Past Grant Thomas (1985)

[Grimreepah]

 

[Grimreepah]

Wikipedia

Thomas began his career at the St Kilda Football Club in the VFL, debuting in 1978. He took a long time to break into the side as a regular senior player, but settled in as a centre half-back. He played 72 games for the Saints between 1978 and 1983 before briefly moving to North Melbourne in 1984, and finishing his career at Fitzroy in 1985.

Statistics:

afl tables

 

[Grimreepah]

Doubting Thomas
June 19, 2004

Looking back, Thomas shakes his head when he remembers his naive confidence in future stardom. "I had this unbending faith that I would make it. But I didn't have the urgency or the intensity or the work ethic to make sure it would happen. I thought it was just a matter of course. It's very different being 15, 16, 17, 18 , training and showering and spending all your spare time with legends . . . and going to school and your mates wanting to hear about it. At the time I thought I was one of them. I just thought: 'I'm just on this escalator of success and it will happen.'

At 21, Thomas was sacked by the then coach, Mike Patterson. "It was a horrific period of my life. Somebody had grabbed me and taken me off the escalator. I thought 'This isn't in the script'." But he was reprieved when the coach himself was sacked and replaced by ex-Carlton premiership captain-coach Alex Jesaulenko.

"Jezza" wanted to assess all the players and ended up taking an interest in Thomas, who thrived at Moorabbin for a few years but then struggled after transferring to North Melbourne. Moving to Fitzroy, he was briefly happy under Robert Walls but was injured, and then sacked at the end of 1985 when David Parkin took over as coach.