Soem

Annie Messenger – the Game’s First heroine

Rugby league was a man’s world in its earliest days, but a story that lives deep within the Messenger family instructs us that if it hadn’t been for the role played by a strong woman, the game may well have struggled to get off the ground. The tale of Annie Messenger’s place in the scheme of things in the formative year of 1907 is told in full  in  the game’s official history, released this week (A Centenary of Rugby League, 1908-2008).  Annie, of Double Bay Sydney was the widowed mother of the great Herbert Henry `Dally’ Messenger – and if it hadn’t been for her nod of approval that her son could play the new game of rugby league, there may have been no story. For Dally was the (rugby) champion of his time and his decision in 1907 to join the new movement was an event beyond measuring in the league story. Two years later, in 1909 women were again in the news in this world of men when two female guides accompanied the Maori team which campaigned in Australia. In 1921 more than 20,000 fans watched a game of women’s rugby league at the Sydney Showground, with Miss Malones starring with four tries for Metropolitan against Sydney. Women have continued to play an important role in many ways in the game’s unfolding story, since the day Annie Messenger made her fateful decision that Sunday  in August 1907. The following is an edited excerpt from the outstanding history compiled for the game’s Centenary by David Middleton and Ian Heads - telling of what happened that day, when rugby league came calling at Mrs Messenger’s place…

The tale is a compelling one – how three key figures in the in-progress birth of rugby league, early August 1907  - Henry Clement Hoyle, James Joseph Giltinan and a third man, almost certainly the great cricketer Victor Trumper, took a horse-drawn taxi from the city to Double Bay, hell-bent on signing Messenger, the greatest rugby player of his time. Three nights before, on August 8 the famous meeting conducted in secrecy at Bateman’s Hotel, George Street, had voted to form the NSW Rugby Football League, breaking away from the rugby union establishment.

Within the Double Bay story is great intrigue – brought to life by authors Sean Fagan and Dally Messenger 111 in their 2007 book `The Master’. Fagan’s extensive research left little doubt that this was no `cold call’  – and that the negotiations and probably agreement for Dally to sign were already long-since underway, and far advanced.  But by respectfully insisting on his mum having the final verdict, Dally was able to honourably support his own previous public denials that he had signed with the new movement.

Whatever the fine detail there is no doubt three men (Trumper never quite confirmed as the third) travelled to Double Bay – and there found Dally Messenger working under a boat at the family boatshed. The previous day he had played for Australia in a (rugby union) Test against New Zealand. “I was scrubbing the shells off a boat,” said Dally, “However I got up and they asked me if I would turn pro.” Fagan suggests that Messenger was then offered 50 pounds to play in three forthcoming games against an NZ professional side (`All Golds’), then on the water to Sydney  and en route to England where they would play the new Northern union (rugby league game). “Go over and see my mother,” said Messenger. “I’m busy. Get her answer and it’ll be alright”. In a newspaper interview years later Annie Messenger confirmed the meeting that then took place..”

Was the event at Double Bay that Sunday in part, at least, an elegant subterfuge to protect Dally’s honest reputation, and that of Giltinan? Well, perhaps. This after all was a precarious time in football’s world, one of secreted meetings and rumours and a good deal of smoke and mirrors. And there was the matter of Dally’s name being on an All Golds contract (albeit as yet unsigned) well before the meeting at Double Bay. Whatever the nuances of that day and that time, Annie Messenger, widow of Double Bay, Sydney deserves to stand tall among the cast who helped give rugby league the start it needed.

Excerpt from: A Centenary of Rugby League, 1908-2008 – The Definitive Story of the Game in Australia, by Ian Heads and David Middleton. Published by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd. On Sale, April 29.