Malvern Marlins History - The First Decade (1990-1999)

The History of the Malvern Marlins (1.)

By John O’Dowd

The Malvern Marlins. What a terrific story, and it is my privilege to tell it to you.

How did it begin? Patrick Galvin has told you about my introduction to swimming in early 1989. It was 4 laps of the outdoor pool at Harold Holt and collapse in the early stages, but improvement eventually came as I continued with stroke correction classes.

The first I heard about Masters Swimming, or AUSSI as it was commonly known, was from a lady who is present here tonight and I am thrilled that she is. Her name is Di Bockish.

Di approached me with the idea of an AUSSI Club at Harold Holt where she worked at the Swim School. She knew someone else was also interested in an AUSSI Club, so we got together. He is here tonight. His name is Barry Thomas and I am thrilled that he is able to come along. We obtained the “how to make an AUSSI Club instruction box” yes, box and tried to absorb all about Aerobic points, Age Groups, Top Ten, National & State Championships and so on. Being diligent people, we tossed the box aside and called a meeting.

This took place in March 1990. The meeting was held at the Harold Holt Pool and was attended by Vera Guild, (now 89 years), Helen Jackson, (who did rush off and join Powerpoints but has seen the light and has returned to the fold), Ross Cochrane, the McNeill sisters, Barry Thomas and myself. Eventually, our first committee was formed comprising Ian Dear Secretary, Margot Smith Treasurer, Sue Dimmick Public Relations, Andrea McNeill Captain; and David Tolman Recorder with myself as President. If I have left anyone off this Committee I apologise, as Club records were not a high priority in these early years.

We registered with AUSSI Vic Branch and the paperwork started to flow. We registered members and the Name Malvern Marlins was agreed to, although we could have been the Glen Iris Gropers.

With the cooperation of the pool management, lane space was agreed upon. Sessions were scheduled and we were off and swimming. Additional members joined and we started to hear things about competition – all this training had to lead to something.

The first competitive outing of the Marlins was at the Gippsland Flippers Interclub. A small group attended and it was on this occasion that we discovered we had a real swimmer, not just a lap swimmer like the majority of the members. I would like you to acknowledge

Andrea McNeill as our first ever point scorer. We didn’t quite understand the procedures of nominated times so Andrea was entered into the slowest heat of the 100 backstroke. Her best efforts to have it changed were met with “don’t worry dear, you’ll be OK”. As Andrea finished her race, the other swimmers were still to complete their first half of the race. In

her following events the officials agreed to Andrea’s request to be reseeded. The Marlins had their first points on the board. Little did we know where it would lead to 10 years later.

Our first State Title was at the State Swim Centre in August 1990 and our numbers had steadily grown with the addition of some quality swimmers. I remember walking in that day feeling nervous, apprehensive, not knowing what to do or where to go. I recall Ross Cochrane telling me he was so nervous when he stood on those rather elevated starting blocks, his legs were shaking so much he almost fell in. Andrea had been doing some recruiting and we had signed up a young fellow called Guy Farrow. She made comment that he could swim a bit! Guy set World Records in his first swims for the Marlins. His 50m Breaststroke time of 28.81 still stands (2.) and his 100 IM record of 57.70 stood for many years. It’s not very often you see everyone standing and applauding but it happened then.

Although we finished 11th on the day we had certainly made our mark.

We finished the year with a total of 28 members. From those original 28 members, I am pleased to say six of them were at the dinner. Barry Thomas and his younger brother Brian, Andrea and myself, plus two other people I would like to mention. Ian Dear and Julie Johnson have occupied various committee positions in the formative years of the Club and have been instrumental in putting the club in the strong position it is in today.

The 1990/91 year saw a substantial growth in our membership and new sessions were added. Our late start time at Harold Holt meant a late finish. We always had to wait for the triathletes to finish. After all, we were only swimmers – they were triathletes suitably kitted out with ponytails and heart rate monitors. We moved to other nights and they retired from the pool every winter.

I must point out that nearly all of the coaching was undertaken by Barry Thomas. On cold winter nights the job of pulling on the pool covers with freezing hands was done week in, week out by Barry. All coaching was voluntary as it still is today, following the precedence set by Barry.

