the
TERRY, NEALE, ANTHONY AND CHRIS DANIHER
The story of football’s favourite family
About the Danihers
After a combined 752 VFL/AFL senior games
spanning three decades, the Daniher boys are
still involved in footy. Terry continues to excel as
a country football ambassador and has his own
cleaning services business. At the start of 2009,
Neale took up the position of football operations
manager for the West Coast Eagles. Anthony’
s
professional life is the management of Daniher
Property Services, although his connection with
football remains strong through his son, Darcy,
being drafted to the Bombers in 2007 under the
father-son rule. Following in his father’s footsteps,
Chris is farming and keeping Ungarie Football
Club alive.
About the author
Adam McNicol grew up on a wheat and sheep farm
outside the tiny town of Manangatang in north-west
Victoria’s Mallee region. While trying to get a kick
with the Manangatang Thirds he realised playing
football was not his forte, so he took to writing
about it instead. Since completing a journalism
degree at Melbourne’s RMIT University
, Adam has
spent most of his time reporting on bush footy for
The Age and working as a television sports reporter
with Channel 10. He lives in Ballarat.

Jacket design: Phil Campbell
Front jacket photograph courtesy of Newspix
Back jacket photograph by Monty Coles
BIOGRAPHY / AFL
the
TERRY, NEALE, ANTHONY
AND CHRIS DANIHER
On 1 September 1990, four brothers made
Australian Rules history by playing together for the
one team, the Essendon Football Club, something
that is unlikely to ever happen again.
Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher grew up
in a tiny Riverina town where they played footy
on Saturdays and Rugby League after mass on
Sundays. They reached the elite level in an era
when tobacco sponsorship and a few beers with
the opposition after a game were the norm. It was
a time when Jim Daniher could throw a teenage
son into a trade deal and Kevin Sheedy and Edna
Daniher could conspire to make a dream come true.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing: injuries cut short
a promising career, trading between clubs was
largely unregulated, South Melbourne Football Club
was shunted off to Sydney and coaching changed
dramatically.
This is the action-packed story of the period when
Aussie Rules went national and football became big
business, seen through the eyes of an unassuming
bunch of blokes from the bush. It’s about how the
Danihers endeared themselves to footy fans and

became part of football folklore.
‘They say nostalgia is the most powerful drug in the universe.
If so, this book should be banned.’
KEVIN SHEEDY
DANIHERS
DANIHERS
DANIHERS
the
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DANIHERS
the
TERRY, NEALE, ANTHONY AND CHRIS DANIHER
as told to Adam McNicol
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First published in 2009
Copyright © Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher and Adam McNicol 2009
Photographs on pages (ii) and (viii) by Adam McNicol.
Photographs on pages 14, 22, 36, 72, 104, 138, 186, 214, 200 and
pages 1 and 8 of the picture section are from the Danihers’ private collection.
All other photography of images used in the endpapers and picture section is by Greg Elms,
taken from Edna Daniher’s scrapbooks of her four sons’ football careers.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of
this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational
institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational
institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice

to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email:
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Daniher, Terry.
The Danihers: the story of football’s favourite family / Terry Daniher … [et al.] ;
as told to Adam McNicol.
1st ed.
ISBN 978 1 74175 651 7 (hbk.)
Includes index.
1. Daniher, Terry, 1957– 2. Daniher, Neale, 1961–. 3. Daniher, Anthony, 1963–.
4. Daniher, Chris, 1966–. 5. Essendon Football Club–History. 6. Football players–Victoria–History.
7. Football teams–Victoria–History. 8. Australian football–History.
Other Authors/Contributors: McNicol, Adam, 1978–
796.336099451
Jacket design by Phil Campbell
Text and picture section design and typesetting by Pauline Haas
Jacket photograph (back) by Monty Coles
Jacket photograph (front) courtesy of Newspix
Printed in Singapore by KHL Printing Co Pty Ltd
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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FOR MUM AND DAD

WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO ALL WE’VE DONE
WITHOUT YOUR LOVE, SUPPORT AND PATIENCE.
with thanks from your boys
‘TO SUM UP THE DANIHERS.
FOUR INGREDIENTS. SPIRIT, FANTASTIC. PASSION,
UNBELIEVABLE. LOYALTY AND TRUST, IMPECCABLE.’
kevin sheedy
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CONTENTS
Introduction: The road to Ungarie 1
1 Daniher country 8
2 The pride of the district 15
3 You play anything when you’re young 23
4 Something a bit special 37
5 A young bloke coming through 44
6 A kid named Terry Daniher 49
7 Fair dinkum about footy 58
8 A born leader 73
9 Knockin’ around with blokes 82
10 Making life a bit more interesting 94
11 Just another Daniher 105
12 The Iceman 115
13 The best player in the club 130
14 All the glitz and glamour 139
15 This time it’s different 153
16 Fingers crossed 164
17 Loyalty 177
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18 Following in your brothers’ footsteps 187
19 Hard, tough and talented 199

20 Pitching in and having a go 208
21 Doing the old home town proud 215
22 In footy you just get on with it 234
23 Grin and cop it 243
24 You’re the bloody coach, mate! 252
25 A fork in the road 262
26 Foot y 101 277
27 Family ties 291
28 A bit of the old, a bit of the new 299
29 Sermons laced with hope and energy 308
30 Footy sucks sometimes 322
31 The new generation 333
Football career statistics 342
Author’s note 344
Acknowledgements 348
Index 352
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Jim Daniher
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INTRODUCTION
THE ROAD TO UNGARIE
O
ur hire car’s headlights briefly illuminate a sign by the roadside.
From the top it reads Ungarie 42, Condobolin 105, Lake Cargelligo
115. A smile creeps across Neale Daniher’s face. ‘When we see the name
Ungarie we know we’re almost home.’ The outskirts of West Wyalong
disappear as the last rays of sunshine fade. It is May 2008. We are in
southern New South Wales, 550 kilometres from Sydney and around
600 from Melbourne.
More than six hours earlier, I collected Neale and his teenage

son Ben from the family’s large home in Melbourne’s leafy eastern
suburbs. We drove north, passing through Shepparton and the Murray
River town of Tocumwal. Discussions flowed, mostly about footy. It
was a Monday morning and Neale expressed his relief at not dreading
the day, like he had after a loss when coaching Melbourne. Instead,
he could watch the season unfold without the stress of having his job
continually on the line. He could simply enjoy the game again. Neale
had even joined the media. Before we set off he appeared on Neil
Mitchell’s popular radio program on 3AW, discussing the weekend’s
results. As it happened, the Demons were the story of the day. Less
than 24 hours before, they had staged a remarkable comeback from
51 points down to beat Fremantle at the MCG. Ben was delighted with
the result. Despite his dad parting ways with the club, he still loves
the Dees.
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THE DANIHERS
2
Over the river, we headed into the wide open expanses of
the Riverina. Past Finley, home town of Brownlow Medallist and
Hawthorn star Shane Crawford. Once a bustling rural centre, Finley
has been gutted by drought, the water shortage drying up the region’s
rice growing industry. We travelled on to Jerilderie, famous for having
its bank held up by Ned Kelly and his gang in 1879. More recently
it was the birthplace of Bill Brownless, formerly a Geelong forward,
now a professional man of the people. The rumble of giant trucks
was constant as we continued north along the Newell Highway to
Narrandera, population 6800. ‘We used to always think of this as the
real big smoke,’ Neale remarked as we headed along the main street.
Still we drove. Past the Barassi Line, a mythical marker, stretching
from south-east New South Wales to the eastern edge of the Northern

