Almanac Footy: Fitzroy’s Jack Worrall – 19th century sporting superstar
Jack Worrall – on a higher level in footy & cricket
19th century sporting superstar Fitzroy’s Jack Worrall
By Rod Gillett
In the lead up to the 2023 AFL Grand Final the footy media commentariat peddled the line that Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan would be the first premiership coach since Jack Worrall not to play ‘at the highest level’ if the Lions won.
This was disrespectful to Fagan who played 263 games in senior Tasmanian competitions and kicked 430 goals. He represented Tasmania eleven times and played in two premiership teams. Quite an impressive record, and clearly a proficient footballer.
Even more disrespectful to Jack Worrall that illustrates the lack of research and insight into this history of the game that simply views that the history of football competitions started with the VFL in 1897.
Jack Worrall did play at the highest level of the game, albeit for Fitzroy in the Victorian Football Association in two stints, 1884-87 and 1889-93 playing 90 games and kicking 132 goals captaining the Maroons for seven seasons. He was awarded the Champion of the Colony in 1887 and 1890.
He missed the 1888 season as he was on the Ashes tour of England as an all-rounder. He also toured England again in 1899 as an opener. He played eleven Tests for Australia.
As footballer Worrall was described by a contemporary observer
“…. as a lovely mark, an untiring rover, and a deadly shot with either foot. Of this I had evidence… it was a wet day, and Worrall, after kicking two or three goals right foot, finding the angle more suited for a left shot, deliberately shifted and potted one or two from about fifty yards out” (“Onlooker,” Referee 4 January 1918, p5).
The VFA was the premier competition in Melbourne in this period until the eight foundation clubs including Fitzroy left at the end of the 1896 season to form the Victorian Football League.
As Colin Carter shows in Football’s Forgotten Years: Reclaiming the AFL competition’s earliest era – 1870 to 1896 (2022) the list of premiers published in the VFL records up until 1915 dates from 1870. He notes the removal of the list from VFL publications in the 1920s.
Carter puts this down to ‘football politics’ between the VFL and the VFA following the changing of the guard from the VFL’s founding officials who either played or administered clubs in the period prior to 1897.
Both the pre-eminent historian Geoffrey Blainey, who wrote A Game of Our Own (2003) and Mark Pennings, who has written extensively about football in Melbourne in the nineteenth century, both support Carter’s views that the AFL’s records are ‘wrong’ and that ‘they are based on an old feud between two sets of football officials’.
Bizarrely, Jack Worrall is in the AFL Hall of Fame as player for Fitzroy 1884-1893, but unlike all the otherentries no games are recorded.
Yet, he is equal third on the VFL/AFL premiership coach list with five flags (Carlton 1906-08 & Essendon 1911-12) with Frank ‘Checker’ Hughes (five) behind legendary Collingwood coach Jock McHale (eight) and Melbourne master mentor Norm Smith (six).
And ahead of Barassi, Hafey, Jeans, Parkin, Sheedy, and Leigh Matthews, all of whom are either in the Hall of Fame as coaches or as Legends.
After he stops coaching Alistair Clarkson will also be elevated to the Hall of Fame as a coach, which he fully deserves, but nonetheless almost certainly ahead of Jack Worrall.
| Coach | Club/s | Premiership Years | Number |
| Jock McHale | Collingwood | 1917, 1919, 1927-30,1935-36 | 8 |
| Norm Smith | Melbourne | 1955-57, 1959-60, 1964 | 6 |
| Jack Worrall | Carlton/Essendon | 1906-08; 1911-12 | 5 |
| Frank Hughes | Richmond/Melbourne | 1932; 1939-41, 1948 | 5 |
| Allan Jeans | St Kilda/Hawthorn | 1966; 1983, 1986, 1988 | 4 |
| Tom Hafey | Richmond | 1967, 1969, 1973, 1974 | 4 |
| Ron Barassi | Carlton/North Melbourne | 1968, 1970; 1975, 1977 | 4 |
| David Parkin | Hawthorn/Carlton | 1978; 1981-82, 1995 | 4 |
| Kevin Sheedy | Essendon | 1984-85, 1993, 2000 | 4 |
| Leigh Mathews | Collingwood/Brisbane | 1990; 2001-2003 | 4 |
| Alistair Clarkson | Hawthorn | 2008, 2013-2015 | 4 |
However, Worrall is not in the Hall of Fame as a coach or as a Legend. A victim of the contemporaneous nature of the selection process that continues to be a major flaw.
After he finished coaching football, Jack Worrall became a highly regarded football journalist having already began work as a cricket writer soon after his retirement from playing cricket.
As the senior figure in the press box Worrall is ascribed the credit for coining the phrase ‘Bodyline’ to refer to the English bowling in the 1933-34 Ashes series in Australia.
Distinguished historian John Ritchie in the Australian Dictionary of Biography described his writing as follows:
“For over twenty years his columns were characterized by poised sentences and rich vocabulary; for all its partisanship, his direct prose was spiced with comparison, reminiscence and prediction, and conveyed a sense of drama.”
Not many footballers have an entry in the prestigious Australian Dictionary of Biography.
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That’s not a picture of Jack Worrall. Also, you repeat the misnomer that there was such a thing as Champion of the Colony and that Worrall won this twice. He played 2 seasons with South Ballarat (before he was lured to Melbourne by Fitzroy) as SB played in the VFA at the time. By your logic we should include that in his record. He began writing on football with the Australasian in 1912, so his career encompassed both writing and coaching until 1920 when he retired as coach of Essendon. He succeeded Tom Horan as cricket writer for the Australasian when Horan died in 1916. He had an earlier stint writing for the Referee, published in Sydney.[nb. the Bodyline series was 1932-33]. Worrall often wrote that he preferred cricket to football FWIW, so to the ADB they would consider that made him a national figure worthy of an entry despite playing only 11 tests, more so than his football exploits & writing.
If you question the accuracy of others, make sure you are accurate yourself.
Thanks for your comments.
It helps to build the story around Jack Worrall and adds to the conversation around his role in the game and the status of the game before 1897.
Thanks for the additional information. He deserves a fuller profile.
I hope it can be built on from this piece.
Build on what, Rod? You put forward the bare bones of his story without adding anything new and actually repeated the claim that he was twice Champion of the Colony which modern research has proven to be false.
If we are to build a better picture of the past we need to be accurate to compensate for the laziness of the game’s historians who have often provided inaccurate info which is then repeated ad infinitum. .
This is a very interesting article which shows that the VFL/AFL have not really recognised the people from the early days of the game. Its hard to believe that John Worrell with 5 premierships is not in the Hall of fame as a coach. Apparently he was the very first coach in the VFL at Carlton in 1907. Clearly there is much information to be uncovered. I look forward to reading more about it.