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1938 Just Who Was Jack Foster? |
Preston's President, Cr. Henry Zwar provided work at his tannery and woodyard for many players during the economic crisis of the 1930's when the promise of a job was more of an inducement to recruits than match payments.
Zwar went away in the country and interstate regularly on business, and often took the opportunity to do a little recruiting while he was away. He went to Adelaide on business in May of 1938 and it was no great surprise when a telegram arrived at around 1 o'clock on Tuesday, May 17 addressed to Alan McCasker, one of the vice-presidents at the time.
To McCasker's surprise, the telegram was not from Zwar in Adelaide, but from a person signing himself "Roberts" in Ballarat.
The telegram advised McCasker that "Jack Foster crack full-forward South Australia arrives Adelaide express Spencer Street two o'clock looking employment".
McCasker phoned the secretary, Harry Bredin, and Bredin and senior selector George Timms headed off post-haste to Spencer Street.
To their dismay, they found representatives from two or three other Association clubs as well as a couple of League scouts already on the platform. Whether or not Roberts' telegram had provided them with a little extra information is not known, but the pair managed to pick out the newcomer and whisked him away to sign an application to play with Preston.
On the Thursday, The Age devoted considerable space to the recruitment under the heading "Preston Coup", suggesting "Jack Foster was "stolen" from the Adelaide express by officials of the Preston club who had 'pipped on the post' other Association and two League clubs".
The article claimed Foster had already applied to his South Australian club for a transfer, and although he had not played the previous season, he was a strict amateur and a crack goal scorer for Sturt, and that he would be at the Preston ground on the following Saturday.
The Saturday night's Sporting Globe in the one article both boosted Preston's anticipations and then blew the great recruitment apart.
According to The Globe, a man calling himself Jack Foster had visited their offices on the Friday morning, and told a reporter that he wasn't keen to play with either Association or League clubs and that he had come to Melbourne to learn the newly introduced Association rules (which included the use of a throw pass) as the South Australian leagues were considering their introduction.
He denied he was seeking work, claiming his father was a vice-president of Sturt, and he was partly in Melbourne on business for the family's hauling company. He did however reiterate that he did not want to be paid for playing football, quoting amongst the reasons that he was in line for selection in an Australian Amateur Billiards team to visit London early in the following year.
Foster told the reporter he was keen to play with "the club with the most scientific approach and that utilises the new rule best".
According to the story he gave the Globe reporter, he was 24 years old and had not played football until two years previously, had only played with Sturt, and had kicked 114 goals the previous year to finish second in the S.A.F.L. goal kicking.
Despite the more rudimentary communications of the time, the Globe reporter became somewhat suspicious of the claims given neither he or any of his colleagues had heard of Foster, and cabled their South Australian representative to do some digging around.
Later that day, a telegram arrived from South Australia stating that Sturt's secretary Bill Noall had told the Adelaide reporter that "no man named Foster has played with the club for at least the last six years" and there was no vice-president or senior official of that name associated with Sturt.
The Globe's Melbourne man, armed with news of the disturbing new turn of events, went out to Preston on the Saturday to try and confront Foster with the discrepancies.
Rather than Foster, he found a rather dispirited George Timms.
Foster had not turned up, and when Preston officials tried to contact him on the Friday morning at the hotel he had told them he was staying at, they were told that there was no Foster registered, nor had the hotel taken bookings coinciding with the arrival of the Adelaide train.
Later in the day, Timms received another telegram from Roberts, this time originating in Ararat, claiming that "Foster disgusted treatment other clubs, I advise contact via P.O. Horsham, signed Roberts".
The Globe ran a front page story outlining their suspicions in the Saturday evening edition under the heading "Who is Jack Foster?"
Timms cabled the Horsham Post Office, but was advised the following Monday that no arrangements had been made for the collection of the telegram and that Roberts was unknown to them. By this time, the Globe had investigated a little further and discovered the Adelaide address that "Foster" had supplied on his application to play with Preston did not exist.
Aware that they appeared to have been the victims of an elaborate hoax, Preston officials could only ruefully have agreed with the Globe's final comment on the "coup" in the Wednesday edition ...
"Anyhow, Preston are not now as excited about Mr. Foster as they were a couple of days ago".