What’s in Your Garage Podcast Episode #12 Bob Aldons Speaks to Bob Jones

Bob Aldons:	Welcome to the next edition of What’s in your Garage and it gives me great pleasure today to introduce you to Bob Jones. A local Redcliffe identity, president of the Redcliffe Rugby League football club and someone that I’ve known probably for 40 years. Bob, welcome to What’s in Your Garage.
Bob Jones:	Thank you, Robert. Good to see you mate!
Bob Aldons:	Mate, umm, typically with, I don’t tell you or give you any idea of what this is all about and how you ask some leading questions, but, we’ll kick it off by saying what’s in your garage right now, Bob Jones.
Bob Jones:	If you’re seeing it, uh, you wouldn’t believe it, but I suspect you’re talking about cars.
Bob Aldons:	Yes, And I don’t want to know about push bikes, fishing rods….Cars mate, we’re talking about cars.
Bob Jones:	My car’s a 2007 Land Cruiser Wagon. A Toyota. My wife’s go a Nissan Qashqai.
Bob Aldons:	I think Qashqai.
Bob Aldons:	Great car, I’ve got one here from Nissan at the moment and actually doing a review on that.
Bob Jones:	She’s pretty happy with it at the moment.
Bob Aldons:	And what’s the purpose for the Land Cruiser, people don’t just go out and buy Land Cruisers to go down to the shops.
Bob Jones:	No, about 15 years ago with one of my sons, a couple of my sons now, we decided to do treks to Cape York. So I need a good wagon to do that.
Bob Aldons:	And then nothing much better than a Toyota Land Cruiser.
Bob Jones:	It’s been fantastic.
Bob Aldons:	And you still trekking around?
Bob Jones:	Yup. About every October.
Bob Aldons:	So where was the last place you went?
Bob Jones:	A place called Cape Melville which is a few hundred mile or kilometres north of Cooktown, as the crow flies.
Bob Aldons:	Bit of Fishing?
Bob Jones:	Fishing, camping, yeah.
Bob Aldons:	Very good Barra fishing, fishing up that way.
Bob Jones:	Bit of Barra finsing, but we chased a lot of pelagics
Bob Aldons:	Pelagics? That’s a big word!
Bob Jones:	…not for fishing people. It’s not a surface fishing.
Bob Aldons:	What’s pelagics?
Bob Jones:	A surface fish like Mackeral, Tuna. That sort of stuff – Coral Trout…
Bob Aldons:	you’re very good
Bob Aldons:	So that’s means you tow a boat up there and you go out.
Bob Jones:	We do, yeah. We’d have to tinnies up there and uh, we, it’s something I would really, really look forward
Bob Aldons:	to every year
Bob Jones:	And from my memory Bob Jones is a fisherman. Yes. A good fisherman.Well I don’t know about good fisherman but, fisherman.
Bob Aldons:	And so where do you fish normally around here?
Bob Jones:	Mostly, you know, in the bay and you know, at Hutchies and the front of the Moreton Island. Those places mostly
Bob Aldons:	So you’re in a what sized tinnie?
Bob Jones:	I don’t go to those places in a tinnie, but in the bay I will. I go outside in a 22 footer. Haynes Hunter.
Bob Aldons:	And are you in accomplished boatie?
Bob Jones:	I don’t know about accomplished boatie, but I’ve had boats for about a 30 year I guess, I guess I know a little bit about them.
Bob Aldons:	What brought you to Redcliffe from Gunnedah?
Bob Jones:	Good memory. Rugby League in 1975. So ah, Yeah.
Bob Aldons:	So How old will you then?
Bob Jones:	20
Bob Aldons:	Come to the big smoke?
Bob Aldons:	Come to the big smoke?
Bob Jones:	It was the big smoke from Gunnedah and Redcliffe’s probably changed a little bit. It was really like a big country town for me and I liked the fit and I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Bob Aldons:	Well, it’s still a bit like a big country town. It just that 35, 40 minutes away from Brisbane city. It could be a hundred miles away.
Bob Jones:	It and just, you know, for me it’s got everything, you know, fishing, golf, great footy club, the fabulous weather all year round, you know. What else can you ask for
Bob Aldons:	And let’s, let’s reflect back on those days in Gunnedah. What was the first car that you ever had that you’ve ever owned?
Bob Jones:	I can still see it vividly. A grey Hillman Minx
Bob Aldons:	A Hillman Minx. They would have done the image a power of good, wouldn’t it?
Bob Jones:	Well it didn’t help me get too many sorts, I’ve got to tell you, but the made to school and back then the last couple of years of school, year and a half of school. Well I can still remember that beast. I couldn’t even tell you who Hillman Minx was built by..
