AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game
Club | League | Career span | Games | Goals | Avg | Win % | AKI | AHB | AMK | BV |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Norwood | SANFL | 1975-1984 | 156 | 71 | 0.46 | — | — | — | — | — |
Total | 1975-1984 | 156 | 71 | 0.46 | — | — | — | — | — |
At the end of an outstanding debut season Jim Thiel helped Norwood to a twenty-five year drought-breaking grand final win over Glenelg. He played the match in the unaccustomed position of full back, deputising for the injured Ian Stasinowsky. Strongly built and tenacious, he was more commonly used at centre half forward.
A serious knee injury sustained in an Ardath Cup match against the ACT in 1977 threatened to derail his career, but he bounced back and continued to display good football over the remainder of his career, which ended in 1984 after 156 SANFL games and 71 goals. The undoubted highlight of the closing phase of his career came in 1982 when he was vice captain, and one of the Redlegs’ best players, in a 62 point grand final mauling of Glenelg.
Two years after his retirement, aged just thirty, Jim Thiel died after an accident on a building site where he was working.
Author - John Devaney