Australian Football

Cumbersome and ungainly on the ground, a mediocre mark, rated only a 5-1 shot even to connect with the ball when attempting a kick¹, and only likely to trouble your grandmother in 100 metre foot race if given at least a 50-metre start, ‘Big Bill’ Wedding nevertheless won five consecutive Norwood club champion awards, was named All Australian after the 1961 Brisbane carnival, and was arguably the single biggest factor in South Australia’s resurgence at interstate level during the period 1960 to 1965². The reason? Bill Wedding was, quite simply, one of the greatest knock ruckmen ever to play the game. Approaching football with the exuberance and delight of a child with a favourite toy, Wedding regularly beat the likes of Farmer, Nicholls, Schultz and Clarke in the interstate arena, and was rarely seriously challenged at home. 

Early in his career he was somewhat one-dimensional in approach, thumping the ball 20 or 30 metres forward from every single ruck contest, a strategy that was all too easy for opposition sides to counter, but during his peak years he became equally adept at palming the ball directly to his rovers. Despite being a heavy smoker, he seemed to boast abundant stamina, and if his impact in general field play was sometimes negligible this was more than compensated for by his matchless pre-eminence in the ruck.

Wedding’s prowess saw the re-emergence for a time, particularly in interstate matches, of the lost art of ruck shepherding, whereby opposition teams would often double or even triple-team Wedding, with the supplementary ruckmen being instructed to remove ‘Big Bill’ from the contest by whatever means were possible.

Always modest and self-effacing, Bill Wedding quietly retired from league football in 1968 after playing 214 matches in 12 seasons, plus 19 interstate games for South Australia. In 1958, just as his senior career was getting underway, ‘Big Bill’ had won the seconds Magarey Medal. The years since his retirement may not have been especially kind to his memory - away from the Parade, at any rate - but at the time he was playing he was widely - and rightly - acknowledged as among the pre-eminent knock ruckmen in Australia.

Bill Wedding passed away after a long illness in July 2007, three months short of his 72nd birthday.

Author - John Devaney