DARREN MONCRIEFF
Friday 6 July 2012
THE names of Norm McDonald, Michael Long and Gavin Wanganeen will grace the football field once more in a tribute by Essendon Football Club.
The Bombers have unveiled a new jumper designed as a heritage and clash strip. On it are the names of every Essendon premiership player, which includes the Bomber trio.
Norm McDonald, who died in 2002 aged 76, was the Bombers' first Indigenpous player.
He played 128 games for Essendon over seven years in the 1940s and '50s and in that time carved for himself a name as one of the best big occasion players at the club.
He was influential in the 1949 and 1950 premierships and won the club's fairest-and-best award, the Creighton Medal, in 1951. He was judged best afield in the 1950 premiership. He also played in the VFL's first drawn grand final in 1948, with Melbourne, but the Bombers lost in the replay.
After the 1950 VFL Grand Final, the Sporting Globe newspaper's Ben Kerville wrote of McDonald as "...league football’s best half-back flanker; a veritable Mandrake at the business of befuddling and bewitching rival half-forwards. Football becomes ballet when interpreted by this fleet-footed will-o'-the-wisp. There’s the rhythm and grace of the ballerina in his weaving evasive manoeuvres."
Such poetry would have been a treasure to see.
Long and Wanganeen are the modern era equivalents. Both players were instrumental in Essendon's rise to premiers in 1993; Wanganeen won that season's Brownlow Medal from a half-back flank.
Long was simply sensational that season and his grand final performance rates as one of the finest. He was duly awarded the Norm Smith Medal as best-on-ground.
Essendon captain Jobe Watson is a fan of the new jumper, which the Bombers will wear as the away team against St Kilda, Melbourne and Port Adelaide.
"To have the name of every premiership player included on the jumper is great recognition for the many players that have provided Bomber fans with so much joy over the years," he said.
* The Bombers' new jumper can viewed in full at www.footyjumpers.com
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Last Modified on 06/07/2012 13:56