Bill Serong, an AFL premiership player and former coach and player at Echuca Football Club, passed away on May 20 at the age of 88.
Serong coached Echuca in the 1963 season and remained with the club as a player through 1964-65 before injury in early 1966 forced him into retirement.
The centreman was regarded as one of the best players in the Bendigo league during his tenure, having joined directly from North Melbourne in the VFL after previously winning a premiership with Collingwood in 1958.
Serong was the joint 1964 Michelsen medal winner for best-and-fairest in the Bendigo League, and was Echuca’s best-and-fairest in 1964 and 1965.
“It was a really big move by Echuca to bring Bill Serong in to coach in 1963 because they really were sick of getting beaten by Rochester,” said Rodney Gillett, a football historian and vice-president of the NSW AFL Football History Society.
“It was also about trying to become a force in the Bendigo League, which they hadn’t really been since Jimmy Clark had come in the early 50s.
Gillett saw Serong play for Echuca on several occasions and spoke to him about his career in the 2000s.
“(Bill) really had a big impact because in 1964 Echuca finally broke through, and beat Rochester and he was the star in those games,” Gillett said.
“They beat them in Rochester, and they beat them in Echuca.
“He was an inspirational player because he could get the ball and move it forward and the Echuca players gained a lot of confidence through him and (then) it was ‘follow me’.”
Ray Willett, who played with Serong at Collingwood and then against him as part of Rochester, remembered Serong as a great player and man.
“Bill was a talented senior player and l, just a raw rookie, but Bill was immediately accepting of me and helpful not just in footy stuff but with good advice on overcoming some difficulties l was having in becoming a teacher — l was at teacher’s college at the time,” he said.
“He treated me as an equal, which l guess may have been a factor in the heavy tackle he hit me with at training one night, it knocked me out.”
A particularly notable game in the history of both Echuca and Rochester was the 1963 preliminary final, where the addition of former St Kilda Brownlow medallist Neil Roberts, brought in by Serong, on the Echuca bench did not sit well with Rochester.
“Roberts retired at the end of 1962 with St Kilda and went into the media, and Serong convinced him to sign (with Echuca) even if he didn’t end up playing,” said Gillett.
“They brought him into the preliminary final against Rochester (in) 1963, and after two quarters on the bench, he came on during the third quarter, and was immediately cleaned up by Trevor Randall, so (he) didn’t last long.
“Rochester were enraged by it, yet another attempt by Echuca to usurp them, and they really pulled together that day.
“Serong told me that, he said it was a mistake to play him.”
Willett, who won a Michelsen medal winner and was the league goal-kicking leader during his tenure with Rochester, said he and Serong remembered the battles between Echuca and Rochester fondly.
“Over the years, l would run into Bill at past players’ functions, and he would always give me a warm welcome, and we would reminisce about the traditional battles between the Murray Bombers and the Rochester Demons,” Willet said.
“I could see in later years that his health was failing, but he would greet me always with that big grin and a happy slap on the back.”