These days he may be a yard or two slower and a few kilos lighter than in his prime, but when 90 year-old Dowsley talks about his brief yet notable career as a league footballer for Carlton, his four years of war in the air piloting flying boats in the Pacific during World War II, and his post-war efforts as a first-class cricketer for Melbourne and Victoria, the passion that drove him in his youth still burns in his clear blue eyes.
‘Call me Harc,’ he insists with a smile, ‘only my mother called me Harcourt – and even then, it was only when I had done something wrong.’ Football is soon mentioned of course, and the memories come flooding back. ‘Carlton was a great club, and they were such wonderful men,’ he says with genuine affection, while recalling his all-too brief, three-game career in the number 20 navy blue guernsey. He swells with pride when he talks about kicking a goal at his first attempt for Carlton, and steering through four majors on debut against St Kilda in May, 1941.
‘I certainly can remember it,’ he says. ‘It was a beautiful day at the old Junction Oval, and I was on cloud nine when we ran out onto the ground. At the age of six or seven, I had decided that the two things I wanted most in my life were to play first class cricket, and to play league football. I had already volunteered to join the air force and I didn’t know what the future held – but at least I was about to achieve one of my main ambitions.’
It was a time of apprehension and uncertainty for all Australians. In Europe, France and the low countries had fallen to a remorseless German army, while to the north of Australia, the sabre-rattling Japanese would soon be on the march through south-east Asia. With our continent under threat, thousands of young Australians – including hundreds of VFL footballers – were flocking to volunteer for military service.
Twenty year-old Harc Dowsley and his older brother Bill volunteered together for duty as RAAF aircrew in August 1940, but the sheer volume of applicants and a shortage of equipment meant that they both had to bide their time until there were places available for them. Meanwhile, they joined the Militia (or Army Reserve) and went on with their sporting interests.
A gifted, natural sportsman throughout his education at Melbourne Grammar School, Harc Dowsley emerged as a punishing right-hand opening batsman in summer, and a dashing, long-kicking key defender on the football field in winter. At the tender age of nine (yes, nine) he had regularly driven his classical right-foot drop-kicks more than 40 metres, and he was a trail-blazer in his teens when he began running off his opponent deep in defence, to set up play with accurate kicks to position.
Remarkably, Dowsley played as an amateur throughout his football career. It was a deliberate decision, taken to ensure that his ambition of reaching the elite level of Australia’s two most popular sports could not be compromised, and it turned out to be a wise move.
Harc attracted serious attention from a number of VFL clubs after starring at full-back for Old Melbournians in their successive B and A section Premiership victories in 1938 and 1939. Melbourne, however, had first call on the rangy 188 centimetre defender, and by early 1941, he was playing solid football on the last line for the Demons’ seconds.
The problem was that Melbourne was the dominant team of that era, and they were already shaping up as premiers for the third year in succession. The possibility of Harc forcing his way into the seniors seemed slim. Then a chance meeting with Carlton’s Jim Francis changed everything.
Dowsley and Francis had built both a healthy rivalry and a long-running friendship after numerous clashes on the cricket field, so Harc listened when Francis said, ‘why don’t you come up to Carlton, Harc? We’d like to play Ken Baxter at centre half-back, so we’re looking for a forward. You can take a good mark, and you can kick the ball a country mile.’
Facing his call-up by the air force sometime in the very near future, the opportunity for Harc to grasp one of his great ambitions was a powerful temptation. He thought briefly, then told Francis that yes, he would take a punt on Carlton.
To his relief and gratitude, Melbourne understood his situation, and didn’t stand in his way. Essendon made a late approach through another of Harc’s cricketing associates, Dick Reynolds, but Harc had given his word and was on his way to the Blues.
In fact, by then, the Dowsley family already had a strong association with the Carlton Football Club through Harc’s grandfather, William Dowsley. A successful newsagency proprietor and real estate agent in West Brunswick, he had been a club supporter, committee member and benefactor for many years, and was still widely remembered when Harc first arrived at Princes Park. ‘One of my fondest memories is of hearing people around the club saying, ‘he’s come home to Carlton’, says Harc, ‘and that was rather nice.’
What was not quite so nice was the embarrassment of his first night at training. ‘I was a bit of a dag, and maybe a bit swollen-headed when I turned up at my first training session,’ he says, ‘without my football boots. Thankfully, Horrie Clover took a liking to me, and said, ‘come with me, son.’ He dug out a couple of old pairs he’d left somewhere around the place, so I can say that in my first run at Carlton, I wore a champion’s boots. But I paid for it later, because they were a little too small for me.’
Horrie Clover also passed on some tips about forward play that would soon bear fruit. ‘He told me to always kick the ball high over the posts, not between them,’ says Harc. ‘Because if the ball drifts over the post, it can’t hit it – and the goal umpire will usually give you the benefit of the doubt.’ Within weeks, Dowsley would be putting that advice to good use.
One point we found fascinating while chatting to Harc was his casual explanation that prior to arriving at Carlton, he had never played as a forward. ‘It’s just the way it happened,’ he says. ‘I loved playing in defence and running into the forward line. And I knew where the goals were. In a school match at Melbourne Grammar one day, I kicked seven goals from full-back.’
