Australian Football

Paul Gow was an athletic defender who played 78 WAFL games and booted five goals for Swan Districts from 1987 to 1990 and between 1992 and 1994. In the 1990 grand final he was one of the best players afield as Swans accounted for the challenge of Claremont to the tune of 26 points.

Liking what they saw, Footscray took Gow in the 1990 AFL Draft, but in his single season with the Bulldogs he would only manage seven senior appearances and no goals. In his final match for the club, opposed by West Coast, his direct opponent Peter Sumich bagged 13 goals, in spite of which the Eagles entered into a trade arrangement which saw Gow back home in Western Australia in 1992. Far from being a match made in heaven, however, the move proved disastrous from Gow’s point of view because, with the likes of Glen Jakovich and Ashley McIntosh ahead of him in the pecking order, he failed to achieve selection even once, and at the end of the ‘92 season his AFL career was over. He continued with Swan Districts for another couple of years.

Author - John Devaney