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Right Forward Pocket - Fred McGinis (City-Hobart & Melbourne) |
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Hobart-born
Fred McGinis commenced his senior football career with local club City,
but before long he ventured across the Bass Strait to try his luck in the
'big time' with Melbourne. Still aged
only 17, he made his debut with the Redlegs in 1894, and it was
immediately obvious that here was a rare champion in the making. By
the time the VFL came into existence in 1897 he was, in the view of many,
the finest exponent of the game in Victoria at the time, as his
"splendid drop kicking, pertinacity in redeeming a mistake,
determination in getting the ball, and coolness and quickness in passing
it on to a team mate placed him in a class above his contemporaries".
(From 100 Years Of
Football: The Story Of The Melbourne Football Club 1858-1958
by E.C.H.Taylor, pages 30-31.) Playing as a rover, McGinis won the Champion
of the Colony award in 1897, and continued to perform at a
consistently high level for the next four years, with his only major
weakness being that he was somewhat injury prone.
In 1900, McGinis' partnership with ruckmen 'Vic' Cumberland and George Moodie was a major factor in Melbourne's unexpected surge up the premiership ladder to take out the flag. The same trio also represented the VFL in intercolonial matches. Tragically, in 1902 McGinis' sight began to deteriorate alarmingly, and he was forced to quit the game and return home to Tasmania. |
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The first great goalsneak in the South Australian game, 'Bos' Daly began at Norwood and went on to play for West Torrens, West Adelaide, South Adelaide and North Adelaide. He was the SAFA's top goal kicker on a total of seven occasions with three different clubs between 1893 and 1905, and his record of 23 goals in a match, established while playing for Norwood against Adelaide in his debut season, has been equalled but never bettered. Daly also topped his various clubs' goal kicking lists on thirteen occasions, and tallied 556 goals in 213 games. He played 10 games for South Australia, kicking 9 goals. |
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Left Forward Pocket - Alf Bushby (Port Adelaide, South Melbourne, South Adelaide) |
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An
extraordinarily versatile and highly skilled player who, during a halcyon
era for his second club South Adelaide,
was allegedly "recognised as the finest player in South Australia,
and second only to A.J.
Thurgood of Essendon, Victoria, as
the champion footballer of Australia". (From
South Australian Football: The Past And The Present 1860-1965
edited by C.K.Knuckey, page 89.) Always a threat near goal,
Bushby topped the SAFA goal kicking list with 25 goals in 1897.
Bushby actually began his senior career with Port Adelaide where he was a member and captain of the club's runner-up combination in 1889. Three years earlier he had been leased to South Melbourne for its final match of the season against Geelong, an encounter which would decide the destiny of the 1886 VFA premiership. In front of a then record crowd of 34,121, Geelong won comfortably, 4.19 to 1.5 (behinds not counting). During his time with the blue and whites in the early to mid-1890s the club won 4 premierships and was once runner-up. |
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