Story
The football scholar
words ALICIA LÜDI-SCHUTZ
PHOTOGRAPHY john krÜger
Ask Shooby, Shooby’ll know.
That’s the answer most Barossans will have heard over the years if they’ve ever asked a question relating to footy or local history.
Angaston’s Anthony “Shooby” Schubert is a walking, talking encyclopaedia. At five foot three inches tall, he could easily be overlooked in a crowd, but his knowledge of footy statistics, family history, or even the old yarn told by Grandpa back in the day, puts him head and shoulders above the rest.
“I like to keep my finger on the pulse,” he says.
Should one be looking for this fount of knowledge, you needn’t venture far from Angaston. Nearly everything Shooby has done, or continues to do, lies within the boundary of his hometown.
Whether it be at The Leader office where he worked for nearly 42 years; Angaston Football Club or Angaston and Penrice Historical Society, where he’s held the position of secretary since 1987 and 1998 respectively, there is little reason for him to travel outside the Barossa very often.
Shooby was born at Angaston and District Hospital in 1960, his parents Brian and Jenny raised him and his younger brother in the family home on Radford Road, just a short walk from the town’s footy oval.
“In our day it was called Bald Hill Road…. They changed the name about 1970 or thereabouts,” recalls Shooby. The date is just one of many to be found either in his collection of newspaper clippings or in the 226,000-word document he updates on his computer every week, listing local facts or anecdotes he’s heard at the pub from those he calls “The brainiest blokes in Angaston around the table of knowledge”.
Shooby went to Angaston Primary School and chuckles when he shares the novel way he travelled to class on the days he didn’t go by bike or foot.
“We’d catch the pie cart. Lorna Doecke drove it, Bruce’s mother, Matthew Doecke’s grandmother. It must have been a pie cart once, because that’s what we called it. It was just a thing with a seat around the inside edge and you just sat around the big space in the middle and went to school. It was like a delivery van. There were no seatbelts or anything like that back then, but that was normal.”
The dream of strapping on the footy boots sadly never eventuated for this one-eyed Panther supporter.
“It wasn’t for me. I was useless,” his honesty as blunt as the well-worn pencil on his desk at Angaston Football Club, where he spends most of his time these days.
“I was too small for a start, and I couldn’t run.”
He promptly brings up a photo dated 1966 on the computer monitor in front of him, showing a young blonde haired Shooby seated in the front row of his Grade One class. “See? My legs didn’t even touch the ground until Grade Five,” he says after opening another photo for comparison.
Finishing Nuriootpa High School may not have resulted in the growth spurt he wanted, but it did highlight a talent for spelling, which no doubt helped when he worked for the local newspaper based in Dean Street.
“Somebody rang me up and said there’s an ad for a compositor going in The Leader next week and I should apply, so I did, along with about 12 others. Then they rang me and said I start tomorrow.”
Shooby typed copy for sports pages, advertising and general news. He was the man behind “Mr Dates”, a column he wrote for at least three decades, which fuelled his life-long love of local history.
Rae Robinson, the managing editor at the time, also entrusted him to “jazz up” The Leader Footy Book – a pocket-sized annual publication filled with every rule and statistic worth knowing about Barossa, Light and Gawler Football and Netball Associations (which is still printed).
He researched and wrote two history books for Angaston Football Club, with another in the pipeline, and to this day still writes Panther Patter for The Leader each week, as well as the match day report.
“First, I was a yobbo on the hill watching, then I became the runner for the Under 17s in 1979 and 1980. Then, on a Monday morning in October 1987 a person by the name of Grant Humphries, who worked for Angaston and District Council, rang me up and said the footy club needs a secretary and you’re it!”
- Anthony Schubert
Shooby’s love of footy blossomed while spending Saturdays watching the Panthers as a young lad. He was always there, cheering on his mates as they strove for Premiership glory.
“Everybody was football mad in those days,” he explains.
“First, I was a yobbo on the hill watching, then I became the runner for the Under 17s in 1979 and 1980. Then, on a Monday morning in October 1987 a person by the name of Grant Humphries, who worked for Angaston and District Council, rang me up and said the footy club needs a secretary and you’re it!”
Shooby has held the position, and sat in the same office, ever since.
“I used to sit there,” he says pointing directly over his shoulder to the southern wall about two metres behind him. “Then I moved that way”, he points to the west. “And now I’m facing this way”, he says laughing, looking at the northern wall of brown bricks of the Angaston Football Club office that have surrounded him all these decades.
“It’s a bit squeezy, but everything is at my fingertips.”
Shooby’s weekly to-do list of admin tasks starts months before the first kick of the season and continues well beyond the last. And, when he’s not engrossed in footy, researching a local family’s history or typing up minutes from a recent meeting, you’ll find him leading tours at the Angaston Blacksmith’s Shop for the Angaston and Penrice Historical Society.
During footy season though, he sits in the time keeper’s box for every Panthers’ A-Grade match, in his little office, or behind the club’s bar if needed, chatting to “the lads”, win lose or draw.
Such is his dedication to the sport, he’s been awarded Life Membership by Angaston Football Club as well as the Barossa, Light and Gawler Football Association. He’s also received a prestigious SANFL Merit Award for long and valuable service to Australian Football in South Australia.
But while he methodically records all the footy facts and stats, including every Schluter Medallist and Premiership winning side, there’s one club name he hasn’t written down nearly enough – his beloved Angaston Panthers.
“We won 22 Premierships before I was secretary, now we’ve won 23,” he says. “I reckon I put the curse on them!” he says.
That 2003 victory remains etched in his memory, along with the celebrations that followed into the night.
The truth about whether he accepted a dare to bare all on the top step of the Angaston Grandstand, with the Premiership Cup his only covering, is perhaps the one historical detail that can’t be confirmed or denied by searching Shooby’s meticulously kept records.
His cheeky grin may be the giveaway, but this prankster side of Shooby isn’t about to admit, or thankfully reveal, much more other than to say his favourite club highlights are footy trips.
“The players say they’ve played 50 games or whatever – I say I’ve played 26 footy trips and I excelled at them all!”
