Australian Football

After playing junior football in Tasmania's North West Football Union with Penguin, Tim Evans was lured to the mainland by Geelong in 1971. In four seasons with the Cats, playing mainly on the half back line, he notched up 59 games, and impressed with his strong marking and robust ground play. However, it was only after crossing to Port Adelaide in 1975 that his career truly began to ignite. 

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Transferred to the goalfront by coach John Cahill when regular spearhead Randall Gerlach was indisposed, Evans proved a revelation, going on to become one of the greatest goalkickers in Australian football history. In 248 games for the Magpies between 1975 and 1986 Evans accumulated 1,044 goals, topping the league list on six occasions, and Port's no fewer than ten times. He also booted 25 goals in seven appearances for South Australia. Seldom spectacular, Evans was the archetypal 'Goal machine'. As the late John Wood, writing in "Magpie News" in August 1986 at the time of Evans' retirement, put it, "He was an ideal amalgam of finesse and raw strength. If the players ahead of him delivered it, Tim was a certainty to mark it. If they blasted it in high he (more often than not with two flying against him) was a fifty-fifty go. Either way you could get your pen ready to mark down another one."

In the year 2000 Tim Evans was handed the coveted full forward position in Port Adelaide's official 'Greatest Team 1870 to 2000'. Eight years later he became the first predominantly South Australian-based footballer to earn inclusion in AFL Tasmania's official 'Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame'.

Author - John Devaney