Australian Football

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Key Facts

Full name
John Douglas Coleman

Known as
John Coleman

Born
23 November 1928

Place of birth
Port Fairy, VIC (3284)

Died
5 April 1973 (aged 44)

Place of death
Dromana, VIC (3936)

Occupation
Publican

Age at first & last AFL game
First game: 20y 144d
Last game: 25y 194d

Height and weight
Height: 185 cm
Weight: 80 kg

Senior clubs
Essendon

Jumper numbers
Essendon: 10

Recruited from
Hastings (1949)

State of origin
VIC

John Coleman

ClubLeagueCareer spanGamesGoalsAvgWin %AKIAHBAMKBV
EssendonV/AFL1949-1954985375.4868%12.003.5036
Total1949-1954985375.4868%12.003.5036

Pre 1965 stats are for selected matches only

AFL: 5,861st player to appear, 2,488th most games played, 55th most goals kickedEssendon: 619th player to appear, 181st most games played, 3rd most goals kicked

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ColemanMark

Right

In a post-war world hungry for heroes, John Coleman fitted the bill impeccably. Prolific full forwards had always attracted attention and a certain amount of adulation before but never in quite such a personal way as Coleman, whose film star good looks only served to enhance the superstar image.

In pure footballing terms he wasn't all that bad either. Indeed, from the time he burst onto the VFL scene with 12 goals on debut against Hawthorn in 1949, it was obvious that the Dons had hit the jackpot. Coleman combined freakish aerial ability with superb ground skills, and was a deadly accurate kick for goal, but his greatness was much more than the sum of these parts. Truly great champions often possess an elusive magnetism deriving as much from bearing and overall approach as from actual achievements; such was very much the case with Coleman - very few footballers have possessed such an arresting and impressive on-field presence. Moreover, at a time when full forwards were traditionally greedy for goals, John Coleman broke the mould by being quintessentially team-orientated. As Jack Dyer tautly observed, "As long as Essendon get the goals Coleman doesn't worry who kicks them".¹

Of course, no matter how team-orientated a full forward is, he will still tend to be judged primarily on the number of goals he kicks, and in this respect Coleman was the most prolific player in the VFL for a decade. When a badly dislocated knee prematurely ended his career in June 1954 he had topped Essendon's goal kicking list every season since 1949 (and would again in 1954, despite missing the last half of the season); he had led the league list on four occasions too, which included three tallies of 100 or more goals. A premiership player in 1949 and 1950, many people remain convinced that his controversial suspension for the 1951 Grand Final cost the Dons that year's flag.

Needless to say, Coleman was often on the receiving end of some pretty rugged treatment from opponents, and although fundamentally disposed to 'play the ball', he was not averse to retaliating if he felt the occasion demanded it. Sadly, the fact that umpires at the time habitually interpreted the laws of the game differently when the ball was in scoring range meant that Coleman's direct opponents often got away with near murder, making retaliation frequently seem like the only, or at any rate the most immediately rewarding, option. Every camel's back has its breaking point, and Coleman's suspension for four matches, which included the 1951 Grand Final, came after Carlton, courtesy of Harry Caspar, applied just one straw too many during the last home and away match of the season.

Eloquently summarising Coleman's unique appeal to football fans of virtually all persuasions, Herald journalist Hec De Lacy observed:

To me the greatest delight in the Coleman technique is to see him one split second as the polesitter, the disinterested spectator of the hustle and bustle; the next to rise with the crowd's excitement as he comes from nowhere, throws himself into the air and drags down the seemingly impossible mark.

Coleman is football's personality player - the greatest player in the game's greatest era.²

Coleman was later a highly successful coach, steering the Bombers to the 1962 and 1965 flags. His premature death in 1973 aged just 44 was a tragic loss for football.

Author - John Devaney

Footnotes

  1. Cited in The Great John Coleman by Wayne Miller and Vikki Petraitis, with Victor Jeremiah, page 76.
  2. Ibid, page 52.

Sources

Full Points Footy Publications

Footnotes

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