“Master tree feller and all-round great axeman”
In a career that started in 1945 and spanned 37 years, Doug Youd won 15 world tree-felling championships, four world standing and countless hard-hitting titles. He won his first world title at 19 and his last at 52 years of age. In 1956 he won two world titles in the same day – a feat never achieved before or since.
Doug grew up in a Deloraine axe family. His father, Albert, and five of his six brothers were competitive axemen. Four were world champions (Ray, Merv, Doug and Bill). Working in the timber industry served as training for the Youds. Doug toured internationally with several Australian teams.
Serious injury caused a short break in Doug’s career. Working as a professional faller he suffered a severe chainsaw wound to his stomach and side that needed three hundred stitches. Less than six months later he was back at the Sydney Royal Easter Show to win the 1970 world tree felling title again. In 1974 he won the title of World Champion Axeman, chopping against 300 competitors from New Zealand, the United States and Canada and from every state in Australia.
Doug’s brother, Bill, recalls the day when the Youds were watching a tree felling heat in the company of the great Victorian champion Jack O’Toole. They saw a competitor placing his board in a hole that was already cut.
“Did you see what that bloke did, Doug?” Jack asked. “You’d never cheat like that and use another bloke’s shoe hole would you?”
“’Course I wouldn’t Jack,” says Doug. There was a bit of a pause….”Unless it was a really good one.”