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Jock McHale - Collingwood
 
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The following fascinating profile of Jock McHale, the famous Australian Rules footballer and coach was sent to us by Glenn McFarlane, Assistant Sport Editor with the Herald Sun newsapaper in Southbank, Australia. Look out for the release of Glenn's biography of Jock next Summer.
James Francis ‘Jock’ McHale was one of the most famous Australian football identities in the first half of the 20th century. He played 261 games for Collingwood (Melbourne) from 1903 to 1920. As a centre-man and half back, he was one of the competition’s most durable players, playing a then-record number of consecutive games – 191 games over 11 years. But his fame as a player was dwarfed by his legendary feats as a coach.
Jock took over as a playing coach of the Magpies in 1912 – at almost the same time as the Titanic set sail – and led the club for an astonishing 38 seasons. He coached the club for a record 714 games from 1912 to 1949. He built the famous "Machine" team that won a record four premierships in succession from 1927 to 1930. He also coached premiership teams in 1917, 1919, 1935 and 1936, as well as playing in the 1910 premiership side. A remarkable figure of the game, the taciturn, intense “Prince of Coaches” stands as one of the giants of the game. But because he ruled in an age before television or saturated media coverage of the sport, little is known of what made this remarkable man tick.
Some people assumed that Jock’s nickname indicated a link to Scotland and some cartoonists even depicted him in a kilt. But Jock’s father, John McHale, and his mother, Mary Gibbons, came from County Mayo . John was from Emlagh and Mary was a sister of James Gibbons from Roonagh. The pair married in Louisburgh in 1879, just before John left Ireland bound for New South Wales . He arrived in March 1880. Mary joined him later, but there is no official record of her voyage. ‘Jock’ was born James Francis McHale in Sydney on December 12, 1882. He never got the chance to visit the homeland of his parents, but it is believed one of his brothers did when serving in the Australian army in World War One. John and Mary never returned either, though one of Mary’s sisters, who accompanied her to Australia , shifted back home to Ireland . Incredibly, a few copies of letters exist from John and Mary written back to their family from 1912, the year that Jock took over as coach of Collingwood.
We plan to release Jock’s biography in August 2011. I was approached by Geoff Slattery Publishing, one of the leading sports publishers in Australia , to write the book to almost coincide with the 100th anniversary of Jock’s coaching career starting (1912). Collingwood is the most popular AFL club in the country, so hopefully it sells plenty of copies and gets Jock’s story out to a wider audience. I’ve managed to track down some new things, including some very rare audio of Jock from 1953 (just before he died). But it has been a very difficult task because there is very little known personally about him.
My interest in Jock McHale stems from the fact my grandfather, Charlie Dibbs, played as the full-back in the famous “Machine”, the team considered one of the greatest of all-time. He played for 12 seasons under Jock as coach. Unfortunately, Charlie died before I was born, and I began to contact members of the “Machine” when I was a teenager, gathering information and pictures of the team. I was lucky enough to co-author a book on the “Machine” five years ago, and Jock’s biography is an extension of this. I have been a sports writer in Melbourne for the past 21 years, having been sports editor of the Sunday Herald for 11 years. I’ve written a number of other books as well on Australian football and sport.