Australian Football

Famed for his 'eight finger grip', a legacy of his losing two fingers above the knuckle in a factory accident during his first senior season, Jack Mueller was an inspirational player without whom the Melbourne sides in which he played during a 17-season, 216-game career in the 1930s, '40s and '50s would almost certainly not have been as successful. Certainly he was the primary instigator of Melbourne's 1948 flag victory after being recalled from retirement (with the reserves) for that year's Preliminary Final in which he kicked eight of his team's 25 goals against Collingwood. He followed this up with six out of 10 in the drawn Grand Final with Essendon and another six out of 13 the following week when Melbourne won the replay.

Mueller was much more than just a goalkicker, however. An immensely versatile footballer, he was at full back in Melbourne's 1939 premiership team, rucked for the 1940 and 1941 flag-winning combinations, and represented the VFL at both ends of the ground as well as as an on-baller. Never the most elegant of players, he was nonetheless more than adequately endowed with all the major skills of the game and it was this, combined with his formidable physique and typically effervescent, explosive attack on the football which made Jack Mueller so inordinately effective - more so, it might be said, than the ostensible 'sum of his parts'.

Author - John Devaney