Former player, Ian Anderson, is giving a talk about his Viet Nam experiences down here on 28 April.
He was a tall, red-headed second ruck who played with us late 60’s until being conscripted and sent to Viet Nam. I particularly remember him kicking 3 goals for us at Princes Park on Anzac Day 1968 where both sides were goalless at half-time. We won 7.8-1.11. Massive crosswind all day. Also Geoff Blethyn’s debut match.
Also kicked 7 vs Hawthorn at Windy Hill Round 1 of 1968. Hudson kicked 10 for Hawthorn. We won by 12. Beginning of the last quarter, Anderson tapped to Bob Greenwood who drop-kicked it into the crowd beside the Showers Pavilion.
Anderson has lived in Port Fairy for ages, running the Star of the West hotel and subsequently being one of the two or three taxi-drivers in town.
There were 7 VFL players who went to Viet Nam - Wayne Closter of Geelong and six Essendon players - Ian Anderson, Keith Gent, Ian Payne, Lindsay McGie, Greg Perry and Bill Thompson.
Wasn’t this back in the day where players were chosen for each team from a within a specific geographic zone? Without knowing how it worked, that’d be my guess as to how Essendon was heavily over represented, but it’s really only a wild guess.
You were in the birthday lottery, done 6 months at a time, in the half-year you turned 20. I was in the last one and my day didn’t come up.
Incidentally the words of the song He Was Only Nineteen are wrong. You were drafted at 20, for 2-year stints, and it was a year before you went to Viet Nam.