the household placed enormous pressure

on Ellen Yet, like so many pioneering women, she possessed an

unbreakable will to succeed With the help of her community she

raised the three kids and ensured they would have a positive future

Despite the later departure of her sons, and of Kate when she married

farmer Patrick O’Connel, Ellen lived out her days on the property at

Miepoll She died aged 70 in 1948, and left the land to her brother

Michael Danaher

Jim first brought the Daniher name notoriety on the footy field when just a teenager Tall and wiry, he received at least one best and

fairest award while playing with the Longwood Football Club With

no reserves or juniors in those days, it was a case of taking to the field

against grown men or not at all Jim later repeated his success at nearby

Euroa, where he won a premiership in 1913

Around this time, the New South Wales government began opening up large tracts of the Riverina, to be allocated under the Closer

Settlement Scheme Since white settlement, the area had been divided

into enormous sheep and cattle properties Their leases, including that

of the 15 000 acre Ungarie Station, were taken back by the government

and the land subdivided Opportunities to settle on the newly surveyed

blocks were advertised all over Australia Inspired by the idea of

relocating to the wide open plains, both Jim and Jack entered the

ballot for a piece of red Riverina soil Although some were set aside for

servicemen lucky enough to return from the horrors of Gallipoli and

the Great War, they were both awarded 740 acre allotments Neither of

them had laid eyes on the place

Late in 1914 the brothers finally decided to take a look at their new assets Due to a lack of finances, they took the extraordinary step of

making the 485 kilometre journey on bicycles Pedalling their way up and

down hills, over barely made dirt tracks, they took a few weeks to complete

the trip Impressed by what he saw, Jim immediately made plans for a

permanent move north But maybe due to the arduous bike ride, Jack

decided it was not the place for him, handing control of his block to Jim

and returning to Victoria, where he later joined the police force

During 1915, Jim settled on the property at Ungarie, which he named ‘Hillview’ in honour of the farm at Euroa which he had left

behind Judging by stories contained in local history books, he would

have lived in a rudimentary tent on his own for at least a year while the

task of clearing the land began In between felling the large eucalypt,

pine and currajong trees, he constructed the first fences, necessary to

prevent his horse from escaping Given the need to cart water out to

the block from the Humbug Creek, 8 kilometres away, the horse was

Jim’s most valuable asset

Along with an enormous workload and the lack of basic provisions — without running water there were no luxuries like showers

or plumbed toilets — isolation and loneliness were major problems

As a consequence, the settlers were quick to establish sporting clubs in

Ungarie to provide a vital social outlet Although the tiny town was in

Rugby League territory, the great number of expatriate Victorians meant

an Australian Rules club was among the first to be established Jim

Daniher played a major role in its formation According to an obituary

published in the West Wyalong Advocate upon his death in 1959, Jim

‘occupied various positions in the club for many years, including that of

patron’ He ensured Ungarie adopted black and white for its guernsey

after he had worn these colours at Euroa Pictured in an early team

photo in which players are wearing a mixture of horizontal and vertical

stripes, Jim was a tall man for his time, his broad shoulders and arms

bulked up by days spent bringing down trees with an axe Legendary

for being a great storyteller, he was very popular among the players and

would often entertain large numbers of men at the local pub with tales

of his many experiences

Football matches were roughly organised affairs, with teams made up of whoever felt like having a run Some away games were

held close by at now forgotten places like Girral and Calleen On other

occasions the team would travel up to 80 kilometres by horse and cart

to take on men from settlements like Lake Cargelligo, while racial

tensions were stirred when contests were staged against an Aboriginal

side from the Murrumbidgee Reservation Predictably, Jim Daniher

was among Ungarie’s best players in its formative years He helped

them win a premiership in 1923 and the medal he received remains

a treasured possession at the family farm Surviving records from the

time note that club membership was five shillings for men and two

shillings and sixpence for ladies Visiting team members and followers

paid one shilling at the gate

Having spent seven years setting up the farm on his own, Jim returned to Euroa after the 1923 footy season to marry Eileen Cullen

