Former #17 James Stewart

He was a very talented player who was as blind as a bat without his specs.

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Fantastic player. First favourite as a very young man.

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Sensational high mark with a fast lead. Great kick for goal on the angle from in front of the Reynold’s Stand, not quite so good from directly in front. We also had another bespectacled player at the same time in the seconds - I think his name was McFarlane.

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Geoff Blethyn was, in my humble opinion, pound-for-pound the greatest Full Forward to have played the game. He would not get wet standing in the shower.

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From what I can see they only played on the same field once: rd 3 1976
(Flower started in 1973, Blethyn was in WA before coming back in 1976)

Blethyn had 8 touches and kicked 6.1 - so I’m gunna say he played forward…

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He did indeed play on the wing for a while, maybe as much as two years. IIRC (which I probably don’t after all this time), he only moved back to full forward when Des Tuddenham took over as coach, immediately proceeding to kick 107 goals in the season…

That is exactly right. He started in 1968. I remembered the Grand Final as his first game, but in fact he played two early in the season without scoring a goal, and then kicked those four goals when brought back for the Grand Final. He was a regular in the next three years but from his stats played on the wing that whole time, where he was extremely damaging. Then when Tuddenham arrived in 1972 he put him back to full forward, where he kicked 107 goals, including 11 against Footscray and 7 against Carlton (playing on Geoff Southby), despite which we lost both those matches. He went to Claremont for the next three years and came back in 1976 and played one more season for us, playing 14 games and scoring 39 goals.

Looking at the AFL Tables, it does seem that he and Flower were on the same field only once, and that was at Windy Hill in 1976. Which makes me wonder where my absolutely crystal clear recollection of him taking marks over Flower on the MCG wing in the last quarter of a game that we lost despite Blethyn’s efforts comes from.

Tom?

Edit: Nope.
Laurie Fowler?

I think his first game was the Anzac Day game at Princes Park where there a terrible crosswind. They led 0.7 to 0.5 at half time. Ian Anderson kicked 3 for us and Peter Smith, Norm’s son, kicked all of their goals, all 1 of them.

We won 7.8 to 1.11. Dreadful day for a first gamer. Warm, but a gale across the ground. I remember that day as if it was 50 years and 6 months ago. I certainly had to do something with the school cadets that morning. I don’t remember that quite so well. I assume we fronted at the RSL in Loch St, West St Kilda, around the corner from the famous Gatwick.

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Saw him walking around today, absolute monster. Should play more like tarzan than jane with that frame though.

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Did they play on Anzac Day back then?

Is he 2nd or 3rd tall when with Daniher and stringer?

I don’t recall them bending over backwards to play on Anzac Day, but if it fell on a convenient day

The thing I remember is that they didn’t have a seconds curtain-raiser because you couldn’t have any professional activity before 1pm. Lot more war veterans still alive then, of course…even WW1 vets.

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Incredible how him and JD at same age both have had to take a step back in some form, and it actually shows it’s a good thing we gave JD’s growing body a year off getting beaten up and Stewart a year off carrying our entire forwardline at such a young age.

Stringer is only a little bit older but stringer is a downright animal and only knows beast mode every time all the time.

A fit firing JD, Stringer, Stewart forwardline with Tippa, Brown and Raz would be an excellent combination of leading players, crumming goal kickers and big tall/contested marking types.

There’s no way we play JD, Stringer, Stewart and Brown in the same forwardline.

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And some of your comrades from the hundred years’ war.

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Smack and Hooker, too.

image

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And to think, he’s previously had such a sensible haircut…

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Fkn CONAN!!!

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