SA Footy

Last night at a sold out function at the Adelaide Convention Centre, the Norwood Football Club announced the inaugural members of its Hall of Fame.

35 Stalwarts were inducted - 25 players and 10 others from a combination of categories including administrators and volunteers. To ensure that initial player membership of the Hall of Fame is truly representative of the club's 128 year history, 2 players were selected from 1878-1906, 5 from 1907-1941, 6 from 1945-1969, 10 from 1970-1990 and 2 from 1991 onwards.

The Leaders

Sir Edwin Smith
John Woods
Sir James Gosse
Ted Heidenreich
Bert Baulderstone

The 1870s to the 1960s

Topsy Waldron
Bunny Daly
Alby Bahr
Sid White
Perce McCallum
Bruce Schultz
Doug Olds
Bill Wedding*

The 1970s to the 1990s

Roger Woodcock*
Neil Button*
Phil Gallagher*
Jim Michalanney*
Keith Thomas*
Neville Roberts*

The Clubmen

Ern Wadham
Tiger Potts
Eric Johnson
Wally Miller*
Smokey Dawson

The Captains

Jack Oatey
Robert Oatey^
John Wynne*
Michael Taylor*
Danny Jenkins*

The Medallists

Wat Scott
Alick Lill
John Marriott
Ron Kneebone*
Michael Aish*
Garry McIntosh*

* = alive and present on the night (14)
^ = alive but an apology on the night (1)

It was great night that celebrated the achievements of not only the club, but also of some true champions of Australian Rules Football (eg Alby Bahr, Bunny Daly and Jack Oatey - the pioneer of the handball/running game and the checkside kick), Australian Sport (eg Alick Lill, also a skilled tennis player and cricketer) and indeed Australian Culture (eg Sir Edwin Smith who was a great South Australian philanthropist).

Some fair names there, got to admit the Norwood Football club has produced its fair share of SA footy legends.

Great post SQ.
The only one they missed is Aaron Keating.

The fourth person along in the third row is Topsy Waldron.

The photo is from 1878.

Well done Norwood - I think it is great to recognize past legends of the club in this way.

However, I feel that the categories (leaders, clubmen, captains etc.) seem quite artificial and contrived. Many players could have fitted into more than one category, and there seems nothing natural about the split of 1870s to 1960s vs 1970s to 1990s.

Why not just group the players on the era in which they played, with perhaps only the administrators deserving a separate category?

Nice work Norwood. Good to see history of this great comp. being acknowledged. My only problem with this is that Norwood won what(?) eleven premierships prior to 1900, and yet only two players (Daly and Waldron) from that era are recognised. Still to be far I suppose it is the same problems that all of the clubs seem to have when recognising players from that era, it is hard to break out the videos of those games and check who else played well.

Ecky wrote:Well done Norwood - I think it is great to recognize past legends of the club in this way.

However, I feel that the categories (leaders, clubmen, captains etc.) seem quite artificial and contrived. Many players could have fitted into more than one category, and there seems nothing natural about the split of 1870s to 1960s vs 1970s to 1990s.

Why not just group the players on the era in which they played, with perhaps only the administrators deserving a separate category?

I know that Norwood is my club, but I don't have any problem with how they've done it. Certainly Wally Miller wouldn't qualify on his playing record, but as an administrator he has very few peers.

I think it is important for people to understand the capacity in which each person served the club, and in which era they played. The Hall of Fame in the AFL and SANFL do it in the same way.