The service was held at St John’s Catholic Church where his parents

had married Once the celebrations had wound up, the couple

returned to Ungarie and began their life together at Hillview They had

six children in the next nine years John (once again nicknamed Jack)

was born in 1925, followed by Mary in 1927 A year later, the father of

Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris arrived Named after his father, Jim

junior would become a local sporting legend in his own right, as would

Leo, born in 1930 The fifth born, Joan, tragically died at three months

of age Terese rounded out the family when she entered the world in

1934

Despite their new family commitments, the Daniher family continued to strongly support their community Jim senior’s passion

for Aussie Rules saw him play the game well into his forties, on one

occasion even running out alongside his oldest son He also embraced

the rival code, serving as president of the Ungarie Rugby League

Club In later life he was a keen lawn bowler Away from sport, he was

a director of the Condobolin Pastures Protection Board for 18 years

and a member of the Ungarie Hospital board of directors Eileen also

was active within many groups, among them the Country Women’s

Association, the Agricultural Society, and the Patriotic Committee

She was, according to an article in the West Wyalong Advocate, ‘willing

to assist every worthy and charitable organisation’

A devout Catholic, Jim took an active role in building the first church at Ungarie, spending many hours carting timber to the site

When the church was firmly established in the district, he became a

close confidant of the local priest Jim and Eileen later played an active

role in welcoming the Sisters of St Joseph when they were invited to set

up a convent in the town The Danihers subsequently helped build a

primary school, to be run by the sisters They did all this while surviving

droughts, floods, mouse plagues and dust storms, not to mention trying

to make the farm profitable

Eileen died suddenly on Mother’s Day in 1950, aged just

55 ‘One of the best known and most highly esteemed ladies in the

Northern Riverina,’ according to the obituary in the West Wyalong

Advocate, her funeral was among the largest in Ungarie’s short history

The article written about her life also provides a glimpse of prevailing

attitudes at the time ‘Despite home ties, Mrs Daniher displayed very

commendable interest in public affairs,’ it read Unfortunately she did

not live to see any of her children marry

Nine years later Jim died, aged 69 A huge number of people attended his funeral, held in the church he helped build Demonstrating

the political leanings of the bush at the time and its broad Catholic

support, wreaths were sent by the Temora Electorate Council of the

Australian Labor Party and the Ungarie branch of the ALP Of course,

among many others was a floral tribute from the Ungarie Australian

Rules Football Club Jim had claimed the town for the native game

On the field his boys were already bringing local kudos to the Daniher

name And given the players that would emerge in the ensuing decades,

the code has plenty to thank him for

Jim, Jack and Leo

THE PR IDE OF THE DISTR ICT

T he sons of Jim Daniher senior were a fearsome trio on the football

field Jack, Jim junior and Leo wore Ungarie’s unique black and white horizontal stripes from their early teens until they could barely

walk The boys began their love affair with the game at home on the

farm where their father ensured they always had a ball to kick around

the paddocks It was never the finest piece of sporting equipment; mostly

it was a leather casing stuffed with barley grass ‘Well, he never grew a

crop so he didn’t have any straw,’ jokes Jim, reminiscing about the time

At school the young lads preached the values of the Victorian game to

fellow students more inclined to throwing passes However, by growing

up on the footy frontier where Rules and League met head-on, they had

no option but to become proficient at both codes

All the boys attended the Eugalong Primary School, a tiny building located close to Hillview Later they attended Ungarie Central

for a time, although Jack and Jim went on to further their education

at the Forbes Catholic College By the time football could resume in

the Northern Riverina following World War II, all three brothers had

finished school and returned to the family farm, although Jack would

later move into town and pursue a new career as a shearer

In 1946, when Ungarie’s team took the field for the first time

in five years, the Danihers immediately established themselves as key

players In particular, Jim became the one to watch The tallest of the

trio, he was skilful, could play in any position and was renowned for

his toughness Having suffered a broken arm one season he asked the

league if he could play with a cast on When the response was no, he

insisted on getting the plaster taken off each weekend so he could play

He ran around for the afternoon with the broken bone shielded by a

few bandages Upon finishing the game Jim would get the doctor to set

him a new cast

The club secretary of the time was captivated by the uniform worn by Ganmain players at a knock-out carnival ‘They had the white

shorts and a red jumper with a white V,’ Jim remembers ‘They had

all the same guernseys and all the other teams had stray guernseys.’

