Monday 2 June 2014

2014 Round 13, Quarter time.

3rd June Birthdays.
 
Josh Drummond 1983, Ben Nason 1989, Angelo Petraglia 1963.

 PLAYER OF THE DAY. Fred Fairweather, born 3rd June 1913.
Fred was actually born in London and had been in Premiership sides with South Melbourne City and Port Melbourne before finding himself at North Melbourne in 1944.  By this time he was around 31 years old but within 2 years he was Captain of the club. 

Between his VFA and VFL football he served in the AIF where he was heavy weight boxing champion.  His time at North finished in 1946 and by that time he had played 54 games and kicked 14 goals. 

Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers.

 
Neil Balme – Player and Coach.
Neil was a fiery character as a footballer and made a number of trips to the tribunal during his 11 seasons at Richmond from 1969 to 1979. 
Whilst he was mainly used in the ruck, his size and strong marking saw him move into the forward line at times and he finished his 159 game career with 229 goals to his name.
He was dual top goal kicker for the club in 1972 and was in the back to back flag sides of 1973 and 1974.
Following his playing career he spent 11 years as coach of Norwood in South Australia where they were in the finals every year (1980-1990) and were Premiers in 1982 and 1984.
When Woodville and West Torrens merged in 1991, he was the inaugural coach of the new club and was there for just 2 seasons before being lured back to Victoria to coach the Melbourne Football Club.
As coach of the Demons his record was 41 wins 0 draws and 57 losses, and despite getting them to the Preliminary Final in 1994 they started to slip back for one reason or another and he was sacked mid-season 1997 after 4 ½ years at the club.
Moving then into club administration, he has been involved with Collingwood and Geelong at times where both teams have had finals success.
Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers and Wikipedia.


An English/Australia Test In Aussie Rules?
This almost became a fact after an 1888 tour of the colonies by a team of English ‘gentlemen’.
The visitors were led by James Lillywhite who was Englands first Test cricket captain.
They had put in a lot of practice and the hope was that there might be a rivalry to match the one in cricket.
And put on a show they did, winning 14 out of 15 games with the only loss being against Carlton at the MCG on June 16th. The final scores in the match were, Carlton 14.17 to England 3.7.

Unfortunately, due to the VFA not being able to come to a decision the Tests never came to fruition.
Source: Our Game by Jim Main.
 
 
John Barnes.
John was another player that ended his career at the club where he started. Joining Essendon in 1987 he was there until 1990 but a lack of form and a wealth of ruckmen saw him traded to Geelong in a swap for Sean Denham.
He fared much better at the Cats and was in fact their number 1 ruckman for most of his time at the club.
Playing 144 games and kicking 65 goals between 1992 and 1999, he had a good finals series in 1992 and while there was selected to play for Victoria twice.
He was lured back to Essendon 2000 and was there for two seasons. Overall he played 58 games for the Bombers and kicked 25 goals, playing a pivotal role in their 2000 premiership.
Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers. 
 
 

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