OBITUARY: Angus Drennen (1924-2008)

‘I had to go back to Scotland to discover that I was an Australian, not a Scot living in Australia.’ So said Angus Drennen, one of the country’s earliest post-war internationals who died last week at the age of 84. Angus Drennen won three full caps for Australia on the tour of New Zealand in 1948 and 20 in all and represented Victoria many times in a career which lasted more than 30 years. Born in Sunshine in 1924, Angus Drennen was the son of a Scottish immigrant who worked as a piecework grinder at the Sunshine Harvester Company. Angus attended Sunshine Primary School and then Sunshine Technical College, where he remembers seeing a photograph of a soccer team dating from the First World War. A sports all-rounder he played his early soccer with Albion Schoolboys run by Bill Bowman and his wife, then went on to join Nobels juniors and even got a game with the seniors at 16. He did an apprenticeship with the Victorian Railways but at the end of the Second World War quickly left to work as an independent contractor for the Housing Commission in Gippsland.

His senior career had a strange start because he was at the railway station en route to sign for Brighton when he met a friend Harry Taylor who persuaded him instead to join Prahran. Harry told him, ‘You’ll get a game for the reserves.’ But it was Angus who got the first team spot and Harry played reserves. At Prahran, Angus played with Ron Taylor, who also represented Australia. Alex Kerr, a former player, was on the committee and the secretary was Frank McIvor who had had a stellar career for Yallourn.

When Sunshine United started up his local loyalties led to his return and he helped the club to the First Division championship in 1950, after flirting with relegation the previous year. His excellent form as wing half led to his selection for the Australian tour of New Zealand in 1948 and in 1949 he represented Victoria in a superb one-all draw with Hajduk Split. He was a regular selection in the state team until 1954.

His next club move was in 1952 to Footscray JUST where he was paid £3 a week for playing and £1 for training and was made club captain. He had played for Victoria in an interstate carnival and against England in 1951 with Steve Zakomarok of JUST. Angus found that he and Zakomarok could read each other’s play. ‘We had a good sense of football,’ he said and so the move to JUST was smooth. Except when in an early game JUST got a penalty, which he said Steve should take. As Zakomarok placed the ball, the regular kicker rushed up and blasted the ball over the corner flag!

From JUST Angus moved to Brighton and then to Hakoah where the Dockerty Cup was won. Then Victorian coach Len Young asked him to become assistant coach and mentor to the Victorian Colts side where a young Ted Smith was beginning his career. Angus Drennen remembers, ‘I was never fitter in my life than when I was with the Victorian Colts. But I wasn’t a great communicator, even though I never stopped talking on the pitch.’ Later Angus played with Box Hill and Moreland. His daughters went to university and Angus decided if they could do a degree, so could he. His football career continued with the university’s lower league teams until 1978 when he was 54.

When I talked to Angus about fifteen years ago he told me that his remaining ambition was to go back to Scotland and spend three months in a boarding house in a city close to football grounds and to live every day at the football. I don’t know whether he ever managed it, but the notion conveys his deep love for the game and his willingness to continue learning more about it.

Roy Hay

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