All living members of the team will attend. ROY WARD talked to premiership players Graeme Combe, Brian Dunn, Ivan Smith, Robert Hayes and Robert Queale about their memories of the '58 flag in the lead up to the reunion...

THE first thing everyone remembers about Laharum in '58 is the bark hut.

Laharum was a tiny club who could only field a senior side.

With no changerooms, players got ready in the bark hut.

The Mountain Men had not won a premiership since 1938 and in 1956 almost disbanded due to poor numbers.

Dedicated clubmen like president Stan Smith, secretary Ken Carter and others set about rebuilding the Mountain Men with young players from the area.

It was a time where clubs had restricted recruiting zones and footballers who moved from Laharum to live in Horsham and other Wimmera towns needed a permit to keep playing with the club.

Almost all the premiership players were from Laharum and most of them had agricultural jobs as graziers or farm hands.

Wingman Ivan Smith said the players had been like family.

"We all grew up together," he said.

Laharum was not expected to challenge for the premiership in 1958 but scraped into fourth place and made their way to the grand final at city oval.

On grand final day everything clicked for the Mountain Men, including Wonwondah's coach Perc Eagles fracturing his cheekbone in the first quarter.

The Horsham Times reported `Wonwondah went to pieces without their coach' while Laharum played a `fast, play-on style which caught the Wonwondah defenders out of position'.

Dunn, 72, who won the Horsham District Football League best and fairest medal in 1958, said the game had changed a lot since then.

"The players are much better athletes now. Just look at all the work they do before the season. I wouldn't last five minutes out there now," he said.

Legendary centre-half- forward Bill Tucker led the Mountain Men to the flag as captain-coach.

The premiership players remember Tucker as the most dominant player of the competition; a man feared for his skill and respected for his leadership.

Tucker kicked six goals in the grand final and would go on to coach the side to five premierships during a seven- year period.

His players remain convinced that record may never be broken.

Smith, 72, said Tucker was never beaten for a full game.

"Even the best defenders could only stop him for three quarters," Smith said.

"He would always find a way to beat them.

"On some days he would walk into the huddle and say: `Just get the ball to me boys and I will do the rest'.

"As a coach he never made us do anything he wouldn't do himself. He made us play better."

In a rare move for the times, Tucker made the team train twice before the grand final.

The side normally trained just once a week with match practice and skills work in the light followed by running sprints and laps in the dark.

Dunn, a close friend and vice-captain, said Tucker was a great player and leader.

"What you have to understand about Bill is that everyone respected him," Dunn said.

"One minute he could be joking around like one of the boys and then the next he could be the coach, but everyone still listened."

Dunn was never afforded any special treatment by Tucker.

"I was a `shy' trainer at the best of times," Dunn recalled with a laugh. "But Bill treated everyone the same no matter who they were. In the dark it was easy to stop running and slip into the bark hut early."

Dunn said one muddy night he did slip off the track early but Tucker was having none of that.

"He came in as I was taking off my boots," Dunn said.

"He told me to get back out on the ground and run three laps because if he let me come off early he would have to let everyone get off early.

"I yelled out at him for the first 50 yards but I stopped because he yelled back: `This is hurting me as much as it is hurting you'."

Tucker turned down an offer to play with Geelong in the VFL.

"He didn't take it because it was too big of a risk, but he would have been a great player there as well," Dunn said.

Tucker is fighting cancer and is no certainty to join his team- mates at tomorrow's reunion.

Dunn remains a close friend and will be trying his best to get Tucker to the celebrations.

"He really wants to make it to the reunion, but we will just have to see how he is on the day," Dunn said.

The thoughts of 1958 premiership players at the reunion tomorrow will also be with defender Geoff McTavish and forward Charlie Marks who have died in the years since.

McTavish was a back flanker who won the `hardest trier' award on grand final day.

His brother Graeme was a commanding defender who was judged best on ground in the grand final after keeping Wonwondah's star full forward Don Matthews goalless.

Marks strikes the eye in every picture because he was the sole indigenous member of the side.

On-baller Robert Queale, 67, said Marks was one of the boys.

"We didn't need any reconciliation with Charlie. He was our team-mate and our friend. He would eat at our houses. He did cop some abuse at some places but we always stuck up for him because he was our team-mate. We didn't see him as anything other than our team-mate," Queale said.

Marks is remembered as an elusive forward who loved a goal.

Defender Robert Hayes, 69, said Marks kicked some amazing goals.

"I remember one day he kicked one of the greatest goals I have ever seen. He was flat on his back in the goal square with a man on him and he still managed to put the ball on his boot and kick it over his head," Hayes said.

Smith said Marks had an extra incentive to kick goals.

"My father offered him a packet of cigarettes for every goal he kicked. They were worth a fortune back then. One day he cost my dad six packets. Although it did cause one problem on the field, Charlie was meant to rotate onto the ball but he never left the goal square," Smith said.

Utility Graeme Combe, 69, said while the club had developed a lot since 1958, it remained a family club.

"When we played you had whole families coming to the football to support the club," Combe said.

"Today, you still have the same names in football and the netball teams."

Graeme's son, Stuart Combe, has played more than 350 games for the Mountain Men.

Laharum's 1958 premiership was won during the centenary of football and the Victorian Country Football League issued flags in green and gold instead of traditional club colours to mark the occasion.

"We said we needed to win the 1958 flag for ourselves and then win the 1959 flag for the club so it could have one in our colours. We won five flags but we could of won a few more, we probably got a bit ahead of ourselves," Combe said.

Laharum's celebrations were epic with seven sheep consumed at the victory barbecue.

"We dug a big pit behind the the town hall and made a pit- barbecue which we roasted the sheep on," Combe said.

"It was a great night and we didn't really drink that much either.

"On the Sunday, we talked about it a bit and then went back to work on Monday.

"If it happened today people would take the week-off and celebrate."

Laharum will honour the 1958 premiership team during the half-time break of tomorrow's senior match.

Combe said the players would do a slow lap of the ground and have their names read out before returning to the clubrooms for lunch.

Dunn said many of the premiership players still lived in the Wimmera and remained in regular contact.

He said they would savour tomorrow's festivities.

"We better enjoy it, because we won't be here in 50 years time," he said.