As part of an ongoing peek back into Uni Blues history, we recall the appointment of Alan Salter as senior coach in 1975…

Peter Brukner and Bob Girdwood interviewed Alan Salter, who had just resigned as coach of Coburg Amateurs. Salter’s credentials, which included coaching Coburg to the 1969 A Section flag, were known throughout the competition.

A 42-year-old plumber from West Preston, he appeared to have little in common with the university pair before him, but the young Blues leadership were impressed by his emphasis on off-field support. Salter informed Brukner and Girdwood that his friend Ted McNamara, a former Coburg team manager, had driven him to the interview and was waiting outside the pavilion. McNamara was willing to become the Blues’ team manager. Salter was duly appointed.

According to former players, Salter’s strength as a coach was his willingness to speak individually to players. Salter also worked hard to instil commitment and cohesion in his team. During every training drill, he emphasised to his players the need to talk. Besides Salter, Ted McNamara offered patient support, while Jim Gilchrist, who had shared roving duties with Salter in their playing days at Coburg, joined Blues as fitness coach. In the canteen at the University Oval, Salter’s wife Yvonne and McNamara’s wife Norma served pies and soft drinks as they had in the canteen at Coburg for more than a decade. In coming years, the women who formed the Blues ladies’ committee would perform many favours for Blues footballers, such as sewing numbers on the backs of jumpers and sewing small pouches for the players’ valuables, with each pouch having a number corresponding to the player’s number. Peter Brukner believed that, with the arrival of the Coburg connection, University Blues began to feel like a club.

This is an extract from “Black & Blue – The Story of Football at the University of Melbourne”.

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