Australian Football

Alan Morrow's importance to St Kilda was starkly demonstrated over two consecutive Grand Finals. In 1965, against Essendon, Morrow sustained a broken foot 17 minutes into the second term and had to be replaced. At the time, the Saints were in the ascendancy, but they ended up losing by 35 points, after Morrow's direct opponent Brian Sampson cut loose to be best on ground. In the following season's Grand Final against Collingwood Morrow was a vital contributor to the Saints' historic one-point win. It proved to be the last of his 163 VFL games for the club in a career stretching back to 1957 during which he also booted 151 goals. In 1960, 1964 and 1964 he was chosen to play interstate football for the VFL.

In 1967, he assumed the role of captain-coach at Dandenong in the VFA first division, and had the immediate satisfaction of steering his side to a flag. After one of the toughest, most tempestuous VFA Grand Finals on record the Redlegs edged out Port Melbourne by 25 points after scores had been close virtually all day. Alan Morrow was, by popular consent, the most influential player on view. He continued to captain-coach Dandenong for two more seasons, with his final game coming in the losing Grand Final of 1969 against Preston.

Neither tall nor heavily built for a ruckman at 189 cm and 83 kg, Morrow succeeded because of his enormous strength of will and appetite for a contest. During his time in the VFL there were few tougher or more hard working footballers, and if team mates such as Darrel Baldock, Ian Stewart and 'Big Carl' Ditterich tended to harvest most of the attention and kudos, in the final wash-up there was no one more integral to the Saints' success than Alan Morrow.

In 2003, Morrow was included on the interchange bench in St Kilda's official 'Team of the Twentieth Century', while two years later he was selected as captain-coach of Dandenong's equivalent combination.

Author - John Devaney