The one and only... Adrian Young
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St Kilda's Adrian Young passed away in August this year, aged 77. As one of the more than 1,100 players to make just one V/AFL senior appearance, Young is slated to be included in my forthcoming book The One and Only (written with my great friend Mic Rees), and I had him pegged as a potential interviewee for the book. Sadly, any chance of catching up with Adrian has now passed, as has he.
One of the reasons I decided to embark on The One and Only project was a belief that among the 1,100-odd one-game players, there would be many great stories to tell, and most of them would be largely unknown beyond each player's inner circle of family and friends. I had hoped to talk to Adrian to learn his story but, though his sad passing makes that impossible now, it doesn't mean he does not have a story worth telling. Sometimes a one-gamer's story is part of a larger story, or inextricably linked with that of another player. And it can be months, even years, before story's full context is revealed.
A one-gamer's only appearance might come in the same game as that of another debutant, making a comparison a potentially interesting exercise. Take Carlton's Adam Chatfield. His debut for the Blues was a three-point loss to the Western Bulldogs late in the 2000 season. Chatfield collected eight possessions that day, as many or more than five of his teammates, and more than five Bulldogs players managed to accumulate. Perhaps if the Blues had managed to kick the one extra goal to win the match, Chatfield might not have been dropped the next week.
And perhaps the Bulldogs' debutant in that match, who admittedly had 13 touches (five more than Chatfield) and kicked a goal, might not have held his place. But he did. That Bulldogs player was Bob Murphy, and he went on to play another 311 games, establishing himself as one of his club's greatest sons.
A quick look at the players who appeared in the same match as Adrian Young's only game reveals that he too played with another debutant. (Coincidentally, Young's first match was a loss by under a goal to the Bulldogs, just as Adam Chatfield's had been, although 36 year earlier, in 1964.) Young's fellow debutant was teammate Geoff Grover. While Young was omitted after the loss, Grover got a reprieve, albeit a very brief one. The Saints bounced back to beat Hawthorn by five goals the following week, but the victory was not enough to save Grover, whose career ended on a total of two games, a week after Young's had ended on one.
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By definition, a one-game player's first game is also his last, so it can also be an interesting exercise to see if the one-gamer's career ended on the same day as any longer-term players. In Adam Chatfield's case, the answer is no, but it's a different story for Adrian Young. His first and last game was also the last of his teammate Jim Guyatt. Not that Jim would have had any idea at the time. In the following Monday's edition of The Age, Guyatt was listed as having been replaced by David Sierakowski in the last quarter, having been forced from the ground with a "bruised knee".
By the following Wednesday, Guyatt's innocuous-sounding bruised knee had become "badly bruised" with "a lot of fluid" around it. Still, he was having daily treatment in the hope of playing the next Saturday. The treatment was unsuccessful, and The Age of the following Wednesday reported that Jim Guyatt would be having a cartilage operation within "the next two weeks". Guyatt was back on track for the pre-season of 1965 but after one practice match, the knee swelled up again. By May, it was still bothering him, and The Age of May 21 reported that he Guyatt would "have an operation on his knee today."
There was no follow-up report in the newspaper. In fact Jim Guyatt's name does not get another run in the Age until 1980, when he was on the Saints' match committe. Guyatt never made it back onto the playing field, Adrian Young's first and last match becoming his last as well. Guyatt had played 113 games since joining the Saints in 1957 and, as accomplished all round footballer who was just 24 years old, he would likely have been part of St Kilda's 1966 premiership team if not for the knee injury.
Adrian Young's stint in the VFL wasn't ended by a knee injury, but sadly his football career ultimately was, and only a year later. Having not been given another chance in the St Kilda side, Young returned whence he came — Burnie in Tasmania — in 1965, his form good enough to get him a game for the Tasmanian state side that played the VFA that year. Young set his sights on representing Tasmania again the following year in the 1966 interstate carnival in his home state. But he too succumbed to a cartilage injury. Like his one-game St Kilda teammate Jim Guyatt, he tried many times to get his knee right, but he never played football again.
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For many one-gamers, the day of the single match they play can be a 'sliding doors' moment. But Adrian Young's might have come some time earlier. In October 1963, The Age reported that Geelong, who had just won the premiership, were interested in Young's service. "We hope to have him over here next year", said Cats coach Bob Davis. But, perhaps influenced by the fact that fellow Taswegians Darrel Baldock and Ian Stewart were already playing for St Kilda, and that two more — John Bingley and Burnie Payne — were on their way there, Adrian Young also became a Saint.
Had he gone to Geelong, might he have been given more than one game? Might he have stayed in Victoria and avoided the serious knee injury that prematurely ended his career? These are unanswerable questions, and would have been even if Young were still here today. But Adrian Young's football career at the top level, though it lasted only a single game, forms part of other stories — those of his team and his teammates — and, in this case, even another team, Geelong.
And his story, like those of so many others who played just the one V/AFL game, is well worth telling.
The One And Only — Stories of V/AFL players whose first game was their last, by Andrew Gigacz and Mic Rees will be published in 2021.
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