It’s a trap for historians at footy clubs.
As soon as you say someone is the oldest living ex-player at your club, you can guarantee there will be a phone call revealing that somewhere out there, exists a former player who is older.
That’s what happened recently when it was claimed that 2010 Hall of Fame inductee Ken Walker was the oldest Saint at 91.
Ken (born 17 October 1919) is, however shaded in the age stakes by a couple of even more senior Saints. Terry O’Brien (born) 7 November 1918 is 92, but the oldest of all is Len Boyd-Gerny.
Len was born on 21 May 1916 which makes him 94.
It’s coming up to almost 74 years since Len played his two senior games with the Saints in 1938.
“You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t remember everything, it’s a longtime ago” said Len before showing amazing recall of his couple of appearances almost three quarters of a century back.
He was delighted to receive a Saints’ scarf from the club. “They didn’t let me keep anything back then”, he recalled of the No.16 guernsey he had to hand back.
Len has a fascinating tale of his two games. As his son Ken guided us through a scrapbook of his sporting story, Len recalled his first game in muddy conditions at Footscray.
“Footscray was on top of the ladder before that game. I played in the forward pocket and didn’t know where to stand at the throw-ins and ball-ups. Roy Fountain (the Saints ruckman) was fantastic. He told me what to do.”
In his second game Len came up against Carlton at the Junction Oval. When a fight broke out on the wing between the feisty pair Carlton’s Jack Carney and Saint Doug Rayment, the legendary Billy Mohr told Len to leave it for the umpires to sort out. It saved him from being called to the tribunal as a witness.
The Saints were on the end of a hiding that day and only kicked seven goals, but the diminutive Boyd-Gerny booted two of them.
But despite that strong performance, he had already decided that after having dipped his two in the big-time pool he would happily return to his team in the amateurs - Melbourne High School Old Boys. That didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate his brief interlude with the Saints.
“They were wonderful to me. When I was married later on, they gave me a cutlery set as a wedding present”.
That was all the Saints could do for him as he insisted on playing as an amateur to maintain his status.
He continued to kick swags of goals in amateur ranks and regularly topped the century. Before coming to St Kilda he had been such a prolific goalkicker that he earned selection in the Victorian representative side even though he was playing in D Grade. Usually the rep sides were composed only of players from A Grade teams.
At Melbourne High Len was also a fine baseballer and cricketer. He was in the same year as the legendary Bluey Truscott and knew him well. Truscott would later achieve fame as a Melbourne footballer and then as a decorated fighter pilot. Len knew Truscott well.
Len succeeded Eric Ward as the longest living Saint.
Eric passed away last year at the age of 97.
AFL Statistics chief Col Hutchinson tells us that the longest living Saint of all was Archie Richardson (born 18 July 1879, died 7 March 1981) who was 101.
Like all our old Saints he had an interesting tale. Archie served in the Australian army in World War I and was in the US army in World War II.
We are as confident as we can be, that Len Boyd-Gerny is indeed our oldest Saint.
But as we said……..