Territory. The Barassi Line was dreamt up by professor Ian Turner in
1978 to describe the separation of traditional Aussie Rules territory
from that dominated by Rugby League.
We continued beyond Ardlethan, where the local footy team
once wore an iconic red and yellow jumper with a big star on the front
and were called the Stars. The club has since fallen victim to rural
population shifts and is now part of a conglomerate mystifyingly known
as the Northern Jets. Its guernsey is the same horrid article worn by
Port Adelaide in the AFL. A few minutes down the road we flashed
past Mirrool, famous for being the place where Brownless kicked a
football over a grain silo. And so we arrive at West Wyalong and begin
the final stretch.
Neale steers the car around sweeping bends, past pine trees
standing so straight they seem made by machine. We reach Girral, a
hamlet that once boasted a pub and a footy club. Now it has a couple of
grain silos and a tiny collection of weather-beaten houses. Neale, unlike
his brothers, never dreamt of being a farmer yet he shifts excitedly in his
seat as we turn right and accelerate away from the ghost town. ‘From
here on is Daniher country,’ he says enthusiastically, pointing to the
dusty farmland barely visible under the night sky. Sitting in the back
seat, Ben offers an opposite reaction. Earphones in, he stares intently
at the screen of his laptop. He likes visiting the country but it is not his
place.
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3
THE ROAD TO UNGARIE
This trip is the beginning of a new journey for Neale. It will
be a journey of reflection and, he hopes, discovery. With his father,
Jim, about to turn 80, he has decided it is time for the Daniher story
to be recorded. The tale will focus on Neale and his brothers, Terry,

Anthony and Chris, and their remarkable achievements. The time is
right to consider the tremendous opportunities bequeathed by their
parents’ hard work. Throughout their lives the boys have been doers.
Now, more than a decade since Chris, the youngest, retired from
the AFL, it is time to take a breath and ponder the mountains they
climbed to play football at the highest level. They also hope to shed
light on what they know is a deep family history, but it is this aspect
Neale approaches with some trepidation. He knows Jim holds the key,
however he says their father–son relationship has not involved much in
the way of discussion. ‘I’m not sure what we’ll get out of Dad,’ he says.
‘He doesn’t usually like talking about himself or his boys, doesn’t want
to be a bighead.’
Soon the car slows again and pulls into Danihers Lane. Tall
eucalypts line the road. Every tree, every fencepost, holds a childhood
memory. ‘We used to do fartlek training here,’ Neale recalls while
pointing towards a huge gum tree. ‘That was one of our stopping
points.’ A speck of moisture hits the windscreen. Neale winds down the
window and thrusts his face into the air. His smile widens. ‘It smells
like rain.’ As he drives along the roughly graded red dirt, he is no longer
the one-time Boy Wonder who could have been among Essendon’s
greatest players. He is not The Reverend, who preached the virtues
of the Melbourne Football Club to the masses and almost delivered
the Demons a long-awaited flag. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he is
simply a bloke from the bush again. And although it is more than three
decades since he has lived here, when he pulls up outside the modest
farmhouse where he grew up, Neale Daniher is most definitely home.
‘It’s going to be a great few days,’ he says, walking towards the front door.
There is a feeling of warmth, of strong family ties, as Edna,
matriarch of the Daniher clan, greets us at the door. She is tiny in every
way, her voice soft, almost a whisper. She smiles broadly, embracing

Neale and Ben, before piling home-grown roast lamb, pumpkin, potato
and gravy onto dinner plates. Feeding a sitting of five is a cinch for a
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THE DANIHERS
4
woman who raised 11 children. It is almost 7 pm. Jim sits at the head of
the table, keen to start dinner. He is a big man, with broad shoulders,
slightly hunched by old age. A full head of white hair is parted solidly
and swept to one side. Gnarled hands, resembling often-pruned trees,
rest on the tablecloth. They are the souvenirs of a tough life. But in
his old age, Jim has a face that radiates a certain friendliness belying
his hard-man reputation. ‘Good to see you fellas,’ he says with his
booming voice that knows only one volume. The lamb and vegies are
wolfed down. Smiles all round. Edna quietly checks if everyone has
enough food and something to drink. Predictably, conversation starts
with mention of the weather. ‘Oh, she’s dry alright, she’s bloody dry,’
says Jim. He will keep taking an active role on the farm until he can
no longer climb out of his chair. Chris now runs the show, having
returned to the bush after finishing up at Essendon. A dry start to the
growing season has held back the already planted wheat, barley and
canola. Jim offers a critique on Chris’s approach to farming. ‘He’s got
a bit of bloody crop over here and a bit over there. He loves bloody
driving around. We’ve gone past one paddock four times.’
Jim grins as he talks, his face wrinkling with lines, like Paul
Hogan’s once did. It seems he loves an audience. Slowly conversation
turns to football, to the recent debut of Anthony’s son Darcy for
Essendon. Then the book is mentioned. And with little prompting, Jim
begins passing on his oral history of the Danihers. He talks freely about
himself, about playing ‘Rules’, as the native game is known in New
South Wales. About suiting up again on Sundays for Rugby League

