Memorable memorabilia or a nodding brush with the truth.

 

Ken “Noddy” McAullay

I attended Aquinas College from 1951to1955. For some years now a group of Old Aquinians from the late 1940s and the 1950s have been attending a morning Coffee Club and catch up at the New Generation Sports Club in Kings Park. Well, actually, apart from  a cup of coffee, we also enjoy a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of red wine.

Sadly, numbers from the 1940s are dwindling and a few old boys from the 1960s are starting to attend our monthly gatherings where we naturally talk at length about how great we all were back in the day.

To demonstrate how inclusive our group is, we occasionally enjoy our Coffee Club at the Craigie Tavern and  at Bistro 21 in South Fremantle. This enables old boys in the far flung northern and southern suburbs of Perth to front up occasionally. The Craigie Tavern is owned by Fred Pawle (1955) and  Bistro 21 by Victor Paino (1952). This year we also enjoyed our very first Coffee Club gathering at Aquinas College. We met in the Churack Pavilion, which was built from funds generously donated by Geoffrey Churack (1955).

At this month’s  Coffee Club, Ross Willcock (1953), showed me a photograph on his mobile phone. He said he took the  photo of a piece of Aquinas memorabilia on a shelf in the Justin Langer room in the Churack Pavilion when our Coffee Club met there earlier this year. It was a picture of Ken “Noddy” McAullay in East Perth Football Club colours. Below the photo was a citation of Ken McAullay’s outstanding career as an East Perth and State footballer and as a batsman in the WA Sheffield Shield side. He obtained the nickname “Noddy” in his early days at East Perth because of his habit of nodding his head in agreement whenever coaches or senior players spoke to him.

 Ken was in the strong  East Perth teams that played in Grand Finals in 1966, ‘67, ‘68, ‘69 and 71 and were Premiers in 1972, the year that Ken won the Tassie Medal as the Best and Fairest player in the National Football Carnival. The citation also  stated that Ken McAullay had been educated at Aquinas College in 1961.

As I handed Ross’s phone back I said, “ You know, I am an East Perth Supporter. I saw most of Ken McAullay’s games but I never knew he went to Aquinas.”

“He didn’t”, grinned Ross. “You know who told me?... Ken McAullay!”

It seems earlier this year Ken McAullay went to Aquinas, for the very first time in his life, to watch his grandson play football in an interschool match. During the game, Ken visited the Churack Pavilion. Looking around at the memorabilia in the Justin Langer room he was astounded to see his picture alongside that of his East Perth teammate and dual Sandover Medallist, Peter Spencer. Ken moved in closer to read the citation. He was absolutely stunned to read that he attended Aquinas College in 1961. He told a friend, “I have never been to Aquinas before today.”

Ross later shared this quirky piece of information with the entire Coffee Club group, among whom was a 1961 Old Boy. He confirmed that a student named Ken McAullay attended Aquinas in 1961. It seems that somebody preparing memorabilia for the Churack Pavilion noticed that  a Ken McAullay attended Aquinas in 1961 and decided to make a feature of the footballer/cricketers’ outstanding career.

The real Ken McAullay had already told Ross that  a distant cousin of his did attend Aquinas College in 1961. However, this cousin was not a champion footballer who won a Tassie Medal or played in the WA Sheffield Shield team.

Presumably the photo and glowing citation of the Ken McAullay, the Phantom Old Aquinian, has been removed from the memorabilia display. No one knows why the year 1967 headed the citation.