SA Football Companion
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Full Points Footy’s SA Football Companion by John Devaney Full Points Footy http://www.fullpointsfooty.net © John Devaney and Full Points Publications 2008 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission. Every effort has been made to ensure that this book is free from error or omissions. However, the Publisher and Author, or their respective employees or agents, shall not accept responsibility for injury, loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this book whether or not such injury, loss or damage is in any way due to any negligent act or omission, breach of duty or default on the part of the Publisher, Author or their respective employees or agents. Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Full Points Footy’s SA Football Companion ISBN 978-0-9556897-2-7 1. Australian football—Encyclopedias. 2. Australian football—Western Australia. 3. Sports—Australian football—History. I. Devaney, John. Full Points Footy http://www.fullpointsfooty.net Acknowledgements I am indebted to James Hothersall and Dave Eastman for providing or corroborating some of the statistical data used in this book. Any errors which remain are, needless to say, mine. Nick Haines kindly provided images of John Earl, Owen Martin, Percy Lewis, Tom Leahy and Jack Hamilton which are used in the book. I should also like to acknowledge the help, advice, criticism and support given at various times by Max Sayer, Bernard Whimpress and Chris Lane. Finally, my frequent quotations from the writings of the late Jeff Pash should be taken as representing a nod of esteem to the man I regard as having been the doyen of South Australian football writers. Book Format And Style Highlighted capital letters are used for club headings, e.g. STURT Biographical entries have headings in bold capital letters, e.g. BLIGHT, MALCOLM Other subject entries are headed in bold lower case lettering, e.g. Magarey Medal Entries are arranged alphabetically. You will find an Index of Entries towards the end of the book, beginning on page 337. A club’s current name - or, in the case of a former club, the name by which it was last known - is shown in highlighted capital letters at the start of its entry, with any previous names listed after it in brackets. Members of the South Australian Football Hall of Fame are indicated by the ab- breviation ‘HoF’ followed by the year of their induction. In the main, club names are rendered in full. However, in a number of cases the abbreviation ‘WWT Eagles’ has been used for the Woodville West Torrens Football Club. Introduction The history of Australian football in South Australia dates back almost a hundred and fifty years at least and has yet to be explored in more than cursory detail. Moreover, much recent work on the subject has been sullied by a misguided preoccupation with the V/AFL as the presumed epicentre of the football universe. Such a view needs challenging, not least because it grossly undervalues the scale of South Australia’s impact on and contribution to the history and development of a game that stopped being ‘Victorian’ much longer ago than any human being alive today can possibly remember. This book will, in itself, do nothing to alter things, but it is offered in the way of an hors d’oeuvre. I leave the main course to other, more capable and qualified hands. The majority of the book is written in an objective, third person style, but in a couple of instances (‘The Bulldogs Find Their Bark’ and ‘‘My Football Nirvana’) I have seen fit to include myself in the narrative in a bid to explain, at least in a small way, the cause and nature of my passion. Some will doubtless find these passages intrusive and irrelevant; to me, however, they constitute the heart and soul of the book. John Devaney November 2008 Table of Contents Page SA Football A to Z 7 Bibliography 650 Index Of Entries 653 For my father A AAMODT, COLIN: After a promising colts young Melbourne District player who had career, Colin Aamodt made his league debut played a handful of reserves games for the for North Adelaide in 1938. A hard working Mayblooms late that season was on his and resourceful follower, he gave the club fine way to Adelaide to live. Trusting his source, service over the course of a war-interrupted McLean proceeded to meet Abley when he 132 game senior career which ended in 1950. arrived with his family at Adelaide station. Highlights of that career included winning Discovering that the player was planning North’s best and fairest award in 1940, and to reside in Glenelg’s zone, he hastily sharing first ruck duties with Len Pedler and made arrangements to find him suitable Darcy Cox in the 1949 grand final victory over accommodation close to Port Adelaide’s West Torrens. Aamodt, who represented home ground of Alberton Oval. Glenelg South Australia twice, kicking 1 goal, returned officials were, understandably, not happy, but to the red and whites as non-playing coach in there was nothing they could do, and in round 1955, but in three seasons in the role he only seven 1950 John Abley donned the black and once, in 1956 for third place, managed to get white Magpie jumper for the first time in what his side into the finals. would develop into a highly momentous 212 game league career. ABERNETHY, BRUCE (HoF 2007) was a When the AFL announced its ‘Team of highly poised and polished performer who the Century’ in 1996, the selection which enjoyed a fourteen season, 300-plus game generated the greatest amount of controversy league career with four clubs. He began was that of Carlton’s Steve Silvagni for the with Port Adelaide in 1979, and played in full back position. A preferred choice, as far premiership teams in each of his first three as the majority of the critics seemed to be seasons before crossing to North Melbourne concerned, would have been Jack Regan of in 1982. He spent two seasons with North, Collingwood, famously dubbed ‘the prince followed by three at Collingwood, impressing of full backs’ during his career. Had the AFL during this time as a classy attacking been capable of a genuinely even-handed, wingman or half back flanker who combined holistic appraisal of the game’s history, great anticipation and pace with considerable however, it is hard to imagine them looking skill. In 1987 he returned to Port Adelaide outside the borders of South Australia when where he promptly won the club’s best and choosing the greatest full back of all time. fairest award. A year later he added a Jack North Adelaide’s Ian McKay, the only full Oatey Medal after the Magpies overturned back consistently to keep John Coleman Glenelg in the grand final. He also played under wraps, and sufficiently versatile to in Port’s 1989, 1990 and 1992 premiership- make a telling contribution almost anywhere winning teams. In 1991 he was a member of else on the ground, would be one formidable Adelaide’s inaugural AFL squad, playing 11 candidate, but without doubt the man laying games for the year to add to his 190 for Port, the strongest all round claim of all would be 43 with North, 58 for Collingwood, and 10 Port Adelaide’s miserly, dogged, indefatigable interstate appearances for South Australia. triple All Australian John Abley. It is a touch ironic therefore that Abley ABLEY, JOHN (HoF 2002): At the end of only ended up playing full back more or the 1949 season, a Hawthorn official wrote less by accident. After struggling to make to Port Adelaide secretary Bob McLean an impression during a debut season that to advise him that a highly promising yielded just 8 senior appearances, he was 7 Abley-Ackland asked to stand in for regular full back Reg successor at full back, Ron Elleway, and yet Schumann, who had just retired, in an end of so lamentably and obviously absent from the year challenge match in Broken Hill. Abley, outlook of a player like Steve Silvagni, was who had never played the position before, almost certainly the key to his greatness, took to it like the proverbial duck to water, and as well as being one of the primary factors for the remainder of his Port Adelaide career contributing to Port Adelaide’s unequalled he never played anywhere else. period of achievement between 1954 and A key member of Port Adelaide 1959. premiership teams in 1954-5-6-7-8-9, Abley was seldom the sort of player to feature ABLEY, KEVIN: Like his older brother John, prominently in best player lists, and indeed it Glenelg’s Kevin Abley tends chiefly to be is at least arguable that this was never really a remembered as a full back, in which position primary motivating factor in his play. Instead, he represented South Australia against he was the sort of player whose principal aim Tasmania at the Adelaide Oval in 1963. was to ensure that his direct opponent did not However, he was quite versatile, and the fact make the best player lists. It was the same that he amassed a total of 96 goals during when he played interstate football, which the course of his 176 game league career he did on 23 occasions.