Vale Ted Langridge.

[Magellan]

Ted Langridge (Sturt Football Club)
1963 – 65 (54 games, 80 goals)

After suffering from dementia for some time, former Richmond and Sturt player Ted Langridge has recently died. Langridge, who began his football career in the VFL with Richmond (94 games, 149 goals), was a chunky rover/half forward who certainly knew his way around goal.

He was a three time leading goal-kicker with Richmond (1958, 1961-62) and had been a member of the Tigers reserves premiership team in 1955.

At the end of 1962, Sturt officials arrived in Melbourne hoping to sign Richmond’s Col Saddington for the coming season. By the time the 1963 season began, Sturt had signed both Saddington and Langridge from Richmond, despite an offer from the legendary Jack ‘Captain Blood’ Dyer for Langridge to become the Tigers’ next captain.

Also joining Langridge at Sturt in 1963 was Graham ‘Dodger’ Ryan from North Melbourne and Hawthorn 1961 Hawthorn premiership ruckman, Malcolm Hill. Coach Jack Oatey, in only his second year at Unley, was building a group who understood what team football was all about. With talented youngsters coming through, the Sturt Football Club was on the verge of becoming a SANFL power.

Langridge was unlucky to miss the 1965 Grand Final and who knows if history may have been altered had he played. An injured shoulder, a couple of weeks before the finals, required injections to enable Langridge to play. He wanted to rest it for the last game, to be fit for the finals, but the coach wanted him to play. Langridge did not play the last game – and Oatey did not play him during the finals. Langridge never played for Sturt again.

In his football retirement, Langridge also became a well-known commentator and football panellist with Channel Nine and later, after returning to Adelaide from a stint in Perth, with Channel Seven.

Ted Langridge was also a very useful cricketer who played 55 first grade matches with the Sturt Cricket Club as a wicket-keeper/batsman, making one century and claiming 109 victims (79c, 30st).

In 1978, he took a surprise call from Jack Oatey who wanted him to become team manager of the Blues, a role Langridge held from 1978-80. A broken back from a horse riding accident in 1992 slowed him down somewhat but he eventually recovered. Until his death, in July 2016, Ted Langridge remained a Blue at heart, renewing his club membership each year. He was 79 and will be missed by his family, friends and the Blues faithful.

[FOURTH ESTATE]

Was he also not Neil Kerley's runner in state games a couple of times??????