Desperate to smarten up his team’s on-field appearance, the secretary

decided Ungarie should ditch its black and white colours He ordered

two new sets of red and white jumpers ‘But he got it wrong,’ Jim

continues ‘Instead of being red and a white V they were white with a

red V The bloody red V ran into the jumpers They used to call us the

galahs!’ Given Jim’s appetite for a contest, few of his opponents dared

rib him on field about Ungarie’s pink jumpers

With the Danihers making their presence felt, Ungarie was competitive but couldn’t stop arch-rivals Tullibigeal, a fellow bunch

of farmers and labourers from 40 kilometres north, winning three

successive flags In 1949, West Wyalong entered the Northern Riverina

League and brought with it the Griff Evans Cup, to be awarded to the

competition’s best-and-fairest player each season Now an established

local footy star, Jim won the cup in its first year and the Daniher name

has since been engraved on a further nine occasions Leo took it home

in 1951

Once again wearing black and white stripes, Ungarie finally broke its 15-year premiership drought in 1950 It was the first of many

flags for the Daniher brothers ‘We had a big fella playing full-forward,

Norman Stidwell,’ Jim says ‘He was like a draughthorse and he could

not turn Anyhow, we were neck and neck and it rained at three-quarter

time, poured We were into the last quarter, about half way through it

The ball came up and Norm came out to the flank, grabbed the ball

He was a strong, big bugger He ran over about two fellas and he was

going cross-ways across the field He threw the ball on his boot and it

went straight up and through the goals That was the turning point of

the game Never forgot that.’

Celebrations involved warm beer (fridges were an unaffordable luxury) and a dance at the local hall The Danihers were all among the

most influential players

Footy in the Northern Riverina was still rough and ready Teams rarely trained Given they all did plenty of manual labour, and the game

was played at walking pace compared with today, fitness was not really

an issue Occasionally the boys would get together on a Wednesday

evening and let fly with a few drop kicks Ungarie players travelled to

away games along potholed roads, standing up in the back of a truck

The starting time of the matches would vary according to the standard

of each side’s transport One week Ungarie’s truck broke down and it

was 4 pm before the team arrived at its destination A game consisting

of 10-minute quarters was played, finishing in near-darkness In later

years the Ungarie boys enjoyed the relative luxury of a school bus, in

which they all had a seat for the journey

Playing fields were often marked out in a paddock In wet years the Ungarie ground would become waterlogged and unplayable so the

men would simply find a piece of higher ground in a paddock close by

and mark out an oval there Jim reckons Ungarie held matches in every

paddock that adjoined the town Away games were played on all sorts of

surfaces The patch of dirt used by the Four Corners Football Club was

one of the finest examples Flying High, a publication released for Four

Corners’ fiftieth anniversary in 1987, gives an insight into its history:

Much time was spent by local men at organised working bees to prepare

an oval First they cleared the timber, which sometimes had to be cut off

below ground level This was very hard work as the dirt had to be removed

from around stumps with a pick and shovel All the fallen timber was

stacked and burnt after the completion of the clearing Then the whole

area was harrowed to loosen and even out the ground A single furrow

plough, drawn by a draughthorse, marked the line of the boundary

The playing area’s initial circumference was rather misshapen, leading to each side having one very deep pocket and another shallow

But once the locals learned that it gave them a greater home-ground

advantage, the shape was never changed and the ground was never

enclosed by a fence ‘They played it to perfection on a windy day,’ Jim

recalls ‘They had a great old player, Dud Ireland, a big torpedo kick

He’d kick it out this dead wing and it would take you half a bloody

quarter to get it back.’

The Four Corners area got its name from being situated at the point where a quartet of giant sheep and cattle stations met, before

they were carved up for closer settlement At one stage the area had

its own school and hall, although it was the footy team, wearing its

maroon jumper with a yellow V, that was the pride of the district Four

Corners, mostly men from the surrounding farms, and Ungarie enjoyed

many spirited battles Often the ball would get stuck in the branches of

a huge gum tree, which stood close to the boundary Sometimes the

game was stopped for ten minutes while the Sherrin was rescued At

most grounds, facilities were rudimentary to say the least There were

no showers to use after the games, rather the players would not get to

wash until they returned to their homes Flying High provides another

wonderful description of the early arrangements at Four Corners:

