Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows the story of Australian rules football legend Robert (Bob) Rose from his beginnings as a boxer and a football player for his small home-town club, to his almost overnight success as a player for the Collingwood Football Club. A montage of black-and-white still photographs and film, excerpts from a television interview with Rose in 1999, shots and footage of him playing football and a brief interview with his eldest son Peter are included. The clip is accompanied by a narrated account of the key moments in Rose’s story.

Educational value points

• Bob Rose’s skill as a player of Australian rules football is glimpsed in the clip, and was demonstrated in 152 games between 1946 and 1955. Rose combined speed, evasion, superb ball handling and passing skills with a courage that meant he could overcome tough opposition on the field. He played in the premiership-winning side in 1953 and won Collingwood’s Best and Fairest award, the Copeland Trophy, in 1949, 1951, 1952 and 1953.

• Bob Rose’s story illustrates the way that sporting talent could provide a way out of poverty in post-Depression Australia. The eldest of seven children, Rose lived with his family in a four-room fibrocement shack in country Victoria. He left school at 15 but starred in the local football team and as an amateur boxer. Having achieved success boxing in Melbourne, his reputation as a footballer was also noted and he was invited to train with the Collingwood Football Club.

• Bob Rose (1928–2003) is regarded by many as an Australian sporting hero whose life exemplified the best qualities that sport can engender. Admired for his skill as an Australian rules footballer, then as a coach for the Collingwood Football Club (1964–71 and 1985–86), in later years Rose became known more widely for the devotion he showed over 25 years to his son Robert, an outstanding sportsman who had become a quadriplegic after a car accident.

• The passionate loyalty of Collingwood Football Club supporters is exhibited in the clip at a time when support for teams was more geographically based and even ‘tribal’ compared to today. Collingwood fans’ fanaticism is legendary and has always been linked to a proud association with the working-class values of Melbourne’s inner city suburb of Collingwood. Collingwood was a foundation club in the Victorian Football League, established in 1897.

• Rose’s son Peter refers to the loyalty of players such as Rose to his club and its fans as being old-fashioned. Bob Rose played for the Collingwood Football Club at a time when the honour of playing was considered a reward in itself and players received only modest wages in comparison with the high salaries players can earn today. Yet Rose was always grateful for the opportunities the club had given him to improve his circumstances in life.

• Rose was encouraged to take up boxing while a teenager, reflecting the popularity of the sport and the positive influence boxing was thought to have upon boys in the 1930s and 1940s. At the time boxing was still a popular spectator sport in Australia. Boxing was thought to be a healthy pursuit, developing character, taking boys off the streets and encouraging them to be good citizens. Police Boys’ Clubs were founded from 1937 and incorporated these principles.