2014 Round 16, Half time.

26th June Birthdays.

 

Mark Pitura 1984

 PLAYER OF THE DAY. Paul Johnson, born 26th June 1977.

Originally from Frankston, Paul moved to the other side of the country to play football for West Coast.  Though he was with the club in 2003 and 2004 he could only manage one game in 2003 and spent all of 2004 in the WAFL. 

It is not surprising that he moved back to Victoria in 2005 where he joined Melbourne and there until 2010, he played 68 games and scored 20 goals.

Having a slow start again, he spent a lot of time in the VFL and won the Liston trophy in 2005. He was a 197cm ruckman and was used for a lot of the 2009 season when their main ruckman was out injured.  He was delisted at the end of 2010 after playing 8 games for the year.

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

 

David Parkin – Jock McHale Medalist.

David actually received the Jock McHale medal on 4 occasions at 2 different clubs. He started his coaching at Hawthorn, the club he had played for in 211 games from 1961 to 1974. He was coach from 1977 to 1980 and led them to a Premiership in 1978.

His record at Hawthorn was 94 games for 57 wins and 37 losses and 1 Premiership. A winning percentage of 61%.

In 1981 he moved to Carlton, and was there until 1985.  He had immediate success with this very strong team as they won the 1981 and 1982 flags.

During this time he coached them in 120 games for 79 wins 1 draw and 40 losses, a winning percentage of 66%.

 

 

From Carlton he moved on to Fitzroy and got them to third position in his first year. He was sacked by Fitzroy after 3 years and took some time away from the top level until being enticed back to Carlton at the end of 1990.

His second stint there, 1991 to 2000 saw a new batch of players, but again he was able to make them into a winning team and led them to a Premiership in 1995.  They only lost 2 games for the season and made the Grand Final again in 1999.

Over this period he coached the Blues in 235 games for 140 wins, 1 draw and 94 losses. A winning percentage of 90%. They also played in 17 finals games during this time.

Source: AFL Record Season Guide 2013 & The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

Hawthorn’s Early Years.

From the 1870’s people had been playing football around the Hawthorn area but they were scattered among a number of small clubs.

This changed in 1902 when a meeting at the Hawthorn Town Hall saw 150 people vote in favour of creating a united Hawthorn Football Club.

It helped that there were a number of councillors on the administration of the club. The council purchased a block of land where the Grace Park ground was developed which meant Hawthorn had a place to call home.

They entered teams in 3 competitions, 1 in the Metropolitan Junior Association, another in the Eastern Suburbs Association and a trades team that played on a Wednesday afternoon.

The senior team played at Hawthorn Cricket Ground (now known as Glenferrie Oval) and the seconds (Hawthorn Rovers) stayed at Grace Park.

It appears that the club was popular with the locals and was known as a friendly group, though they were not a great team on the field.

By early 1912 they had 600 members and around 100 players signed up but the best results in their first 12 seasons were 3^rd in 1907 and 5^th in 1913.

Source: The Clubs, Complete History Of Every Club In The VFL/AFL.

Off The Bench And Into History.

Every player has to start somewhere, and a lot of the greatest players in the history of the game started out on the interchange bench.

 

Ron Todd played 76 games for Collingwood from 1935 to 1939 and in that time kicked an impressive 327 goals.

Once he made it into the senior team late in 1936 he never looked back and played a vital role in their Premiership win that year kicking 4 goals.  

By the time he finally hung up the boots he had kicked a total of 999 goals in the VFL and VFA.

 

John ‘Jack’ Regan was another Collingwood player to start on the bench. From 1930 to ’41 and in 1943 and 1946 he played a total of 196 games and kicked 3 goals.

Used in a number of positions he eventually found a niche at full back and became probably the best of his time.

He was part of Collingwood’s 1935 and 1936 flag sides and was a regular on the Victorian team.

Peter Bedford was a champion at South Melbourne in 178 games for 325 goals from 1968 to 1976.  He also spent 2 seasons at Carlton in the late 70’s playing 8 games and kicking 4 goals.

A courageous centre/half forward he was South’s leading goal kicker 3 times, Best and Fairest 5 times and won the Brownlow Medal in 1970.

He was also a fine cricketer and actually said that he preferred playing cricket to football, but the pay was better in Aussie Rules.

 Source: Our Game by Jim Main & The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.