Australian Football

Born in Perth in 1890, Frank Golding belonged to a family of thirteen children. From an early age, he exhibited great sporting prowess, particularly at his favourite game, which was soccer. Later on, he began to display considerable talent in cricket and football as well, making his league debut in the latter sport with West Perth in 1906 while still to reach his seventeenth birthday. Two years later, he was named in the West Australian squad for the inaugural Australian championship series in Melbourne, but was forced to withdraw because of an injury sustained at work. At the end of the season an acquaintance, Austin Diamond, persuaded him to concentrate on cricket, and shortly afterwards Golding accepted an offer to play for the South Melbourne Cricket Club.

Golding never reached Melbourne because, while staying in Adelaide en route, he ran into his former West Perth skipper Bill Plunkett, who had returned home to play with his original club Norwood. Plunkett prevailed on Golding to have a meeting with a Norwood club official with a view to signing for the Redlegs, but the Norwood official never showed up. In the meantime, Golding bumped into another old acquaintance in the shape of former South Fremantle footballer ‘Diver’ Dunne, who had moved across to Adelaide in order to play for Sturt. After hearing from Dunne about the exciting recent developments at Sturt which, thanks to the patronage of local tramways manager John Dempsey, had already seen the arrival at the club of high profile players like Harry Cumberland, Albert Heinrichs, Phil Matson, Bert Renfrey, Alphonse Wood, Joe Bushell and Percy Champion, Golding decided to forego his cricketing aspirations in favour of a football career at Unley.

Cricket’s loss was very much football’s gain, as over the ensuing two decades Frank Golding would proceed to eke out a reputation for himself as one of Sturt’s, and South Australia’s, greatest ever footballers. For most of his league career he played as a full forward, topping the Double Blues’ goal kicking list on half a dozen occasions, and the SAFL’s, with 30 goals, in 1920. Arguably his greatest performances came late in his career, however, when he had transformed himself into an astute, intelligent and highly effective full back.

A member of Sturt premiership teams in 1915 (the club’s first) at centre half forward, 1919 at full forward, and 1926 as a full back, Golding was captain in 1921, and captain-coach between 1925 and his retirement as a player at the end of the 1927 season. His total of 207 games stood as a league record for many years, while no Sturt footballer has ever exceeded his tally of 28 interstate match appearances. His sixteen-season league career with the Double Blues saw him amass 240 goals, while he also booted 31 goals for South Australia.

When the Double Blues named their official ‘Team of the Century’ there was only really one realistic choice for the full back position - Francis Hallett Golding.

Author - John Devaney