Fred Mann, a defender, Ken Mann, a winger, and Peter Mann, a centre half-forward, and with club nicknames like the Redlegs and the Bombers, the Sharks and the Bulldogs, and an unlikely connection throughout the history of Australian Rules Football, with the East Midlands city of, Nottingham, England.
At the start of May, 1878, a businessman from Lincolnshire, Thomas Forman, who’d arrived in the city some three decades earlier, introduced the first evening newspaper to the streets of Nottingham, at the cost of a half penny, and for just four pages (The Daily Guardian having been launched sixteen years prior).
Five months later, and in the latter stages of October that same year, a gentleman named Fred Mann was born in the area, however, by the end of that century, he, like many others, would be seen to have made that long, arduous, and treacherous journey, to the other side of the world, and Australia.
Individuals were seen to leave British shores for the promise of a new, working life, and for Fred, in the early 1900s, and his ancestors thereafter, theirs would become a name synonymous in the then, blossoming world, of Australian Rules Football (Aussie Rules).
A sport that, back then, was in its very infancy, having first been played in the late 1850s (predating other, footballing forms), with Melbourne Football Club, the Demons, sparking the Aussie revolution, as early as 1858.
For Fred, he was first part of the Leopold club (Melbourne), the Redlegs, in the early days of the 1900s, turning out for them in what was their own, formative years, they being founded in 1898, and the Nottingham born gent playing with them in 1900 and 1901, before moving to Essendon (Melbourne), the Bombers, of the Victorian Football League (VFL).
In the next couple of years, with Essendon, Mann would be a member of two, Grand Final squads, whilst also believed to have been involved in the 1902 Albert Thurgood suspension; those Grand Finals though, both against rivals Collingwood with Essendon winning in 190, 6.7 (43) to 2.4 (16), whilst the following season Collingwood would exact revenge with an impressive 9.6 (90) to 3.9 (27) victory of their own.
The only score for Mann would arrive during the 1902 season, as did the controversy surrounding himself, Thurgood, and the Essendon player suspension; Thurgood, said to be one of the greatest Aussie Rules players, ever (1892-1906), was seen to be suspended for striking opposing, St. Kilda players, Mick English and Alf Trevillian, with Thurgood receiving a three-game suspension.
Historians Michael Maplestone and Stephen Rogers have determined that the ‘Goodthur’ pseudonym who took to the field in two of those three games, was in fact, Fred Mann; the Notts lad soon after leaving for first East Fremantle (1904), then to South Fremantle (1905) a year later, both of whom played in the West Australian Football League, itself being founded in 1895.
Unfortunately for Mann, his one season with East Fremantle, the Sharks, was one of only three seasons (1900-1910) they didn’t win the Premiership, prior to playing 77 games, over the rest of the decade (1905-1910), at South Fremantle, the Bulldogs.
Carrying on the family tradition, Fred’s grandson, Ken, would then be seen to play some 125 Western Australia league games for Claremont (1958 – 1964), the Tigers, his last being in the Grand Final defeat to, of all opponents, East Fremantle.
A visit to Melbourne though, to be the best man at his former teammates wedding (Dennis Marshall), subsequently saw Mann join St. Kilda for two season (1965 and 1966), appearing thirteen times, and, like his grandfather before him, scored once.
And then there was another when, some seven decades after his great grandfather had arrived in Australia, from Nottingham, Fred’s great grandson, Peter Mann (born in Perth, September 1970), would go on to have an Aussie Rules career of his own, during the backend of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s.
Playing 22 games in his debut, Grand Final-winning season at Claremont (1989), Peter was originally drafted to the West Coast Eagles (1990) but soon left for North Melbourne (1991) having not played a game; with the Kangaroos however, he’d make 39 appearances, kicking a dozen goals.
Now in the mid-nineties and Peter, alongside numerous, ex-Claremont teammates, were lured to the Fremantle Dockers, he playing 22 and scoring 33, being their leading goal-kicker, and being awarded the Doig medal in his debut season.
Despite injuries, and being unable to reach his previous highs, Mann was named the captain for both the 1997, and 1998 campaigns, playing his final match in the record-breaking defeat 28.13 (181) to 9.13 (67) against the Brisbane Lions, at the world famous Gabba, on Saturday 15 August.
Like his great grandfather before him, at South Fremantle, Peter would play 77 AFL games (116 in total), scoring some 88 goals to boot.
Fred and Peter however, they’d never meet, Fred never getting to see his great grandson in the career built for himself, from the foundations laid before him; Peter, he was born in the September of 1970 whilst Fred, he’d unfortunately passed away less than seven months earlier, on 22 February that same year, the Peter’s home-town of Perth, Western Australia.
The family name though, traversing three generations of Mann, and Aussie Rules, has been immortalised from its early beginnings, in 1870s Nottingham.
Do you have more on Fred, Ken and Peter Mann, and the Mann family of Nottingham/Australia? Who would you like to see featured in our Bygones section – email our Senior Correspondent, Peter Mann, via petermann78@hotmail.com to discuss.
*Article provided by Peter Mann (Senior Correspondent).
*Main image @essendonfc the Essendon team (including Fred Mann) which won the 1901 Grand Final.