Resource Published Lists: Teams of the Year / Best Players of all time / Best Teams lists / Players of a season

[35Daicos]

Here is another from the Sporting Globe 1929, the text quality is not great but Albert Thurgood gets a big tick.

Past Champions - Ex-Umpire Names Them - Sporting Globe (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 - 1954) - 10 Jul 1929

[?] ...

trove.nla.gov.au

View attachment 2305656

I've seen enough that's been written on Albert Thurgood to strongly believe he should have been named as one of the Legends of the game long ago (probably in the first intake). When a player is still being talked about in such glowing terms that many years after he played then they seem like legendary types to me! There's probably a fair few others from the game's early days who have been missed (Dick Lee deserved to be one of the first named as Legends), and unfortunately there seems little chance they'll ever put things right.

 

[Grand Final History]

Here is another best player of all time nomination from 1934, one that probably doesn't get mentioned any more, although Rhett Bartlett has him in the Richmond Archives.
George Ogilvie who played for Footscray and Port Melbourne in the VFA and just two games for Richmond. Rated by South Melbourne Premiership coach Jack Bisset as the best player he ever saw.

Here is the article from the South Melbourne newspaper Record https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164468093

And the Tigerland Archive https://www.tigerlandarchive.org/tiki-index.php?page=George+Ogilvie

 

[rbartlett]

Jack Dyer's Top 10 full forwards.(as published in 1997 The Jack Dyer Story).
1 Bob Pratt
2 John Coleman
3 Jason Dunstall
4 Tony Lockett

Tony Lockett

Age

59

Ht

191cm

Wt

108kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.2

3star

K

8.4

3star

HB

1.8

2star

M

6.3

5star

T

0.5

3star

G

4.8

5star

No current season stats available

D

8.2

2star

K

5.6

3star

HB

2.6

3star

M

4.0

4star

T

0.0

1star

G

1.4

5star

5 Gordon Coventry
6 Peter Hudson
7 Doug Wade
8 Ron Todd
9 Gary Ablett
10 Jack Titus

 

[Bukk]

Jack Dyer's Top 10 full forwards.(as published in 1997 The Jack Dyer Story).
1 Bob Pratt
2 John Coleman
3 Jason Dunstall
4 Tony Lockett
5 Gordon Coventry
6 Peter Hudson
7 Doug Wade
8 Ron Todd
9 Gary Ablett
10 Jack Titus

If he lived long enough to have seen Buddy Franklin play, I'm guessing he'd be in his revised list.

 

[Partridge]

If he lived long enough to have seen Buddy Franklin play, I'm guessing he'd be in his revised list.

Maybe. Maybe not. Have a look at that list and the names involved:

Jack Dyer's Top 10 full forwards.(as published in 1997 The Jack Dyer Story).
1 Bob Pratt
2 John Coleman
3 Jason Dunstall
4 Tony Lockett

Tony Lockett

Age

59

Ht

191cm

Wt

108kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.2

3star

K

8.4

3star

HB

1.8

2star

M

6.3

5star

T

0.5

3star

G

4.8

5star

No current season stats available

D

8.2

2star

K

5.6

3star

HB

2.6

3star

M

4.0

4star

T

0.0

1star

G

1.4

5star

5 Gordon Coventry
6 Peter Hudson
7 Doug Wade
8 Ron Todd
9 Gary Ablett
10 Jack Titus

No way is he ahead of Coleman, Dunstall, Lockett, Coventry, Hudson, or Ablett (in the order above). Wade kicked only 9 less goals from 87 less games. Pratt kicked the ton three times and World War II cut the legs off his career when he was still only 27. Ron Todd is perhaps the greatest "what if" player in history. Staggers the mind to think he played his last game of VFL footy at only 22 years old, after kicking a mere 241 goals in his last 2 seasons at 6 goals a game (kicked 11 in a Prelim twice too).

You could easily argue McKenna could be considered as well.

 

[rbartlett]

Greg Hobbs Top 100 players at the start of the 1997 season.

 

[rbartlett]

Greg Hobbs top 10 North Melbourne players he has seen between 1947-1996

 

[rbartlett]

Greg Hobbs Top 10 Melbourne players between 1947-1996 that he saw.

 

[rbartlett]

Greg Hobbs top 10 StKilda players 1947-1996

 

[rbartlett]

Greg Hobbs Top 10 Collingwood players from 1947-1996

 

[Partridge]

The Herald Sun Readers selected their AFL Team of the Century, on the eve of the official announcement
View attachment 1246889

What I like about this, is that is really demonstrates how anyone's definition of a "best ever (or best player)" changes all the time, and is very fluid. Especially as this is just before our current mindless obsession with stats instead of just judging who people think the best players were.

 

[rbartlett]

 

[rbartlett]