matches. About the journey of his boys from the outback to the big
city. Soon Neale is asking questions. He is being introduced to a new
side of his father. Ben listens quietly. Jim will barely take a breath until
we head back to Melbourne three days later.
The following day we take Jim for a drive. Remarkably, there is
no sign on the outskirts of Ungarie proclaiming the town as ‘the home
of the Danihers’ and Jim likes it that way. First stop is the footy ground,
where Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris began their careers and where
Jim ran around for almost three decades. A wide open expanse, it is
ringed by a gravel trotting track. The oval is dry, with small patches of
green. The tiny brick change rooms are basic to say the least. Battling to
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5
THE ROAD TO UNGARIE
find enough players, the once-mighty Magpies are fighting for survival,
their struggle matching that of the local community.
Ungarie is a dying town. We drive along Wollongough Street, its
broad thoroughfare lined by disused shops. Just a few cars and the odd
ute park under the tall gum trees that cast shade along the middle of
the road. The place feels empty. Paint peels from the façade of a store
once owned by FR Hayes, a legendary local businessman. At one stage
he pretty much ran the town and owned half of it. He opened an ever-
popular billiard room that Jim says ‘was the hub of the place’. Written
on one shopfront nearby are the words ‘Rick and Sue’s WelcomeMart’.
Below the fading letters, the entrance is boarded up. Many locals now
purchase their groceries in West Wyalong, while others travel the more
than 400-kilometre round trip to shop at the big supermarkets in Wagga
Wagga. Some journey north to Condobolin, the outpost that produced
Australian Idol runnerup Shannon Noll.
We drive slowly past the Town and Country Tavern, painted a

deep maroon. Known as the bottom pub, it is a testament to understated
20th century architecture. A large XXXX sign remains atop the small
verandah. First licensed in 1935, it closed for the last time in 2006.
Colin Baker’s much loved pies and pasties (yes, the baker was a Baker)
are also long gone. For Ungarie’s centenary celebrations in 1972, Col
handled an order for 14 000 hamburger buns. Eight years later his
bread oven, first fired up in 1928, began gathering dust.
A few businesses hang on, despite the prolonged drought which
threatens to wipe the entire community from the map. A chalkboard
outside the Ungarie Butchery advertises minced beef for $8 per kilo.
The Majestic Café stands between two empty buildings and the
proprietor still dishes up fish and chips and hamburgers, although
the flow of customers is just a trickle. Jim tells us about the times
when people would queue at the counter for milkshakes and lollies
during intermission at Lampard’s picture theatre. The theatre now
stands empty. Back then, floods were the norm. Every couple of years
the Humbug Creek would inundate the town. Now the meandering
watercourse rarely breaks its banks. Only the Rural Transaction Centre,
a one-size-fits-all bank branch, post office and Internet facility, looks
alive and modern.
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THE DANIHERS
6
Further up the street, the two-storey Central Hotel watches
solemnly over yet another example of Australia’s rural decline. Still
called the Top Pub even though it’s now the only watering hole, it is
a substantial red brick building erected in the 1950s when times were
good and people plentiful. It has four different Tooheys beers on tap,
a dining room and rarely used guest accommodation upstairs. Hardy
wheat and sheep farmers and the few other workers left in town gather

