In their later years Maurie Chick, Dal Delaney, Arch McLeish and Alan Foster did their drinking in the more sedate surroundings of the Albury Club, taking over a corner of the bar that no other member would dare encroach on.
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Eventually they became known as the Grumpy Old Men, a name given to them by Chick’s daughter-in-law, Vicki Chick.
They would attend the club between 5-6pm Monday to Friday and then again on Saturday between noon and 1pm.
And you could set your clock by their arrival and departure times.
On Sundays the group met at the Albury Golf Club, with Chick transporting himself on his ride-on lawnmower from his residence nearby at Alfred Place, and perhaps finding it more difficult to cross the bridge across the adjoining creek on the way back than on the way over.
His son Alan recalled the formation of the group.
“Initially, Frank Gain, Noel Snare, John Roach and Shelton Palframan and others were also in the group, before their numbers thinned over time; Tommy Pearsall never came to the club,” he said.
“Arch became a member just before Max Luff asked Dal Delaney to become a member.
“But Dal said he wouldn’t be joining without his little mate, Maurice.
“Alan Foster became a member after that.
“I was surprised dad joined.
“When he was about 15 he was doing a paper run and entered the club to deliver papers.
“The steward gave him a kick up the arse and Maurice vowed he would never set a foot in the place ever again.”
Alan said it was not hard to work out why his wife gave the group of four the title Grumpy Old Men.
“It came from the movie of the same name.
“They would sit in the corner and argue about anything; Dal would listen to a statement from anybody and deliberately take the opposite point of view.
“But over the last decade we lost Foster, Delaney and now Dad.”
Perhaps the last word on this remarkable period of Albury-Wodonga history should come from Arch McLeish, the sole surviving member of the Grumpy Old Men.
“We all started with very little and it grew from there, all working together a fair bit,” he said.
“Maurie was a very generous man.
“I remember in the late 1960s when he was tendering to add a floor to the Dalgety’s Wool Store in Albury and he told me about it.
“He lost the job but still turned around and gave me the contact number for a bloke in Melbourne; I rang him and got the job carting building materials.
“It was worth about $40-$50,000 back then and it was typical of Maurie, always looking after his mates even when he missed out.”
Arch said people at the Albury Club must have thought the four grumpy old men were troppo.
“But we saw the title as a badge of honour,” he said.
“Yes, it’s hard to be the last man standing of the group.
“But I have lots of wonderful memories to carry me through.”
