Gordon Lane
Australian rules footballer and coach
Gordon Francis 'Whopper' Lane (30 May 1921, 21 July 1973) was an Australian rules footballer who represented Essendon and South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Making his senior VFL debut in 1940, Lane played as a forward with a strong overhead mark and was rated by Jack Dyer in 1946 as "the best centre half forward in the game".
Lane is best remembered for his performances in Essendon's Grand Finals of the 1940s. In the 1942 VFL Grand Final he kicked six goals and in 1946 kicked seven.
Lane missed out on a chance to play in another Grand Final in 1947 due to breaking his ribs in the preliminary final. He was injured again the following season, this time it was his knee and he moved to South Melbourne in 1950 where served as captain-coach for three years.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gordon Lane”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Gordon Lane.jpg by Unknown, Fair use
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