in the bar to solve the world’s problems over middies of New or Old.
The publican tries to look on the bright side but admits leasing the
Central has not proven to be the smartest of investment ideas. On
Wednesday nights a few local footballers might wander in but most
weeks only four or five blokes turn up to training.
Ungarie, a place whose history has become indelibly linked with
that of Australian football itself, is fading away. Soon it might be just a
dusty collection of houses like Girral. From a peak population of 800
it now has just 380 residents. The surrounding district has suffered an
even more startling exodus. Out on the land, a whole family was once
settled on each 740 acre block. Then, working men were employed to
help sow and harvest the crops. Now the average farm is more than ten
times the original size. Technology, in the guise of enormous tractors,
means a farmer can manage such a vast tract of land on his own.
Jim seems sad at the state of Ungarie, the place where he has
lived his entire life. We visit the Catholic primary school, where his
sons began their education. Although the weatherboard building is no
longer used it sparks many memories. Walking through the overgrown
playground, where a couple of goalposts and a concrete cricket pitch
can be found, Ben shakes his head. It is like being on another planet,
compared to his experiences at the prestigious Xavier College in
Melbourne. In just one generation, family circumstances can change
enormously.
We leave Ungarie and drive for half an hour to the old sandy
ground at Four Corners, where a club existed without a town. Then we
travel along bumpy gravel roads to Burgooney, a long-forgotten outpost
of Northern Riverina footy. Neale drives, while Jim talks constantly
in the front seat, his sentences littered with classic bush humour.
He speaks of his father, Jim senior, and tells us he was a renowned
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7
THE ROAD TO UNGARIE
storyteller. He knows the ownership history of every block of land.
We are treated to an example of how tough the footy was in Jim’s era.
‘When a fight started in those days the game would stop,’ he says with
a chuckle. ‘They would form a ring around them and let them fight.
Then, when she was over, they’d start the footy off again!’
Finally we visit Tullibigeal, Ungarie’s arch-rival on the footy
field. Neale played in his only senior premiership there in 1978. He
and Ben take out their Sherrin and re-enact some of the game. Later
Jim tells them of the politics involved with Neale’s selection in the
team, because he had been away at boarding school for much of the
year. Three generations of Danihers share their history.
When we arrive back at the farm, Edna has laid out some
ingredients to make salad sandwiches. She senses it has been a
successful and enjoyable morning. Neale continues to ask questions
and Jim delights in responding. Edna occasionally chips in, offering
some of her countless life experiences. It’s like this for the duration of
our stay.
Later in the week, when we begin the long trip back to
Melbourne, Neale says, ‘I didn’t know so much of that stuff. Maybe
the old man has got to 80 and decided it’s no good taking all those
stories to the grave.’ Maybe he just needed to know someone would
listen. Either way, so begins the Daniher story.
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CHAPTER ONE
DANIHER COUNTRY
O
n the first day of September in 1990, four boys from the bush
cemented their place in Australian football folklore. On that early

spring afternoon, Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher made history
by all playing for Essendon in its 6-goal win over St Kilda. Modest blokes,
the Danihers never dreamed they would achieve such a feat. After all, in
the 93-year history of the VFL and AFL, never before had a quartet of
brothers run out in the same team. As the boys sat in the change rooms,
ice-packs on their sore limbs, their knockabout demeanour suggested
they might have just played for Ungarie at an oval ringed by cars rather
than screaming fans. In their country drawl, they said the occasion had
been ‘t’riffic’ and a ‘bloody good show’. They had capped a remarkable
journey, one that began in Ungarie, their tiny home town, surrounded
by Rugby League territory, amid the dusty plains of western New South
Wales. But the Danihers were a football family long before Terry, Neale,
Anthony and Chris became household names.
In the early part of the 20th century, when the VFL was not two
decades old and contained a team called University, a farmer by the
name of Jim Daniher dominated matches held in muddy paddocks
in north-east Victoria. It was his grandchildren who would bring the
family fame.
Jim was a first-generation Australian, and his Catholic faith and
Irish ancestry were key parts of his identity. Through stories told by
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9
DANIHER COUNTRY
relatives and friends, he knew his father, John Daniher, had been part of
an extraordinary exodus. John was just a child when his parents decided
to leave their home county of Tipperary. It was the 1860s and the
Emerald Isle was a decimated place. The Great Famine, which began
20 years prior, had resulted in the deaths of more than a million people.
At least that number fled the country, most to England, the United
States and Australia. Before the famine, Ireland’s population had been

