Wednesday 4 June 2014

2014 Round 13, Half time.

5th June Birthdays.
 
Scott Lee '63, Jason Mooney '73, Josh Thurgood '85, Matthew Westhoff '88.

 PLAYER OF THE DAY. Matthew Scarlett, born 5th June 1979.
It took a while for Matthew to get himself established in the Geelong side making his debut in the last round of 1985 and then playing 5 games in 1999. However, come 2000 and he did cement his spot in the team and became one of the best full backs in the league.

In 2003 he won the clubs Best and Fairest award and was selected as  Full back on the All Australian team.  He was awarded this honour another 5 times and was also in Geelong's Premiership sides in 2007, 2009 and 2011. Between 1998 and 2012 Matthew played in 284 games for the Cats and kicked 17 goals.

Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers.


The Birth Of The Bobmers.
Essendon’s first official game was in 1873 and in 1877 they joined the VFA, which was recently formed. In those times scores were still fairly low and they were the first Association team to score 10 goals in a game.
By 1884 their popularity as a club had grown and they played a match against Geelong in front of a crowd of 16,000, one of the largest to date.
Then in the 1890’s they became the talk of the town as they won all the Premierships from 1891 to 1894, by being the team on top of the ladder at the end of the season.

In that time the ‘Same Olds', as they were known, only lost 3 out of 77 matches including a winning streak from July 1892 to September 1894.
Essenndon’s last year in the Association was 1896 as they were one of the inaugural clubs in the VFL which began in 1897.
Source: The Clubs (Complete History Of Every Club In The VFL/AFL).


Mark Bairstow –Sandover Medalist.
To say that Mark Bairstow ‘burst onto the scene’ would probably be an understatement.
In his first year of senior football with South Fremantle in 1985 he won the WA Media Guild’s award as Footballer of the future, played for the state team, came second in the club Best and Fairest and third in the Sandover medal.

By 1986 he bettered this by becoming the club Captain, playing a further 2 state games and winning both the club Best and Fairest and the Sandover Medal.
A player that good can’t stay hidden for long, and in 1987 he was lured to Geelong.  He was there initially from 1987 to 1989 and then went back to WA for a year before returning to the Cat’s in 1991 and retired after the 1994 Grand Final.
He had wonderful ball winning skills and was an accurate shot at goal. Being a regular in the WA team he was also All Australian 3 times and was Geelong Captain from 1992 to 1994.
Overall he played 146 games for Geelong and kicked 172 goals.
Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers, AFL Record Season Guide 2013 and Wikipedia.
 
The Sierakowski Saints.

Brian Sierakowski played 75 games for St. Kilda from 1964 to 1968 and kicked 2 goals.  He joined the club from Xavier and Mentone where, on some weekends, he would play for both clubs as well as South Belgrave.

He was a big strong ruckman who had been a good rower, but preferred Australian Rules to rowing.

Part of St. Kilda’s 1966 Premiership side, he moved to Western Australia in 1968 to follow his girlfriend, who he later married, and played 6 seasons with Subiaco which included their first flag for 49 years.

David Sierakowski followed his father to the Saints and was there from 1994 to 2000 for 93 games and 27 goals.

It took until 1995 for him to be a regular in the team and in that year he played 18 games in a number of positions.

Like his father, he played in a grand final team for the club, but unfortunately it was not a winning one.  Then he also moved to Western Australia when he was traded to the West Coast Eagles in 2001.

Managing just 10 games in the next 3 seasons due to persistent injury concerns he retired at the end of 2003 after playing just 3 games late in the year.
Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers.

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