Short careers...which ones do you think about?

John Greening is the one l always remember. He would have been one of the all time greats and was the type to win games off his own boot, a dynamic player, well ahead of his time. His career cut short by a criminal act of thuggery that largely went unpunished.

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Greed more than anything these days. Stiffed a number of clubs by reneging on deals for a couple of extra dollars elsewhere.

The hype on him was pretty stupid at the time, let alone with hindsight. Super quick - absolutely unstoppable on the lead, but wasn’t really key size. And didn’t do anything else particularly well

Anyone remember Rob Fox. He was a CHF in the mid fifties and had a sensational first season. Thereafter he was boiled lollies. Played for about four seasons and then slipped into obscurity.

Fark, that is over 60 years ago.

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It’s so long ago that even I don’t remember him. I remember the old man mentioning him, but that’s all.

Fox played from 1955 to 1957. Won the clubs best first year player award but somehow could never regain his first year form. He was however the CHF in the 1957 losing grand final team. I was at that game and remember he did very little. It was his last game.

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There was a guy called Ken Hall who played one game in 2002 and didn’t get a possession.

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I saw Rob Fox a couple of times in late 1957, including the Grand Final (his last game). I was only 8 years old at the time and had just started going to games so didn’t really know who or what I was watching (apart from keeping an eye on BIll Hutchison in the GF because I knew it was his last game).

Another player who finished his career in that disgrace of a GF (think 1983) was the ruckman John Gill who retired early for business reasons, I don’t remember him either but he was reputedly a pretty good footballer and was missed.

To be fair, Hall was only on the field for about five minutes. The mystery was why he got a game at all. A trier but very much a VFL player.

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He’s got a pretty detailed Wikipedia page, with 80 footnotes!

Hall retired from football at the end of the 2011 season; his coach at North Hobart described Hall as irreplaceable. He came out of retirement in 2013 to spend one season playing for St Virgil’s Old Scholars.

Autobiographical? Or matribiographical?

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John Gill was a very good ruckman. When he retired Geoff Leek stood up and along with Sampson became one of the top ruck combinations in the league.

Remember in Leek’s earlier games what a terrible shot for goal he was. I remember one match at WH where he he kicked OOB from 15 yards out. Thankfully improved over the years and was one of the best tap ruckmen ever.

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Geoff Leek was a great fellow. A real gentleman.
I had the pleasure of meeting him in about 1961 as a young kid in the rooms after training.
He sprained his ankle in the week leading up to the 1962 GF and it was touch and go as to whether he would play. Fortunately he did. It was his last game.

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If he improved he must have been absolutely diabolical to begin with. I saw plenty of him over the final four or five years of his career and he made Joe Daniher look like Tony Lockett in comparison, You would watch through your fingers as he took a shot from the goal square.

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Definitely diabolical.

Willie ■■■■.

Kickett - Long - ■■■■ could have been something else!

Another player who had a very short career died recently. He was “Posser” Nixon. He wore the number 17 and I was so impressed that I carried his number on my jumper.
He played one, or two seasons at the most before returning to the country. Anyone else remember him?

Not that I recall

I can go back to George Moloney…and that’s 1958 when he started.

Scotty Gumbleton and Jason Laycock come to my mind. They both had great potential but never got to deliver.