greater than eight million. Today, despite recent boom times, the total
population (counting both the Republic and Northern Ireland) is still
only 6.2 million.
Oral history passed down through the generations suggests
John Daniher’s father initially worked on the docks in Melbourne
before the family acquired a block of farming land near Kyneton.
A subsequent dispute over its ownership led to a move north-east, to
the tiny community of Miepoll outside Euroa. From there the Daniher
history becomes more definite and takes a rather unlikely early turn.
In 1887, John Daniher married Miss Ellen Danaher, herself from
a local Irish clan, at St John’s Catholic Church in Euroa. That Ellen’s
new surname sounded just like her maiden name certainly turned
a few heads. Three years later, she and John welcomed Catherine
(known as Kate), the first of their three children. On 22 January 1890,
Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris’s grandfather, Jim, was born. But just
as the family prepared for its third addition, John was tragically killed
after being thrown from his buggy during a trip back to Miepoll from
Euroa. He died at the scene, having broken his neck. Only a few days
later John junior (usually referred to as Jack) was born.
Losing the head of the household placed enormous pressure
on Ellen. Yet, like so many pioneering women, she possessed an
unbreakable will to succeed. With the help of her community she
raised the three kids and ensured they would have a positive future.
Despite the later departure of her sons, and of Kate when she married
farmer Patrick O’Connel, Ellen lived out her days on the property at
Miepoll. She died aged 70 in 1948, and left the land to her brother
Michael Danaher.
Jim first brought the Daniher name notoriety on the footy field
when just a teenager. Tall and wiry, he received at least one best and
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THE DANIHERS
10
fairest award while playing with the Longwood Football Club. With
no reserves or juniors in those days, it was a case of taking to the field
against grown men or not at all. Jim later repeated his success at nearby
Euroa, where he won a premiership in 1913.
Around this time, the New South Wales government began
opening up large tracts of the Riverina, to be allocated under the Closer
Settlement Scheme. Since white settlement, the area had been divided
into enormous sheep and cattle properties. Their leases, including that
of the 15 000 acre Ungarie Station, were taken back by the government
and the land subdivided. Opportunities to settle on the newly surveyed
blocks were advertised all over Australia. Inspired by the idea of
relocating to the wide open plains, both Jim and Jack entered the
ballot for a piece of red Riverina soil. Although some were set aside for
servicemen lucky enough to return from the horrors of Gallipoli and
the Great War, they were both awarded 740 acre allotments. Neither of
them had laid eyes on the place.
Late in 1914 the brothers finally decided to take a look at their
new assets. Due to a lack of finances, they took the extraordinary step of
making the 485 kilometre journey on bicycles. Pedalling their way up and
down hills, over barely made dirt tracks, they took a few weeks to complete
the trip. Impressed by what he saw, Jim immediately made plans for a
permanent move north. But maybe due to the arduous bike ride, Jack
decided it was not the place for him, handing control of his block to Jim
and returning to Victoria, where he later joined the police force.
During 1915, Jim settled on the property at Ungarie, which he
named ‘Hillview’ in honour of the farm at Euroa which he had left
behind. Judging by stories contained in local history books, he would
have lived in a rudimentary tent on his own for at least a year while the

