Australian Football

In a 12-season, 212-game career with Geelong and South Melbourne John Scarlett proved himself one of the most dependable full backs in the VFL. Equally capable of taking a big mark or spoiling forcefully Scarlett was not averse to taking a run on the ball or spending some time in the forward lines. Scarlett's failure to win a club best and fairest award or poll heavily in the Brownlow should not disguise the fact that his play was frequently eye-catching in the extreme; his careering runs out of the backline carrying the ball, for example, were as spectacularly effective as any.

After 183 games with Geelong between 1967 and 1977 he was the subject of a highly unusual transfer arrangement whereby he joined finals qualifier South Melbourne 'on loan'. The arrangement was ostensibly for the duration of the finals but, after the Swans capitulated to Richmond in the Elimination Final, the clubs unexpectedly agreed to make the deal permanent. John Scarlett is best remembered as a Geelong player, however, and it is therefore highly appropriate that his son, Matthew Scarlett, later continued the family tradition at Kardinia Park.

Author - John Devaney