Wheat bags had been opened down both seams and sewn together

lengthwise and attached to a tree and three other posts They enclosed

an area approximately 10 feet square, which served as a dressing place

for the players One enclosure on the north-west side for the visiting

team and one on the eastern side, close to the boundary fence, for the

home side

Later a small iron-clad building, replete with a creaking wooden floor, was constructed It still stands When it was in use, just a thin

tarpaulin separated the two teams, meaning both could hear each

coach’s address Former players remember the coach who spoke second

would often try to outdo his rival by producing a more stirring speech

In the process, he usually fired up both sides The place was last used

for football in 1994 when the Redlegs folded, larger farms and smaller

families having brought on its demise It’s hard to believe the patch of

red dirt saw action that recently There is not a blade of grass on the

oval, just a few weeds forcing their way through the dusty surface At

one end, four pine goal posts stand proudly Once they were painted

bright white, but that has long since peeled away Next to the change

rooms the tiny canteen remains, its serving window forever boarded up

Visiting Corners, as he calls it, is an almost spiritual experience for Jim His white hair reflecting in the midday sun, a broad smile

emerges as his mind flashes back to the great afternoons of male

bonding; to the times when he could single-handedly control the flow

of a match; to the beers afterwards with the boys The lack of grass

at Corners didn’t concern him as a player Rather the sandy soil was

much easier on joints and skin than other grounds like Tullibigeal,

which he says ‘was either hard as flint or wet as a bog’

In the days when Jim and his brothers were at their peak, there were no well-grassed surfaces to play on The Magpies’ home ground

at Ungarie was notoriously rough Sometimes this could be attributed

to the efforts of the League players, who liked to dig their boots into

the soil when packing scrums To make the surface loose enough they

would often plough it up before matches For members of the Rules

team, whose game involved much running across the top of the ground,

this was a disaster, heightening the chances of knee and ankle injuries

At Tullibigeal and Burgooney, the grounds were covered in stones Knees and elbows were red and raw by the end of matches If

you call in at Burgooney today, it is almost impossible to imagine the

many battles fought there The oval is covered in scrub Two lonely

pine goal posts lean on large trees Shrubs grow along the edge of

the decaying concrete cricket pitch The soil between the bushes is

still sprinkled with pebbles But when Jim Daniher steps onto the red

earth, he forgets the arthritis and other complaints that come with old

age Instead, he remembers playing there like it was yesterday ‘They

were hard to beat I don’t remember beating them here,’ he says, while

showing how the combatants would scrape the stones out of their knees

after full-time ‘If they had the blood rule then, we would never have

the match would be played at Weja Today, it is nearly impossible to

find the oval in question, but even back then it must have been in poor

condition Upon arrival at the ground, Girral players were so disgusted

their captain declared they would rather forfeit the premiership than

take to the field Flying High provides the details.

Players and spectators waited anxiously to hear the result of the very

hostile delegates’ meeting Ungarie was announced the venue for the

grand final the next Saturday This game, for all interested, was the topic

of conversation for the week and big bets were placed by punters Police

protection was sought for the umpire As well as the Ungarie police, the

policeman from Tullibigeal was in attendance to help control the crowd

before and after play had commenced The umpire was determined

to keep control of the game, although play was very rough and several

fights were witnessed Men from both teams were injured because of the

rough play but Corners took control of the game and ran out winners

In 1954, Jim won his second league best-and-fairest award He was the most respected player in a very tough competition Those

around at the time recall that if a young opponent won a contest for the

ball against Jim, he was immediately labelled ‘a good footballer’ Two

years later Ungarie won another premiership, defeating Tullibigeal

A photo taken at the post-season presentation night shows the Daniher

brothers standing proudly side-by-side, dressed in freshly laundered

footy gear They wear Brylcreem in their hair and boots that cover their

ankles Their big white shorts seem to sit just under their rib-cages Leo,

the fresh-faced baby of the trio, wears the broadest smile They had

achieved a lot together on the field Off it, they followed a remarkably

similar path

Beginning with Jack’s marriage to Beryl in 1954, the Daniher boys each married one of the three Erwin sisters The girls had grown

up on a farm not far from Hillview and their father had been a talented

footballer, playing alongside Jim senior In July of ’56, Jim junior and

Edna tied the knot It was an event of such note that the local paper

carried two reports detailing the festivities The first described Edna’s

presentation evening, held prior to the wedding

As Miss Erwin entered the hall, a beautiful shoulder spray was pinned to

her frock by Miss Nancy Murdoch For the evening, Miss Erwin chose a

ballerina length frock of red velvet, trimmed with bands of guipure lace

Bright music was provided for dancing and the evening was thoroughly

enjoyed by all those who attended

The wedding took place at St Joseph’s Catholic Church, the paper noting that Edna wore a ‘gown of heavy satin brocade’ The

service was followed by a reception at the Ungarie Hall, attended by

almost 200 guests Later in the evening, Edna donned a new outfit as

the couple prepared to leave for their honeymoon ‘For travelling, the

bride chose a wine coloured suit, set off with grey accessories and a

white hat,’ it was reported It had been a grand occasion

Finally, Leo married Dorothy in 1959 There were few quiet moments for the three Daniher–Erwin couplings in following years