task of clearing the land began. In between felling the large eucalypt,
pine and currajong trees, he constructed the first fences, necessary to
prevent his horse from escaping. Given the need to cart water out to
the block from the Humbug Creek, 8 kilometres away, the horse was
Jim’s most valuable asset.
Along with an enormous workload and the lack of basic
provisions — without running water there were no luxuries like showers
or plumbed toilets — isolation and loneliness were major problems.
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DANIHER COUNTRY
As a consequence, the settlers were quick to establish sporting clubs in
Ungarie to provide a vital social outlet. Although the tiny town was in
Rugby League territory, the great number of expatriate Victorians meant
an Australian Rules club was among the first to be established. Jim
Daniher played a major role in its formation. According to an obituary
published in the West Wyalong Advocate upon his death in 1959, Jim
‘occupied various positions in the club for many years, including that of
patron’. He ensured Ungarie adopted black and white for its guernsey
after he had worn these colours at Euroa. Pictured in an early team
photo in which players are wearing a mixture of horizontal and vertical
stripes, Jim was a tall man for his time, his broad shoulders and arms
bulked up by days spent bringing down trees with an axe. Legendary
for being a great storyteller, he was very popular among the players and
would often entertain large numbers of men at the local pub with tales
of his many experiences.
Football matches were roughly organised affairs, with teams
made up of whoever felt like having a run. Some away games were
held close by at now forgotten places like Girral and Calleen. On other
occasions the team would travel up to 80 kilometres by horse and cart

to take on men from settlements like Lake Cargelligo, while racial
tensions were stirred when contests were staged against an Aboriginal
side from the Murrumbidgee Reservation. Predictably, Jim Daniher
was among Ungarie’s best players in its formative years. He helped
them win a premiership in 1923 and the medal he received remains
a treasured possession at the family farm. Surviving records from the
time note that club membership was five shillings for men and two
shillings and sixpence for ladies. Visiting team members and followers
paid one shilling at the gate.
Having spent seven years setting up the farm on his own, Jim
returned to Euroa after the 1923 footy season to marry Eileen Cullen.
The service was held at St John’s Catholic Church where his parents
had married. Once the celebrations had wound up, the couple
returned to Ungarie and began their life together at Hillview. They had
six children in the next nine years. John (once again nicknamed Jack)
was born in 1925, followed by Mary in 1927. A year later, the father of
Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris arrived. Named after his father, Jim
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THE DANIHERS
12
junior would become a local sporting legend in his own right, as would
Leo, born in 1930. The fifth born, Joan, tragically died at three months
of age. Terese rounded out the family when she entered the world in
1934.
Despite their new family commitments, the Daniher family
continued to strongly support their community. Jim senior’s passion
for Aussie Rules saw him play the game well into his forties, on one
occasion even running out alongside his oldest son. He also embraced
the rival code, serving as president of the Ungarie Rugby League
Club. In later life he was a keen lawn bowler. Away from sport, he was

a director of the Condobolin Pastures Protection Board for 18 years
and a member of the Ungarie Hospital board of directors. Eileen also
was active within many groups, among them the Country Women’s
Association, the Agricultural Society, and the Patriotic Committee.
She was, according to an article in the West Wyalong Advocate, ‘willing
to assist every worthy and charitable organisation’.
A devout Catholic, Jim took an active role in building the first
church at Ungarie, spending many hours carting timber to the site.
When the church was firmly established in the district, he became a
close confidant of the local priest. Jim and Eileen later played an active
role in welcoming the Sisters of St Joseph when they were invited to set
up a convent in the town. The Danihers subsequently helped build a
primary school, to be run by the sisters. They did all this while surviving
droughts, floods, mouse plagues and dust storms, not to mention trying
to make the farm profitable.
Eileen died suddenly on Mother’s Day in 1950, aged just
55. ‘One of the best known and most highly esteemed ladies in the
Northern Riverina,’ according to the obituary in the West Wyalong
Advocate, her funeral was among the largest in Ungarie’s short history.
The article written about her life also provides a glimpse of prevailing
attitudes at the time. ‘Despite home ties, Mrs Daniher displayed very
commendable interest in public affairs,’ it read. Unfortunately she did
not live to see any of her children marry.
Nine years later Jim died, aged 69. A huge number of people
attended his funeral, held in the church he helped build. Demonstrating
the political leanings of the bush at the time and its broad Catholic
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DANIHER COUNTRY
support, wreaths were sent by the Temora Electorate Council of the

