Alessandro ‘Alec’ Epis
Alessandro ‘Alec’ Epis (1954) is the son of Giusefina nee Borlini and Virgilio Epis, who had come from Italy at the age of 13. Born in Boulder in 1937, Alec was raised on the goldfields, where Virgilio was a partner in a gold prospecting venture. In 1949 aged 11, after two years with the Christian Brothers in Kalgoorlie, Alec was sent to our earliest Antecedent School - St Ildephonsus College in New Norcia.
Alec really missed home, and threw himself into giving sport a go. He played cricket, tennis, hockey and football and, in the doing, discovered he had exceptional athletic capabilities, particularly in football. He played in the Under-14 and Under-15 teams in 1949 and 1950, and in the Second XVIII team in 1951. He desperately wanted to represent SIC and play in the First XVIII, but left New Norcia at the end of 1951.
“My greatest desire was to play senior footy for the School, but it never happened and I never got the jumper I always wanted. I never ever forgot it, so when I got to Melbourne I rang Br Lucien asking if I could buy a jumper. Br Lucien sent me one over anyway, and the day it arrived was the best day of my life.”
(Alec later donated this guernsey and his SIC blazer back to New Norcia.)
Alec then attended Boulder High School and the WA School of Mines where he briefly studied engineering drafting until it became clear he wasn’t made for study, and starting work as a butcher’s apprentice. He also joined the Mines Rovers Football Team, making his debut there in 1955, aged 17. That year he took out the Fletcher Medal for Fairest and Best in the Goldfields National Football League, and played in the grand final between the Mines Rovers and Kalgoorlie City, resulting in a 44-point victory to the Rovers.
In 1956, thanks to a local milkbar owner writing to Essendon Football Club about Alec’s football prowess, the Club invited him to move to Melbourne to train with them. Football leagues having exclusionary rules between them at the time, the WAFL – then headed by another SIC alumni, Pat Rodriguez (1917) – excluded Alec from playing for two years, during which time he did play – but only on Sundays, and under an assumed name. In 1958 he tossed the consequences aside and put himself forward to Essendon again. The Club snapped him up and, over the next 11 seasons until 1968, he played an outstanding 180 VFL games, including four grand finals.
It was on a 1963 State Team trip to Perth and home via Adelaide that Alec earnt the nickname ‘Kookaburra’. During celebrations after winning the Adelaide game that night, the lads sat around telling stories and jokes, having a great old time. Two there said his laugh was just like a kookaburra, and the name stuck!
Later in life Alec directed his interests and fierce energies into vintnering, and established Domaine Epis with vineyards at Kyneton (Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot vines) and Woodend (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay), in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges.
Alec would have loved to have married and had children, but is pragmatic about life not having turned out that way. Today he is less hands-on at the vineyard and has moved into a retirement village in Melbourne, near the Bombers’ home ground at Windy Hill. He is still full of life, happily chats to everyone, and his characteristic kookaburra laugh often rings out. He still watches his beloved Bombers every week, and enjoys frequent lunches out with friends.
