Australian Football

Seldom better than a fringe player at each of his three league clubs Robert Muir nevertheless managed to compile a respectable curriculum vitae over the course of his career. No one who plays in excess of 50 games of VFL football can be written off as a nonentity, and Muir was emphatically not that. He was perhaps unfortunate in that during his time at Collingwood (33 games, 1927-9 and 1931-2) the Magpies had assembled arguably the most formidable combination seen in Australian football up to that point. Consequently, competition for places was intense, and whereas Muir might have enjoyed regular senior selection at the likes of Hawthorn or North Melbourne, at Victoria Park it was very much a case of waiting for someone to be sidelined with injury or, more infrequently, a drop in form.

After enduring this state of affairs for six years he requested, and was granted, a clearance to Footscray, where he played 15 games in 1933 and the first seven of the following season. He then transferred to Fitzroy where he made the final two VFL appearances of his career before finishing his entire career in the VFA with Preston, for whom he made 68 appearances and scored 37 goals from 1935 to 1939.

Author - John Devaney