Between them they had 28 children, four of which whom entrench the

family name and their home town in Australian sporting legend

YOU PL AY A N Y THING

T erry daniher was born on 15 August 1957 The eldest of Jim

and Edna’s children, who would eventually number 11 in all, Terry arrived when the northern Riverina was a bustling place Ungarie’s

population was almost 800 Twelve years after the end of World War II, it

was a time of both optimism and confrontation Around the world, race

relations were among the big issues In the US, Senator Strom Thurmond

was about to set a new benchmark, with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech

railing against a civil rights bill Indigenous Australians were nine years

away from being counted in the Census

Despite a post-war commodities boom delivering good prices for wool, meat and grain, living conditions were tough at Hillview

Edna began life as a mother without even electricity She has memories

of standing by the sink listening to news of John F Kennedy’s

assassination in 1963 on a battery-powered radio By the time the

farmhouse was connected to mains power a year later, her brood

numbered four — Estelle having arrived in 1959, Neale in 1961

Opposite above: Hillview 1956

Opposite below: Jim and Edna’s wedding

and Anthony in 1963 Being a housewife was more than a full-time

occupation Everything had to be done by hand, including chopping

wood, the vital energy source of the time Wood was needed to heat

the oven, stove and water for bathing ‘There was no boiling the jug,

you’d put on the wood-chip bath heater,’ Edna remembers ‘It was a

real big job just to get some hot water.’ The same vessel was used for

cleaning clothes, another arduous task There were no air-conditioners

to provide relief from the scorching summers To help the young ones

cope, Edna would drape wet sheets around their cots, hoping to cool

the hot northerly breeze

Devout Catholics like their parents, Jim and Edna would never miss Sunday Mass With Ungarie’s only service conducted at

7 am, Edna would rise in darkness, bathing the babies by the light of

kerosene lamps ‘Those big lights were very good but they were a bit of

a nuisance to light,’ she remembers ‘They had the little mantle and

they seemed to be always blowing out We were in our first house, the

old Daniher homestead, and the wind was coming through the walls

It was not lined or anything They were tough times but you didn’t

worry about it That was just how it was.’

As the family expanded — Dorothy arrived in 1964, Chris in ’66, Colleen in ’67, Angela in ’69 and Julie in 1970 — she would rise earlier

and earlier on Sunday mornings The children would always be bathed

and immaculately dressed for Mass It was not negotiable ‘I used get

up at 4 am to bath the baby so I could get to Mass on time,’ Edna

says ‘You didn’t notice it as a trial or difficult because everyone was

in the same boat Now I look back and wonder how on earth I coped.’

As in every comparable household, the male and female roles were clearly defined Both parents worked tirelessly and selflessly

Edna did all the cooking, cleaning and child-minding She changed

every nappy Jim devoted himself to the farm, visiting the house during

the day only to eat and discuss his many concerns about the state of

agriculture He and Leo rode the ups the downs of droughts and floods,

mouse plagues and locust invasions

Football remained the highlight of Jim’s week, and as more children arrived his sporting reputation grew Soon he was appointed

captain of Ungarie’s Rules team, a position he held for a decade In

those days there was no coach, so Jim ran the show Beginning in 1959

he led the Magpies to three successive premierships In ’59 he was

voted the Northern Riverina League’s best-and-fairest player for a third

time

During the 1950s, Jim also established a reputation as one of the finest Rugby League players in the Riverina Each Sunday, he would

drag his creaking body out of bed to attend Mass before suiting up for

Ungarie’s League team As if the endless manual labour on the farm

wasn’t enough, he was spending almost his entire weekends crashing

into burly men Desperately trying to free up limbs stiffened by playing

Rules the day before, Jim found the opening minutes of each week’s

League encounter tough going ‘It was alright when you were playing

against a side that had also played Rules on the Saturday,’ Jim says

‘But if they were fresh it took you 20 minutes to slow them down I

didn’t mind it You play anything when you’re young.’