In the 1990/91 year, we registered 77 members, our largest ever intake and this put our membership to exactly 100. We have retained 14 members from the 90/91 year. We improved to 9th place at our first Long Course Champs and 3rd in the Short Course – our first ever top 3 finish. The after party was held at Leggett’s in Prahran and it was party time. I recall that we had some very attractive young ladies in our Club at the time and they certainly attracted plenty of attention from some of the Powerpoint Males – Could we recruit a few of these people? But nothing eventuated.

The 1991/92 year saw our membership increase to an incredible 130 members of which 70 were new. The Nationals were here in March 92 where we came 3rd and also 3rd in the State Championships. For many this was the first taste of competition, which has continued to the present day.

In April 1992 we started the Korowa morning sessions and that year we also changed our club logo. We held our inaugural Inter-Club in November 92 which attracted 128 competitors. It is interesting to note that the club only had 35% female membership, compared to 55% today.

1992/93 year was different as the Long Course Championships were held outside the metropolitan area at Warnambool. Forty-four Marlins participated. We were pushed back to 4th position overall as Warnambool Whales fields an extremely large team. We gained some revenge at the Short Course with our best result ever – second. By now our squad of swimmers were coming away from each event with substantial state and national records. An encouraging sign and a measure of the standard of coaching within the club:

Our Annual Dinner Dance and Presentation Nights continued to be well attended by Club Members. These nights were well organised at a variety of venues under the guidance of our hardworking social committee, in recent years Glenda Kerridge & Sue Murray have worked hard in this area. This year our membership climbed again to 152 members.

1993/94 year saw the membership peak at 159 members, so it was no surprise to have 82 competitors enter for the Long Course. Having set our sights at perhaps attaining No. 1 spot we were disappointed to finish third. On the plus side we had a substantial number of first time competitors. The Long Course championships were held on Saturday and Sunday giving competitors 5 swims plus a full complement of relay events. In recent years this has now been reduced to one day, which gives most of us more family time! Peter Rainey headed off to Canada for the Masters Swimming Championships in Montreal, where there was a total of 4000 entries. Peter came home sporting 2 medals from this meet. This was also the year that we added aqua to our Club Colours.

Over the next two years the Club reduced in size to the point that at the end of 1997 we were back to 91 members. However, we were still a force to be reckoned with both in the pool and at the many open water swims during the summer, with Pt. Lonsdale and Lorne being the most popular with the club members. We also continued to assist the management of Harold Holt with the running of the 1km Swim. The Short Course championships in 1997 was held for the first time at the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre, a vast improvement on the old State Swim Centre.

In 1998/99 our re-registrations from the previous years jumped to 91% and 80% respectively. Was this a sign of good things to come? Our membership was on the up to the point that 1998 saw us with 107 members. The word must have been out that the Malvern

Marlins was the club to swim with because in 1999, 11 AUSSI members transferred to the Marlins, predominantly from interstate. The numbers attending training sessions had increased dramatically and we certainly had a lot of depth amongst our swimmers.

The 1999 Long Course saw the culmination of many years of hard work. Finally we attained our first ever first place at the State Championships. We followed this up with another success at the Short Course and again in 2000 at the Long Course.

We certainly have come a long way since our first competition at the Gippsland Flippers to the point that the Club now has one World Record, 17 National and 100 individual state records plus 6 state and 2 national relay records. Of these records, Patrick Devine holds 23, Pat Galvin 14, Gerry Tucker 14, Jan Jeffery 12, Peter Rainey 6, Vera Guild 4 and Steve Selig 6.

Our participation in the Aerobic Competition (3.) has grown steadily. Last year we finished 10th

Nationally & 2nd in Victoria behind Doncaster. This has been driven in recent years by Gerry

Tucker and before him Peter Niere and has become a significant aspect of our Club. There are so many characters I could talk about. I’ve lost track of the number of babies born over the years (there must be something in the water at Harry’s because there is nearly always someone pregnant), the number of romances, weddings and so it goes on.

However, the Club is made up of swimmers of all capabilities. We have serious competitors, not so serious competitors, fitness swimmers and casual swimmers. We have always had strong leadership and willing committee members. We also have people who are happy to help when asked. Such a mixture of abilities, personalities, egos and just nice people to be with has made us the Malvern Marlins, the successful Club we are today. And that is our story!

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Source: Laptalk May 2000 – its publishing presumably followed a speech given at the 10th Anniversary dinner. Rob Wilson (Historian)

1. RW – the first decade.

2. RW – Guy’s 50m breaststroke record was broken in October 1999

3. RW – now Endurance 1000