By Tyler Lewis
Don’t mess with Mo.
That was the general consensus when Mo Monckton’s wife of 67 years and former teammates were asked to describe the Pakenham legend as a footballer.
Monckton played in the 1952 premiership side for the Lions, three years before he married his wife Kathleen.
With the name Monckton synonymous with the Pakenham Football Club, Kathleen has heard the siren echo across the old and new Pakenham football grounds more than anyone.
And although football has taken a dramatic shift since the days Mo was lacing up, Kathleen confirmed some things haven’t changed for families across the country since when she was going to watch Mo.
“Sitting in the car watching them play, then him lying on the couch with a corky,” she said of her memories of watching Mo play.
While footballing tales of legends grow in stature with time, one angle has stood tall across seven decades of Lions football: Mo was tough.
“He played in the backline and on the wing, he was a solid player and if you met him…too bad – you went down,” Kathleen said of Mo.
Master of ceremonies on Saturday – Greg Marshall – shared a sensational story of Mo and a young Johnny Knaap on debut.
His legend matches up with Kathleen’s advice for opposition players and as it turns out, it wasn’t the first time Mo had his protective instincts in check.
“Johnny (Knaap) played his first game for Pakenham, he was about 15-16,” Marshall said.
“Mo walked up to him before the game, Johnny is on a wing, Mo is on half-back, he said ‘listen son, when we run out today you come over and play on my side of the ground’.
“He (Mo) said ‘don’t worry about anything, or anyone, I will look after you’…. and he did didn’t he, Mo wasn’t the best footballer, but he was bloody hard!”
Like John Knaap, Les Fleming – the full forward in the 1961 premiership side – was a young star on the rise when he played with Mo.
Fleming recalled of one day he was getting knocked around by his opposition, but it soon stopped when Mo took it upon himself to make a quick positional change.
“Mo was a good back pocket player,” he said.
“Mo used to be the enforcer, I remember one time – they occasionally used to get into me a bit – I remember Mo came up to next to me one day and he goes ‘I will play beside you for a while’….that quieted them down.
“He didn’t go out of his way, but if someone was getting knocked around, he would let the opposition know. “
Along with protecting his mates, Kathleen and the Pakenham Football Club, Mo is a proven family man.
Sometimes the protective instincts and family loyalty got Mo into trouble, as one incident is forever embedded into Kathleen’s memory.
“Patty (Mo’s brother) was playing one day and someone hit Pat,” she said.
“He was over the fence, dropped the bloke and was back over the fence before they blinked.
“He wasn’t even playing, he was playing thirds, but he just said ‘no one hits my brother’.”
And while the story of Mo protecting his brother in a game that he wasn’t even playing in resulted in a bit of laughter, Mo’s family driven mindset didn’t always involve violence.
Donna – Mo’s grandson Sean’s wife – doesn’t often get a Sunday sleep in, and when she does, it’s swiftly disrupted by Mo calling her and the kids out of bed.
“Every Sunday morning he would come up in the F-100,” she said.
“They (her kids) would hear the sound of the engine and run to the door. If we had slept in he would walk in on the house – ‘get out of bed, what are you doing in bed?’ he has been doing that for as long as I can remember.
“If he is not there I am on the phone. I think somethings happened, he loves all of the grand kids and there’s a lot of them.”
Despite being 88, Mo still has his hard-working and protective mentality, still fronting up to work each and every day as concreter.