Harc wore his new colours onto the football field for the first time in early May 1941, when all twelve VFL clubs took part in a lightning premiership at the MCG to raise badly-needed funds for the war effort. He remembers Horrie Clover pulling him aside before he ran out onto the ground in front of 70,000 people, and passing on some more good advice. ‘Move around son, and make yourself available,’ said Horrie. ‘They will see you, and they will hit you.’ Harc followed directions, kicked a few goals, and Carlton went on to win the trophy.
His first real test came a week later however, when he was named at full-forward for Carlton seconds against North Melbourne at Arden Street. ‘I soon realised that I had my man done for pace that day,’ says Harc, ‘he couldn’t stay with me on the lead, and I took a lot of marks. I finished up kicking either 7.7 or 8.7 – I’m not quite sure.’
That performance obviously demanded a place in Carlton’s senior side, and it wasn’t long coming. The following Thursday night, Harc was named for his senior debut against St Kilda at the Junction Oval, to play at full-forward in a team that had started the season by winning three of its first four matches under new coach Percy Bentley. ‘He was totally different to my previous coach at Melbourne, Checker Hughes,’ says Harc. ‘He was very encouraging, and told me to rely on my ability.’
Well, Harc certainly did that. In the first few minutes of the game, Carlton’s Jack Wrout took the ball off a pack in the middle of the ground, and Harc immediately sprinted toward him on a hard lead. Wrout steadied, and hit the youngster on the chest with a skimming stab pass. ‘Fair dinkum’, says Harc, ‘it nearly knocked me over. I went back, and kicked it.’
‘A few minutes later, ‘Socks’ Cooper came around the city-side wing on a long run. I led toward him, but instead of kicking, he kept coming, and hand-balled over the top to me. I turned around and went ‘bang’ – hard and high over the goals. I wasn’t sure that I had got it, but the goal umpire put two fingers up. I was away, and I was loving it.’ Carlton eventually won by 18 points, and Harc finished the day with four goals. ‘Even now, I can remember it like yesterday,’ he says. ‘It was an unforgettable experience, one of the most enjoyable days of my life.’
Carlton’s next opponent was Collingwood, in a fateful match at Princes Park that saw Harc matched against their legendary full-back and captain, Jack Regan. In the first quarter, Dowsley twice outmarked Regan, kicked truly, and seemed set for another good bag. But late in the term, while scrambling for the ball near the boundary line, Collingwood’s ‘Leeter’ Collier crashed him head-first into the wooden fence and knocked him unconscious.
‘I was useless after that,’ says Harc. ‘I couldn’t get up for a while, and when I eventually did, I didn’t want to go off, because in those days there was only a 19th man. Once you were off, you couldn’t come back on. I know the doctor had a good look at me at half time, but the rest of that game is a blur. I must have had concussion. Even so, I knew it when we won.’
On the Monday after the Collingwood game, Harc’s life reached another turning point when he was finally called up by the RAAF. ‘I had one more week more before I had to report for duty,’ he remembers. ‘I wanted to do the right thing, so I rang the club to pass on the news. That night, Percy Bentley phoned me and said, ‘I don’t know whether to congratulate you or not.’ I replied that he should congratulate me, because I wanted to fly, but I also wanted to play football. ‘Well son,’ he said, ‘you’ve got one more game on us before you go.’
Fittingly, Harc’s last VFL game was played on the MCG against Melbourne in round 7 of 1941, in front of a good crowd of 29,000. The Demons skipped out to a good lead at quarter time, before the Blues pegged them back and eventually won comfortably. By his own admission, Harc had little impact on the game and kicked just a solitary goal. Quite likely still suffering the after-effects of concussion, it’s also understandable that he was pre-occupied with anxiety about his future. ‘I was headed into the unknown’ he said, ‘leaving my home and family with the real prospect of never seeing them again.’
Happily, that wasn’t the case, although he did endure mortal danger on many occasions throughout the ensuing five years. Assessed as suitable for pilot training, Harc ‘went solo’ after just 7.5 hours of instruction, and within a year after that had begun flying operational patrols in a unique American–built aircraft called the Catalina. Versatile and reliable, the twin-engined Catalina took off and landed on water. It carried a crew of 8, and was widely used for reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, patrol bombing and search and rescue missions. Harc and his crew flew day and night, braving tropical storms, enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire, often at altitudes of less than 30 metres.
Although the war eventually ended with the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Catalinas were the workhorses of the Allied forces, and they were kept busy for months afterward. Harc had married his sweetheart Peggy while on leave in 1943. He was already a father by the time he was discharged in May, 1946 and arrived home to find a letter waiting for him from the Carlton Football Club, inviting him to resume his career with the Old Dark Navy Blues.
‘I thought deeply about it for some time,’ says Harc, ‘but my circumstances had changed and I was a different person. For all sorts of reasons, I decided that cricket would be my sporting priority from then on, although the Carlton Football Club would always be important to me.’
Harc teamed up again with the Melbourne Cricket Club, and soon recaptured his best form. He was appointed captain of the club in his second season back, and went on to play seven times for Victoria. He led the cricketing Demons to the 1948-49 VCA Premiership, and retired at the age of 29 to concentrate on his expanding business interests. Golf became a passion quite early, and he was ‘shooting his age’ around Kingston Heath well into his seventies.
Harc doesn’t get to the football much these days, because he finds the grandstand steps a real challenge. But the game still stirs him, and he will always treasure the opportunity given to him by the Carlton Football Club all those years ago. ‘They took me in, they cared for me, and they gave me an opportunity that I dreamed about,’ he says, ‘they were a great mob.’