Old Woollen Footy Jumpers: Blackburn High School, 1966

Sasha Lennon Roger Gibbins_Blackburn 1966

Blackburn High School 1966 (Read Sasha Lennon’s story)

 

Long-time Almanac supporter Roger Gibbins recently dug-up this old photo of his playing days with Blackburn High School in Melbourne’s east, where Hawthorn’s Don Scott also played before moving on to the big league.

Blackburn sat in Hawthorn’s zone back in the day and even had the same team song as the Hawks. Other Blackburn High School Alumni who notched up a few games with the Hawks included Greg Burgess (4 games between 1965 and ‘66) and Garry Lester (10 games in 1967).

Pictured here is the 1966 Eastern Division Premiers with Roger (then in Year 10) sitting to the left of his coach and holding the team name plate. While the high school’s close cousin, the Blackburn Football Club were known as The Panthers and wore black and red vertical stripes, apparently Blackburn High’s old guernsey was best described as “dog shit brown”.

Asked about his time at Blackburn, Roger says, “That would have been the year I played against Scott in house sports”. Apparently, the former Hawthorn captain was a cantankerous bastard with a penchant for whining to the umpire even back then.

Also in this photo, in the middle row, second from left, is former Richmond player Bryan Wood, who would play in 209 games and three premierships for the Tigers before moving on to Essendon where he also served as a runner.

Roger still has his old woollen footy jumper.

Comments

  1. love old footy photos!

  2. Bryan Wood also played in Essendon’s 1985 Premiership team. Referring only to his running duties in his Essendon period undersells him quite a bit.

  3. Rohan,

    The piece was written by a Hawthorn supporter who witnessed the ’85 Grand Final, hence the re-interpretation of history (i.e. it didn’t really happen, did it?).

    (Good pick-up and oversight noted – apologies).

    Sasha

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