Bob Aldons:	Hillman
Bob Jones:	Yeah Hillman, a British company.
Bob Aldons:	That’s a, that’s a, that’s a very strange car for a first car, normally it’s a holden kingswood or food falcon or something like that.
Bob Jones:	I inherited off the neighbour’s grandmother or something.
Bob Aldons:	So tell me about your footy, into Redcliffe in 1975. What happened post 1975.
Bob Jones:	I had a couple of years here with Redcliffe and then a couple of years where the Roosters in Sydney with Beatson and that he…
Bob Aldons:	Did he get you down there?
Bob Jones:	Yeah. Took me down from here and probably didn’t apply myself as well as I should’ve. And
Bob Aldons:	Well you where in a time where there was no pay to play back then? Really play that pay was good.
Bob Jones:	Was probably not lucky to is now, but it was, it was good. But you still have a job that I was going to say it wasn’t a full time career.
Bob Aldons:	So it was a part time?
Bob Jones:	Yeah, yeah, right. Well everyone had full time jobs but the money was good for the tong.
Bob Aldons:	And what about after the Roosters?
Bob Jones:	A come back to Redcliffe and I was almost going to go back to my home town. But uh, no I loved Redcliffe too much. So I headed back here and never looked back
Bob Aldons:	And correct me if I’m wrong, is Gunnedah in Queensland or New South Wales?
Bob Jones:	Is that a leading question? is actually good.
Bob Jones:	It’s in NSW. Northern New South Wales, near Tamworth, Moree, down that area.
Bob Aldons:	So did you aspire to be a blues player in your, uh, in your career
Bob Jones:	In my youth I did a absolutely. But when I come to Queensland, I think my second year here I was named in the shadow side. I saw a behind Johnny Lang. If he had gotten injured I wasn’t got a start for Queensland, but, but even now I’m still a blue supporter…
Bob Aldons:	That’s the end of this interview…no it’s not. Give us some names of people that you played with in your career?
Bob Jones:	Here at Redcliffe?
Bob Aldons:	Hhmm Redcliffe, Queensland, NSW?
Bob Jones:	I think that the guys that stand out to me, you know, be Tony Hobbs and Peter Liece and Ian Tiny, you know.
Bob Jones:	Peter Buddy, I’m sorry, Ian Buddy Pearce.
Bob Aldons:	Ian Buddy, Ian Buddy Pearce!
Bob Jones:	Peter Buddy, please! Forester Grayson, you know, that Bevan Blakely, all those guys are sort of legendary, you know, here in Redcliffe in those early days.
Bob Aldons:	Good to hear those names again
Bob Jones:	Barry Newall was our coach, he was a great coach to know, very volatile but a great player for Australia.
Bob Aldons:	And always had an opinion.
Bob Jones:	A very, ahh forthright.
Bob Aldons:	Forthright, and um, were you in the club, whe Authur Beatson was around?
Bob Jones:	Nah, he, he left after they won the grand final in 65, 10 years earlier, but he always remained, had strong post ties with Redcliffe and then, when he finished in Sydney he came back and captain coached us, in 1981 and then was just coaching in 82.
Bob Jones:	So, yeah, he was.
Bob Aldons:	And uh, were you playing when Frank Stanton was up here.
Bob Jones:	Yep
Bob Aldons:	What’d you think of Frank?
Bob Jones:	Crankie Frankie. He was a great coach. Great coach and great fellow. it would’ve been nice to been coached more by Frank.?
Bob Aldons:	He was, was he for one year or two?
Bob Jones:	Only one, I think they signed him for a couple of years, but he had an offer to go back to Sydney. So he did but he was a very good coach.
Bob Aldons:	And a deep thinker because frank and I worked together for a while, at Torque Ford, back in the day. He always used to shake his head at me and say “You just need to calm down son”. I don’t understand at all? So post football, and even post your business. And you’re now president of the Rugby League club. So tell me a bit about that.
Bob Jones:	I’ve been on the board there for 25 years I think, or 24 years, something like that. And in those latter years it was part of the succession plan that…
Bob Aldons:	You were treasurer for a while.
Bob Jones:	Yeah for about 14 years, I think I saw, I’m part of the succession plan that we had in place with this. Something happened to Des Webb that I was the one to take over and, and that’s how it panned out. Des Passed away, And uh, for the last seven years I’ve been it.
Bob Aldons:	Yeah, I remember when the Redcliffe Rugby League club was based at the Redcliffe Show Grounds and pre-poker machines, they’re on their last legs in terms of surviving as a club. And then, uh, the then Premier Joe Bjelke Peterson legalized poker machines in Queensland and a lot changed from that.
