The last time Gordon played God Save the Queen at Chatswood Oval
By Norm Tasker
The 1950s was still the era of Empire, when kids sang Rule Britannia on Empire Day, we all had bonfires on Empire Night, and people still stood up at the pictures when they played God Save the Queen, at the time still Australia’s national anthem.
At Chatswood Oval in those halcyon days, it was also a tradition that God Save the Queen rang out over the loudspeakers as players left the field after the first grade game.
That all ended one balmy evening in 1958 when the anthem provided an opportunity not to be missed for the Gordon flanker Ken Yanz. As the anthem started and the players stood to attention after a particularly torrid game against Sydney University, Yanz found himself standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder with a University player with whom he had been in some dispute during play.
Yanz couldn’t help himself.
He let go with a short left jab that caught his adversary flush on the jaw and dropped him like a stone. Yanz immediately resumed h