WHEN Melbourne’s 1919 season is mentioned, the statistics at first glance are none too flattering. Not only were there no victories out of sixteen games, but 43 players were used throughout the year. Of these, 28 were brand newcomers, joining the ranks to complement the efforts of the likes of Allan, Baquie, Lilley and Gray, returning to resume play after wartime recess from 1916 to 1918.

Of course, there were some of the 28 new players in 1919 whose stay was fleeting, and whose game-goal tallies in single digits represent their small but vital contribution to the revitalisation of the Melbourne Football Club as it emerged into the new competition.

Then there were those who were set to become regular features, if not stars of the competition. The likes of House, Matthews, Shelton and Tonkin were prime examples of this category. Jack House, who made his debut aged 31, played 56 games until the end of 1923, wearing No. 21. Herb Matthews, at his third club when joining Melbourne in 1919 after sojourns with Richmond and South Melbourne, played exactly fifty games in the red and blue between 1919 and 1922 before heading back to the Swans - a familiar territory for the Matthews clan over succeeding generations.

WWH - Bill - Shelton, however, stuck with Melbourne throughout his career, the only changing factor being his number, which went from No. 30 in 1919, to No. 13 from 1920 to 1924, and No. 20 to tie up his 54 games in 1925. Eric Tonkin stayed for 1919 and 1920, playing twenty games in No. 2, as did Leo Little, who played twelve games to take his tally to 46 games after spending two seasons with University in 1912 and 1913. Alec Farrow notched up one more season than either Tonkin or Little, playing 33 games for Melbourne before heading to Carlton for another fourteen games in 1922 and 1923.

These were the backbone of the rebuilding, returning the heart to the Club which had been silenced by war. Others who emerged from the class of 1919, transforming into varieties of greatness across the competition, included Gordon Coulter, George Haines and Ivor Warne-Smith. While Coulter was a player with Melbourne for the solitary season of 1919, achieving just eight games, his work as a top level VFL administrator helped to formulate the rules that enabled players to be paid legally from 1930 onwards.

As well as this diverse range of personnel, there were two greats of the 1919 vintage. George Haines was the first. Having roved in 87 games between 1910 and 1914 with Geelong, Haines returned from wartime service as both a masseur and as a staff sergeant, 1 Sea Transport Corps, to change his surname from ‘Heinz’ to ‘Haines’ - presumably due to anti-German sentiment - and play 102 games with Melbourne. He served as captain in 1919 and 1920, as well as one game in 1925, and upon his retirement, served on the selection committee for many seasons afterwards.

A future Brownlow Medallist was another of the 1919 crop, with Ivor Warne-Smith playing the first of his 146 games before heading to Tasmania from 1920 to 1924, where he forged a successful career before heading back to the mainland after an approach from Richmond. However, due to his eight previous games with Melbourne, he was tied to the red and blue, and went on to build his reputation to stratospheric levels as a dual Brownlow Medallist in 1926 and 1928, as a premiership player in 1926, and as Melbourne captain and coach in varying combinations, both during and beyond his retirement as a player at the end of 1932. As with Haines and Coulter, Warne-Smith then went on to build a formidable story on the other side of the boundary line, particularly as one of the ‘Architects of Five’ - former players and stalwarts of the Club who helped to deliver the flags of a golden generation in the 1950s and early 1960s. 

Such was the panorama of those who started to create a future back in the seemingly unlikely season of 1919 - way back when 28 new players, in steps large and small, helped to recreate the Melbourne Football Club, as it emerged in the wake of war.