Sprinter wins a bronzed place in history

Generations after his greatest achievement, a forgotten athlete finds new-found respect.

Champion Aboriginal sprinter Tom Dancey has finally been honoured with a memorial — 101 years after winning Australia’s prestigious Stawell Gift foot race.

Tom blitzed the race in 1910, becoming just its second Indigenous winner. He was also the very first Queensland winner.

But for more than a century there was no public monument to his achievement. Tom himself was not even afforded a marked grave.

It all came right this Easter. As the nation’s best sprinters were competing for the 2011 Stawell Gift carnival, the covers came off a long-overdue tribute — a bronze statue of the sprinter in a park in tiny Dirranbandi, not far from his grave.

Mawn Young, Tom’s niece, said it was a great moment for the family.

“It is so wonderful, after 101 years, he’s been recognised for what he did,” she said.

“He was Indigenous — back then, who would have thought he’d have been recognised.”

Tom was born in Hebel, on the Queensland–NSW border, around 1888. He was one of three sons to William and Mary Dancey. Tom’s father moved the family to nearby Dirranbandi where the boys grew up and started work at a very early age. Tom was a stockman and boundary rider and was a handy amateur runner.

He apparently entered the 1910 Stawell Gift in Victoria at the urging of friends.

The race history records “J Dancey of Toowoomba” winning his way through the heats to the final, where he was given a handicap of 13 yards. Accounts from the time have him hitting the lead at the 50-yard mark and he was never headed. Tom won in 11 and three-fifths seconds, with a margin around four yards.

Tom was presented with the winner’s trophy and ribbon, but his trainers got the prize money.

He was the second Aboriginal man to win the Stawell Easter Gift. Just four Aboriginal men have won this 120-metre foot race: B Kinnear (1883), T Dancey (1910), L Cooper (1928) and J Ross (2003).

Tom died in 1957 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Dirranbandi.

And that might have been the end of the story, except for the efforts of family and a growing band of supporters.

Mawn, now retired and living in Cairns, was the catalyst for the memorial. She said it came to her as she was travelling through Goondiwindi one day and saw a statue of Gunsynd, the town’s nationally-known racehorse.

“I thought: There’s a statue of a horse, and here’s this old man who doesn’t have a tombstone,” she said.

Her original goal was a headstone to mark Tom’s grave. However, family, friends and supporters rallied to the cause.

In November 2009, the Dirranbandi Negotiation Table decided to commemorate Tom’s win with a statue as well as the headstone. The community established a trust fund, a fundraising committee and a family advisory group.

Last year, on the centenary of Tom’s win, Mawn and three other family members flew to Stawell, with support from the Queensland Government, to see Tom’s achievement acknowledged.

“I saw the video — he didn’t win by a little bit. All you saw behind him was his heels. I would like to go back and watch it all day,” Mawn said.

The trip created media opportunities. Mawn got to tell her story on a Sydney talkback radio. It attracted the attention of stonemason Charlie Sarkis, who donated a headstone.

And then, with support from the Queensland Department of Communities, the federal Indigenous Coordination Centre and Balonne Shire Council, a bronze statue was struck by artist Brett Mon Garling.

Mawn is amazed by the enthusiasm.

“It’s not my effort. I thought of it — that was my effort — but it’s been everyone who’s made it happen,” she said. “I didn’t even know where to put (the statue) but there’s been women (at Dirranbandi) who’ve helped. The council can’t do enough to help us.”

And so events came to a head this April.

On Easter Saturday, the statue of Tom was unveiled in a public ceremony at a public park in Dirranbandi.

On Easter Sunday — the day 101 years ago that he won the Stawell Gift — family members unveiled the headstone to finally mark Tom’s resting place.