Playing as an outside centre, Jim’s performances early in his League career were so impressive he was selected in the Riverina team

to play Great Britain at the Wagga Wagga Showgrounds in 1954 A

crowd of more than 10 000 watched as Jim, aged 25, scored two tries

against some of the best players in the world The effort against the

British convinced many people that Jim could play League at the

highest level He was sent letters by a number of Sydney-based clubs,

including Manly, yet rejected each invitation to try out ‘I don’t know

how many times I got told “give that bloody Aussie Rules away and play

League You’ll play for Australia.” All this rubbish.’

The home-grown code was Jim’s passion and nothing was going

to change that He wanted nothing more than to see his sons carry on

the tradition As soon as Jim’s boys could walk, they were given a footy

On some occasions they were not as keen as might be expected When

four years old, Terry was made the mascot for Ungarie’s 1961 grand

final team With Jim the captain, father and son were to lead the team

out onto the field Edna kitted Terry out in a new guernsey and boots

for the big day But when it came time to leave the dressing sheds he

refused ‘They bribed and coaxed him but he wouldn’t do it,’ Edna

recalls with a chuckle It was perhaps the only time in Terry’s life he

wavered from an infatuation with the game

Later Jim became an inspiration for his sons They watched

in awe as he controlled matches and survived what seemed, to the

youngsters, like life-threatening injuries Anthony was with Jim at Four

Corners when he suffered a nasty leg gash from an aluminium stop on

an opponent’s boot Ignoring the steady blood flow, Jim strapped up

the leg and kept playing Those metal stops were later banned

Although most of the men played both codes, Ungarie’s two football clubs fought a constant battle for survival In the mid-1960s,

Jim tried to encourage promising youngsters to play Rules by offering

to step down as captain, only for tragedy to intervene ‘We had a young

bloke lined up, a good kid,’ he explains ‘He went for a joy ride on

show day and got himself killed in an aeroplane accident.’ Jim hung

in for another two years, grooming another young man, Jim Miller, to

take over ‘He was real good and real keen He was welding the knife

on a header at harvest time and unbeknown to him he had it sitting

on half a can of petrol It exploded and burnt him to death Then we

collapsed.’ Jim had no option but to continue as captain Rules faced its

greatest challenge as most of the promising juniors were lost to League

‘We’d won three premierships in a row and the blokes had hung on

for the premierships, then they all retired,’ Jim recalls ‘Rugby League

was firing and they were busting for us to fold, but we weren’t going to

bloody fold They said “you forfeit, you forfeit” But you never forfeit

You’ve got to give them a game.’

Ungarie started one match at Four Corners with just 12 men

‘We flooded the backline!’ Jim jokes ‘We got a few more to come

along in the end For a while we played 15-a-side We got rid of the

ruck rover — he should’ve gone out with the plague — and the centre

wingers It was good Someone had to win the ball in the middle and

you didn’t get that great bloody scramble.’

As a result of the commitment of Jim and his brothers to Rules, eventually the Rugby League club disappeared and aerial ping-pong,

as the non-believers still refer to it, prospered When Terry and Neale,

Jim’s first two sons, began their education at St Joseph’s Catholic

Primary School, Jim became concerned at the lack of organised junior

coaching for budding Aussie Rules players Supported by Bob Bryant,

Tom McGrane and Ned Ward, he started teaching the game to local

youngsters Initially it was a struggle Jim recalls many had already

received tuition in the ways of League ‘They’d try and kick it straight

into the arms of the bloke standing on the mark I thought I’m not

going to have my kids brought up like that.’

At St Joseph’s his efforts to improve the youngsters’ skills were commended There he had many Daniher children to work with, as the

sons of both Jack and Leo also showed great promise But he struggled

to steer the Central School’s teachers, often from Sydney, away from

League The headmaster at the time said he wanted the children to focus

on just one code of football Jim was furious ‘Eventually I shamed him

into letting us get Rules in there,’ he remembers ‘I went to the butcher

shop, the café, the little shop, the store and pub and said the bloody

headmaster wouldn’t let us go in and coach kids Within ten days he was

ringing us up and saying, “She’s right.” They’re like bloody politicians.’

The new generation of Danihers was much like the old Sport dominated their lives At school, Terry and Neale lived for the breaks

between classes when they played what was dubbed ‘The Real Game’

Whether it was football in the winter or cricket in the summer, teams

were picked each Monday The oldest boys acted as the umpires and

team captains For a whole week the sides would do battle, with a

winner declared each Friday afternoon On the following Monday, the

process would begin again When Anthony began at St Joseph’s, the

three brothers took the competition to a new level Passers-by would

often comment on the intensity of the footy played in the school’s small

playground ‘One bloke told me it was like a semi-final every morning

and a grand final at lunch time,’ Jim says ‘It was a good education

The boys learned how to compete.’

