2014 Round 6, Three quarter time.

19th April Birthdays.

 

Aaron Fiora '81, Leigh Fisher '84, Tony Godden '72, Daniel Lowther '77,
Addam Marich '90, Roger Merrett '60, Wil Thursfield '86, Greg Tivendale '79.

 PLAYER OF THE DAY. Lindsay Fox, born 19^th April 1937.

Every time I 'pass another fox' on the road I cannot help being reminded of the very outspoken owner of the company and ex Australian Rules footballer.

Lindsay Fox was with St Kilda from 1959 to 1961 and whilst only playing 20 games and kicking 3 goals it is no doubt that he is a Saint through and through as his connection with the club has continued over many years.

He originally played with the St Kilda thirds and went to spend a year at Golden Point before making the first team. Playing in the ruck he tried hard but the best passage of games he had was 12 in 1960.

After leaving football he grew his trucking business and returned to the club as president in 1979.

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

THE MAN IN WHITE (OR ORANGE OR GREEN OR……)

As the first games of ‘The National Game’ were scratch matches there were no official umpires.  Rules and details were arranged between the captains of the two opposing teams and they made decisions as things happened during the match.

In 1865 Geelong decided that there would be umpires at every game, easing some of the confusion up to that date.  Remembering that Geelong and Melbourne were the main two clubs at this time they each tended to make up certain rules.  To this end Melbourne brought in the appointing of umpires in their 1866 revision of the rules, however these umpires were principally goal umpires but had to make decisions on scoring as well as breaches of the rules in general play.

It was not until 1874 that the rules were altered to have goal umpires appointed by each team but also a central umpire was to be chosen.  Due to the nature of the selection of these early umpires it was hard to tell them apart from the players; they may in fact have been dressed exactly the same, so they started wearing cricket whites from about 1880 and didn’t use whistles until 1886.

The next change was to introduce boundary umpires to throw the ball in when it went out of play.  This was in 1895, but up until then it was done by the central umpire.

Kick in’s for balls going ‘out on the full’ have only been used since around 1968/69 and due to the increased speed of the game it was deemed necessary for a second umpire to be appointed in 1976. Of course the game continued to speed up and it again became hard for umpires to keep up so we have had a third umpire since 1993.

 Source: A National Game.

John & Peter Somerville.

John Somerville played for Essendon from 1960 to 1967 and was a long kicking lanky forward recruited from Moe.  During his time with the Bombers he played 106 games and kicked 96 goals.

He was part of the 1962 premiership side but missed out on playing in the 1965 grand final due to a rather bizarre incident.

In the preliminary final against Collingwood he was noticed lying on the ground and there was speculation that he had fainted. This was obviously not the case no action was taken against any player but it did keep him from winning a second premiership medal.

Peter Somerville followed in his fathers footsteps as an Essendon player from 1988 to 1999.

As a ruckman he found it hard to break into the team in his early years due to the presence of Simon Madden and Paul Salmon. By 1993 he was the number 1 ruck at the club and was important to their winning the premiership.

His form from there was up and down and his time with the Bombers ended with him having played 160 games and kicking 89 goals.  

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

 

Lighting Up The Game.

Nowadays it is expected that there will be a number of night games played every week, but when it first happened it was quite novel.

A crowd of around 12,000 people went to see what is believed to be the first game under lights at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground on 6^th August 1879.

There were a few games played during that time but at that stage it didn’t become a regular occurrence. There was a game between Richmond and South Melbourne in 1935 and another in 1950 between the VFL and VFA.

Night football has only really been recognised since a series at the Lake Oval in 1956.

This picture is of an exhibition match played under lights in Hawaii.



 Source: Our Game by Jim Main.
  

Barrie Robran – SA Great.

Barry was another all round sportsman with interests in Cricket, Basketball, Table Tennis, Cross Country running and Baseball as well as Australian Rules.

He played for North Adelaide from 1967 to 1980 in 201 games and kicking 196 goals mainly as a centre half forward but also in the centre or as a ruck rover at times.

Though he was courted by Victorian recruiters he didn’t like the idea of big city life so stayed in his native state.

His achievements as a player include 2 times premiership player, 3 times Best and Fairest, triple Magarey medallist and a SA state representative on 17 occasions.

Source: Wikipedia.