"THEY MADE ME A BIT OF A HERO"
DALLY MESSENGER - 125 YEARS ANNIVERSARY
12 APRIL 1883

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

"The thirteen (man) team always means hard playing from start to finish. You never know the result until the whistle blows. A team might be fourteen points ahead of you in the first half, and fourteen points behind you in the second. You've got to play hard until the last moment." Dally Messenger, Sydney, April 1908 The Master -The Life and Times of Dally Messenger. On sale now! Pioneers of Rugby League. On sale now!

This weekend 100 years ago, just a week out from the kick-off to league's first ever season (April 20 1908), Dally Messenger celebrated his 25th birthday - the prime age for any young footballer.

He and his mates took a big risk taking up league - the NSWRU had already banned them for life, and no one knew what lay ahead for the new 13-man code.

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On 12 April 1883, in a modest terrace in Duke St of waterfront Balmain, a boy was born to a boat builder and his wife.

He was christened as Herbert Henry Messenger - a mouthful of a name that would soon disappear from common usage.

Before his school years had even begun, he simply came to be known to one and all as "Dally" - his podgy belly unintentionally paying homage to one of the NSW colony's most renown parliamentarians of the 1880s, William Bede Dalley.

The spelling didn't stick, but the nickname did.

By his mid-20s sports fans Australia-wide had seen or read of "Dally M - the Man of the Moment".

After having excelled at sailing, sculling, swimming, spending two years playing Aussie rules, and then rising to national honours in rugby union, Dally decided he would finally settle down - opting to place his allegiance with the newly formed rugby league.

There was never any doubt that professional football was coming to Sydney - it was only a question of when, not if - Dally's move to the 13-man code at its founding in Australia gave it the kick-start and public interest it needed.

Had Messenger not come along in 1908, rugby league would have struggled for decades to eek out its place in Australia's football landscape against the other codes.

His impact delivered to rugby league a rapid rise in popularity and financial security. By the end of 1910, the code's permanency was assured.

It's a debt that all of us who enjoy the game - players, officials and fans alike - can never repay Dally Messenger.

How good was Messenger? "He is truly a wonder, and is full of tricks, an opponent never being able to tell what the next move will be." wrote a Sydney sportswriter in 1908.

He was so popular that he not only played for NSW and Australia, but "guested" for New Zealand and Queensland, was the main-draw of an "Australasian" team, as well as the first ever game in Newcastle.

He toured Britain with the All Golds and the Kangaroos. So impressed were the Poms, they bestowed on him the tag of "The Master". Almost every Northern Union club, and at least five English and Scottish soccer clubs - offering Dally up to £1,500 for just one season! - pursued in vain his signature on a professional contract. If he was solely concerned with money, he would never have come home. 

A dire flood of league's first stars found the lure of the English pound too much to resist in 1909 and 1910, leaving Messenger and the fledgling game in Sydney, Brisbane and Newcastle to fend on its own against rival codes. 

It's a measure of Dally's popularity how well the League succeeded with so many of its top-shelf footballers lost to England.          

When in 1911 rugby league finally got the chance to play on the sacred field of the SCG, in front of the vast and comfortable stands, more than 50,000 fans flocked into watch "their idol Dally Messenger" captain NSW against the visiting Kiwis.

A thunderous roar erupted as Dally was seen to lead "our Blues" through the Members Stand gate, and on to the ground. More than merely a welcome to a wildly supported home team though, these cheers and applause signified rugby league's crowning moment, with Messenger the first of the 13-a-side breed to set foot on what had until then been the final, and most sanctified, of the Union's prized citadels.

The code war had been won, and "Dally M" had been its chief on-field architect and artist.     

"Messenger was the great shining star", "Messenger was just Messenger", "the reliable Messenger shone out", and "Messenger was again star performer" were typical of the countless favourable newspaper reviews throughout his incredible career.

Dally had no "swagger", no swollen-head - he didn't chase the off-field glitz, preferring to while away his time at the family boat building business in Double Bay.

He could often be seen out on Sydney Harbour, piloting one of the Messenger pleasure crusiers on a day trip for tourists or locals enjoying an outing. Sometimes, in the pursuit of solace away from the adoring back-slappers and well-wishers, he would simply row out into his "beautiful salty blue" and watch the world peacefully sail by.

In an understatement that mirrored his modesty, Dally would simply say of league fans: "They made me a bit of a hero".

Messenger's on-field deeds made him the hero.

Decades before radio, film, tv and video, Dally's exploits were handed down in the re-telling of stories from parents to their children, from football coaches to their junior players, in faded and yellowing scrapbooks, and in the crusted-words of old-timers at the pub or on the SCG's Hill to anyone who cared to take a few moments to listen.

The "Dally M" signature branding appeared on footballs as early as 1910, and then soon after on boots, head-gear, shoulder pads, even boot studs.

Well into the 1960s, every footballer who dared attempt an audacious goal attempt was still being defied with a shout of "Who do you think you are - Dally Messenger?!!"

In 1980 his name was given permanent accolade in the "Dally M Awards", now the game's official honours for its best players each season.

I often wondered if this one footballer could truly be as good as the myths, stories and legends told about him made out.

After I'd poured through the newspaper reports, and personal accounts made by those who witnessed Messenger in action, my doubts were forever dispelled.

Game after game the headlines kept shouting Messenger's name.

Commentators back then, as today, are apt to lean towards their favourite players.

The fans though, those that pay their hard-earned coin at the turnstile, they are the true judges.

As one fan put it succinctly, "It was a case of Messenger first, middle and last."

Mention Giltinan, Trumper, Hoyle, and dozens of others; they certainly supplied the brains of the organisation in those days, but it was "Dally M" who supplied the crowds with their afternoon thrills and weekly football chatter.

Without Messenger, there would have not been enough gate-money for the code to grow and to take hold of NSW and Queensland as rapidly and successfully as it did.

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