Australian Labor Party and the Ungarie branch of the ALP. Of course,
among many others was a floral tribute from the Ungarie Australian
Rules Football Club. Jim had claimed the town for the native game.
On the field his boys were already bringing local kudos to the Daniher
name. And given the players that would emerge in the ensuing decades,
the code has plenty to thank him for.
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Jim, Jack and Leo
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CHAPTER TWO
THE PRIDE OF THE DISTRICT
T
he sons of Jim Daniher senior were a fearsome trio on the football
field. Jack, Jim junior and Leo wore Ungarie’s unique black and
white horizontal stripes from their early teens until they could barely
walk. The boys began their love affair with the game at home on the
farm where their father ensured they always had a ball to kick around
the paddocks. It was never the finest piece of sporting equipment; mostly
it was a leather casing stuffed with barley grass. ‘Well, he never grew a
crop so he didn’t have any straw,’ jokes Jim, reminiscing about the time.
At school the young lads preached the values of the Victorian game to
fellow students more inclined to throwing passes. However, by growing
up on the footy frontier where Rules and League met head-on, they had
no option but to become proficient at both codes.
All the boys attended the Eugalong Primary School, a tiny
building located close to Hillview. Later they attended Ungarie Central
for a time, although Jack and Jim went on to further their education
at the Forbes Catholic College. By the time football could resume in
the Northern Riverina following World War II, all three brothers had
finished school and returned to the family farm, although Jack would

later move into town and pursue a new career as a shearer.
In 1946, when Ungarie’s team took the field for the first time
in five years, the Danihers immediately established themselves as key
players. In particular, Jim became the one to watch. The tallest of the
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THE DANIHERS
16
trio, he was skilful, could play in any position and was renowned for
his toughness. Having suffered a broken arm one season he asked the
league if he could play with a cast on. When the response was no, he
insisted on getting the plaster taken off each weekend so he could play.
He ran around for the afternoon with the broken bone shielded by a
few bandages. Upon finishing the game Jim would get the doctor to set
him a new cast.
The club secretary of the time was captivated by the uniform
worn by Ganmain players at a knock-out carnival. ‘They had the white
shorts and a red jumper with a white V,’ Jim remembers. ‘They had
all the same guernseys and all the other teams had stray guernseys.’
Desperate to smarten up his team’s on-field appearance, the secretary
decided Ungarie should ditch its black and white colours. He ordered
two new sets of red and white jumpers. ‘But he got it wrong,’ Jim
continues. ‘Instead of being red and a white V they were white with a
red V. The bloody red V ran into the jumpers. They used to call us the
galahs!’ Given Jim’s appetite for a contest, few of his opponents dared
rib him on field about Ungarie’s pink jumpers.
With the Danihers making their presence felt, Ungarie was
competitive but couldn’t stop arch-rivals Tullibigeal, a fellow bunch
of farmers and labourers from 40 kilometres north, winning three
successive flags. In 1949, West Wyalong entered the Northern Riverina
League and brought with it the Griff Evans Cup, to be awarded to the

competition’s best-and-fairest player each season. Now an established
local footy star, Jim won the cup in its first year and the Daniher name
has since been engraved on a further nine occasions. Leo took it home
in 1951.
Once again wearing black and white stripes, Ungarie finally
broke its 15-year premiership drought in 1950. It was the first of many
flags for the Daniher brothers. ‘We had a big fella playing full-forward,
Norman Stidwell,’ Jim says. ‘He was like a draughthorse and he could
not turn. Anyhow, we were neck and neck and it rained at three-quarter
time, poured. We were into the last quarter, about half way through it.
The ball came up and Norm came out to the flank, grabbed the ball.
He was a strong, big bugger. He ran over about two fellas and he was
going cross-ways across the field. He threw the ball on his boot and it
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