When it came to learning in class, Terry was not so keen He would joke with his classmates and count down the minutes until he

could begin kicking the footy or playing cricket again His poor maths

results especially concerned his teacher, Sister Mary Sebastian In an

effort to make Terry improve, Sister Sebastian began keeping him back

each Wednesday, after the last classes had finished ‘I used to watch all

my mates going home and I was bloody stuck there,’ Terry laments

With a cane at the ready, she taught him so well that he breezed through

Form 1 and 2 maths when he headed across the Humbug Creek to the

Central School Outside her teaching, Sister Sebastian became a close

friend of the Daniher family and followed Terry’s football career with

great interest After all, she had been there when it had all begun

During Terry’s time at primary school, a football game between

St Joseph’s and the Central School — essentially Catholics versus

the rest — was introduced to the calendar The grudge match was

supported by Sister Sebastian and her fellow nuns, unless conditions

were too wet, when they would step in and call it off Jim had coached

most players on both teams, but for this game he was firmly behind his

boys With up to 11 Danihers in the team, St Joseph’s usually won

Even at primary school, the very different personalities of Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris shone out through sport At one stage in his

early years, Terry seemed to stop growing and was among the smallest

kids in his class Despite this, he boasted an interesting mix of

happy-go-lucky and ultra-competitive attitudes Neale was a calculated and

thinking player, combining his prodigious natural talent with a stern

nature Anthony was the cruiser, the lad who often looked like he was

not trying, yet could do anything he wanted if he decided application

was necessary Nine years younger than his oldest brother, Chris

idolised and resembled Terry Always a joker, he also hated being

beaten Today, the weatherboard school, with a cross on its roof, sits

abandoned Its cricket pitch, footy oval and netball court are overgrown

examples of rural decline However, the Daniher boys will never forget

the fearsome duels that took place there

Out at Hillview, the backyard contests were every bit as fierce

The brothers and sisters would do battle for hours, often coming to

blows As the oldest child, Terry took it upon himself to bait and goad

the others On one occasion, Estelle, the oldest sister, responded by

knocking out one of his teeth ‘You used to have to biff him when he

wasn’t looking and then hope Dad was home, or run to the bathroom

and put your foot down on a cupboard near the door,’ Estelle explains

‘Then no-one could get in there.’ Edna remembers many fights and

squabbles ‘But it was all outside,’ she says ‘There was no television or

anything They used to play touch footy out on the lawn Up and down,

wrecking the garden, knocking fruit off my trees Before the verandah

was built in, I’m sure they used to practise kicking the ball through the

posts We had many holes in the fibro wall.’ For cricket, Jim built the

boys their own concrete pitch, a safe distance away from the house

They also spent many hours on a crude tennis court, where the whole

family, including Edna, competed for bragging rights in the ‘Barbwire

Cup’ each year

Sport was only interrupted by chores Edna relied on the youngsters to help keep the household functioning Chopping wood,

feeding lambs and poddy calves, washing dishes and milking cows

were the main responsibilities of the children All the four boys and

seven girls have distinct memories of dragging themselves out of bed

on freezing winter mornings to attend to the cows ‘You couldn’t feel

your hands when you got home,’ says Chris ‘But then we got a bowl of

warm porridge and it was beautiful.’

Jim also gave the boys plenty of jobs on the farm Picking up rocks

in the paddocks, to enable easier passage for the plough when sowing

crops, was one task they were not especially fond of An analytical child,

Neale knew at an early age he did not want to be a farmer That was

confirmed after he was run over by the trailer and suffered a broken

leg during an afternoon of rock-picking A few weeks trapped in a

full-leg plaster cast hardened his resolve to one day escape the bush

By the time Jim and Edna’s brood reached double figures — Nerolee, the tenth child, arrived in 1973 — living conditions at

Hillview had improved The first shower was installed, although with

the water still being heated by the wood stove, it was not a massive step

forward from the communal bath ‘You’d finish up having a lukewarm

shower if you were lucky,’ Terry recalls ‘If you had a hot one the old

man would be going “Get out!” You had to get in, have a quick scrub

and get out If you were fourth or fifth in line the water was getting a

bit cool You were bloody shivering.’ The purchase of an oil heater

was regarded by Terry as a great luxury ‘That used to put you to sleep

pretty quick The fumes would knock you out She used to cook a few

mice in the plagues.’

