Archibald Alexander McDonald

My grandfather competed in the heats of the Stawell Gift in two successive seasons. The second attempt Poppa won his heat and competed in the final and came 2nd. I can't recall exactly what years but around 1923/4. Poppa also competed in a number of 220 yard (200m) sprints that were held at Stawell and won twice. He told me once that he could do the 220 in even time i.e. 220 yards in 22 seconds! His best time for 110 yards was just under 12 seconds. So he was pretty good runner in his day. He was an all round athlete. He trained with old South Melbourne VFL team, the Swans or the Bloods, as he used to call them. He was a champion golfer and when he took up bowls he was playing A grade after only 12mths. However despite his many sporting successes he was never boastful and kept it all pretty quiet.

One little anecdote about Poppa: when I was about 16 or 17 we got a pool table and I fancied myself as a bit of a shark. I challenged him to a game of pool but he said he didn't know how to play that game but he'd played billiards "a couple of times". I remember that I went first and scored a few points and then Poppa went next and I remember it was like he had the 3 balls on a piece [of string] and they went everywhere he wanted them to go to. He got a total of 100 points and I never got a second shot! He told me later that when he first started to work he gave half his wages to his mother and took the remainder to the billiard parlour and doubled it. He was that good. [Christopher Collins]³