Bob Jones:	Yeah it did, It definitely was a great help. We had moved from the show grounds by then down to Dolphin Oval where we are now. And we’d had help from a, I think the Labor Government, the Federal Labor Government at that stage to, to start the building process down there. At one stage there we were really struggling and I know our old boys kicked in and helped us stay afloat and but you know, as I say from when poker machines come in, Tosser Turner and Dessy Webb had the foresight to build the club to be ready for when they did come in. And so we sort of,
Bob Aldons:	One of the things that really stands out in my mind being a Redcliffe person since 1978 is the amount of community activity that the leagues club in the footy club have given back to the community. Why?
Bob Jones:	It’s something that we, we feel that, um, we should do if we can. Our first port of call is our footy club that’s in our constitution, but we think that if we’ve got excess, um, or are able to, we should help as many things in the community that we can.
Bob Aldons:	And, and you’ve done a great job with a lot of small organizations that I wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for, uh, for the footy club in the Leagues Club.
Bob Jones:	Well, I think from our point of view, it’s a two-way street, you know, we, we support them and then, you know, we know they support us in terms of whether, so the families or people involved in different organizations, you know a lot of those guys patronize it’s a club for whatever reason. And uh, so it’s a two-way street and did, uh
Bob Aldons:	And more recently from, in my eyes is the development of the Dolphin Shopping Centre?
Bob Jones:	Yeah, that’s been a real winner for us. And I know our CEO Tony Murphy was a real pusher for it and that board, the back team and it’s, it’s been great.
Bob Aldons:	Great utilization of the, of the property too.
Bob Jones:	Yeah, it is. Yeah. And it’s, you know, from day one that this is probably not that much from where we are in north to the rest of the peninsula that services that area. So it’s a, yeah, it’s worked very well.
Bob Aldons:	It seems really very busy all the time when I drive past.
Bob Jones:	Yeah it is, it’s a different sort of centre. It’s not, you know, shopping there for four hours to call in and get what you want and get out of there. And, and I think Coles recognize that and but other than the other businesses do very well there as well.
Bob Aldons:	And the more recent development in the precinct of course is the new grand stand.
Bob Jones:	Yeah, that’s a, every time I drive through the front gate and just look at it, I just shake my head and often think back to those days at the show grounds where we did have a grand stand and an old green wooden timber thing. That was about 10 yards long full of white ants. It’s magnificent. And you know, again, we’ve been helped by all the different levels of government to, to get up. They shared in our vision and seeing that as something for whole region and it’s proved that already with the different sports when we’ve had there
Bob Aldons:	Andso future ongoing development in that, in that area?
Bob Jones:	We want to get that part finished. The, hopefully with the other side of the stadium. It’s just about, just about ready to go, but it’s well under way that’s the eastern side and then the northern side, I guess, uh, one end is ready to go, but hopefully we’ll get that done in the next couple of years.
Bob Aldons:	And besides rugby league, what else is the, is the facility used for?
Bob Jones:	What we had a, I’m not sure what the actual level, but it’s, it’s almost the Britain equivalent to FA cup. Uh, we had the local Peninsula Power boys play Melbourne City, which was a great night, you know, and I even watched the game, which was unusual for me because I struggled to watch the round all game. But I really enjoyed it and the people were great and we had a really good crowd and I think at the time it was the best crowd in the country, uh, for any of those midweek games. which was a great credit to local guys and organizing people to get there, we’ve had the indigenous carnival there for a few years now.
Bob Jones:	Touch football, then uh, what else?
Bob Aldons:	Concerts?
Bob Jones:	I think we had one, we might have been Christmas carols. We may have even got washed out, but we intend to have some maybe an annual concert there and it lends itself to that. And it’s been even rugby union. We’ve had some interest.
Bob Alsons:	Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters is in town today. You should go on tap him on the shoulder.. That’d pull a crowd and a half?
Bob Jones:	Well, it can lend itself to any of that stuff.
Bob Aldons:	So, so what’s, what’s the capacity of the ground?
Bob Jones:	Well when it’s finished, I think you can seat to about 9,000 and another thousand standing. So about 10,000.
Bob Aldons:	So it’s a great facility for this area.
Bob Jones:	It’s absolutely, you know, all of the, certainly all of north of Brisbane and all of Brisbane if you don’t want to go to Lang Park. Brisbane Stadium but that’s 50,000 obviously, but. And if you had 10,000 there, it’s very ordinary place to be. But if you have 10,000 in a place like ours, that’s humming.
Bob Aldons:	Yeah. I’m just talking with Bob Jones, president of the Redcliffe Rugby LeagueFootball Club, Past Redcliffe Dolphins Player and Blue’s supporter.