Australian Football

AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game

 

Key Facts

Full name
Edward Fletcher

Known as
Ted Fletcher

Born
13 December 1925

Died
13 May 2000 (aged 74)

Age at first & last AFL game
First game: 18y 166d
Last game: 28y 258d

Height and weight
Height: 187 cm
Weight: 94 kg

Senior clubs
Hawthorn

Jumper numbers
Hawthorn: 27, 20, 32, 23, 1

Recruited from
Port Melbourne (1944)

Ted Fletcher

Advanced stats
ClubLeagueCareer spanGamesGoalsAvgWin %AKIAHBAMKBV
HawthornV/AFL1944, 1946-1954129510.4019%———31
Total1944, 1946-1954129510.4019%———31

AFL: 5,316th player to appear, 1,711th most games played, 2,019th most goals kickedHawthorn: 332nd player to appear, 98th most games played, 122nd most goals kicked

A formidable on field presence, especially when his smaller teammates were threatened, Hawthorn's Ted Fletcher matured with age, playing much of his best football during the last few years of his nine-season, 129-game VFL career. Indeed, he won a best and fairest award during his second to last league season in 1953, having represented the VFL for the first time the previous year. He also captained Hawthorn in 1953-4. Equally at home in the ruck or anywhere behind centre he fell only narrowly short of being a genuine champion. 

In 1955, Ted Fletcher was appointed captain-coach of VFA club Sandringham, which had been struggling badly for several seasons. Although the Zebras' on-field record did not improve significantly during Fletcher's three-season stint in charge (the last of which saw him assuming a non-playing role), he definitely set them moving in the right direction, and in so doing might be felt to have sowed the seeds of the side's emergence as a VFA power in the early 1960s.

Author - John Devaney

Sources

Full Points Footy Publications

Footnotes

* Behinds calculated from the 1965 season on.
+ Score at the end of extra time.