Although the house had been extended, each new arrival created

a further shortage of space Eventually, the home’s broad verandah was

enclosed to create extra bedrooms Still, all four boys shared one room

until Neale won a scholarship in 1973 and headed off to boarding

school in the New South Wales rural city of Goulburn Chris recalls

their delight when Terry was given a cassette player for Christmas

and the four brothers would lie in bed listening to ‘Crocodile Rock’

During summer’s sticky nights, a small air-conditioner was parked in

the corner of their room, causing numerous fights over the direction in

which the air was blowing

Finding a car large enough for the family was another challenge

For many years the Danihers squeezed into a battered station wagon

There was never any room for luggage but they never went far anyway

A trip to Condobolin or Lake Cargelligo for footy (an organised netball

competition for the girls had not yet started) was about the extent of

their travels The short journeys to Mass on a Sunday morning created

a game the siblings still laugh about On those occasions the children

raced to secure the seat behind the driver, always their father Whoever

had the prized position would then incite the others to play up, knowing

the seat offered protection from Jim’s settling blows

Growing up on a farm, in a huge family, also presented plenty of hardships, yet all 11 Daniher siblings — Terry, Estelle, Neale, Dorothy,

Anthony, Chris, Angela, Colleen Julie, Nerolee and Fiona (born in

1976) — look back fondly on their childhood They remember having

two dinner sittings each night, with the little kids eating first, followed

by the big ones They remember sitting in the same seats at Mass each

Sunday morning There were so many Danihers, they filled almost every

pew on the left side of the church On the way home, Jim would always

buy all the children ice-creams, although by the time he had a brood of

11, he struggled to remember all of their names They remember Edna

making everyone, including Jim, recite the Rosary each night during

Lent They remember summer days spent swimming in the farm dam

and the time when Dorothy nearly drowned, only to be dragged out

by Jim in the nick of time They remember setting rabbit traps Neale

even has a scar on one finger to prove the dangers involved

The girls jovially recall their frustration at their youngest sister, Fiona, being Jim’s darling, and escaping the ordeal of milking cows

They also remember the many restrictions their parents imposed when

it came to watching television Shows like Dallas, Dr Who and The

Goodies were all banned, the comedic antics of Tim Brooke-Taylor,

Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie regarded as pollution for the young

Catholic minds Colleen recalls her devastation when Molly was about

to die in A Country Practice but Jim stormed in and changed the channel.

For the boys, their weekly TV highlight was The Winners on the

ABC These VFL replays provided much inspiration for the young

men, especially as they lived in a region where the media focused on

Rugby League The newspapers available in Ungarie were mostly from

Sydney, hence were full of League news The local ABC radio carried

broadcasts of League games from the harbour city Sometimes Jim or

the boys would back the family car out of the shed and try to find a

crackly signal from Melbourne so they could hear the VFL scores

Unlike most children, they did not feel the need to strongly support

any of the teams Rather, they preferred to follow the fortunes of star

players Terry loved Royce Hart Chris did have a soft spot for St Kilda

During the school year, pushbike races from where the bus dropped them were the day’s most anticipated event It was a

1.5-kilometre mad dash up the hill to the house Each afternoon, one

rider would face the disadvantage of having to carry Edna’s order from

the bakery ‘She would order sometimes four or six loaves and it would

come wrapped up in brown paper, tied up with string,’ Terry says ‘We

took it in turns to cart the bread home When you were going like

buggery, the string was sawing through the bread Before you knew it,

you’d get halfway home and there’d be bread going everywhere You’d

be stopping to collect it and brush the dirt off Then you’d eat half of

it at home with cream and jam, you were that bloody hungry It was

beautiful fresh bread They were good times You were always on the go.’

By the age of 12, Terry was allowed to load the kids in a battered old ute and drive to and from the bus stop This practice almost ended

tragically One afternoon after school a huge storm swept across the

Riverina, bringing heavy rain and howling winds ‘I told the kids to park

in under the old bike shed while I backed the car around under that

damn gum tree,’ Terry explains ‘I said, “Righto, all aboard” and they all

jumped in, squashed in.’ As Terry began letting out the clutch, a huge

gum tree landed on the cabin, pinning him against the steering wheel

His little sister, Colleen, had been kneeling down watching the bus

pull away through the back window She was suddenly trapped under