This is MARTIN FLANAGAN’S eulogy for Graeme “Gypsy” Lee, the first footballer with Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage to play VFL/AFL, delivered at Gypsy’s funeral on Thursday.
When Gypsy asked me to speak at his funeral, he said, “If you go on too long, I’ll kick the lid”. If I look a bit distracted at times today, it’s because I’ve got one ear on the coffin.
In 1968 I was 13 years old. I was attending a boarding school in Burnie that’s been in the news a lot these past few years. It was not a happy place. It was not a happy time. Then something happened that changed my life forever. East Devonport won the premiership.
I already had an interest in the game. Schoolboy footy in Burnie back then was so very good, six kids from my time going on to play VFL/AFL. Playing schoolboy footy, I saw qualities that were otherwise absent in my life. I saw grace – athletic grace. I saw skill and daring that took my breath away. But I never got into the local men’s footy. It was less obviously athletic, less graceful, relied more on muscle, was accompanied by lots of growling and harsh male voices. Then East Devonport won the premiership.
In my experience, the premiership which best compares with East’s win in 1968 was the Western Bulldogs’ win in 2016. I wrote a book about that and Gypsy agreed – at one level the two premierships are the one story. Gypsy had connections to the Bulldogs’ 2016 win. One was that Luke Beveridge’s grandfather Jack Beveridge, who won three premierships in the late 1920s playing for the mighty Collingwood team known as “The Machine”, also won a premiership with the Launceston Football Club. But it was Gypsy Lee who was chosen as captain of Launceston Football Club’s team of the century.
East Devonport were one of those abject, bottom-of-the-ladder clubs known as easybeats. To add to their peculiarity, they had a jumper like none I’d ever seen – bright strawberry red with a big blob of white on top and socks to match. In the six years before 1968, they were last five times and second-last the other time. Enter Graeme “Gypsy” Lee. Two years earlier, Gypsy had come third in the best and fairest at the national carnival, a competition back then for the very best of the best footballers in Australia. He’d been named All-Australian. He’d captained Tasmania at that carnival and won the Lefroy medal for the best Tasmanian player. In 1968, the year of which we speak, Gypsy was runner-up in the Wander Medal for the best player in the North-West Football Union. He was in his full maturity as a footballer.
Featured image above: Graeme ‘Gypsy’ Lee in 1966 at the national carnival. He captained Tasmania, came third in the Tassie medal (behind Barry Cable and John “Ragsy” Gould) and was named All-Australian.
