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Western Bulldogs | ||
| Footscray | David Thorpe | Footscray | ||
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Number: |
16 |
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Footscray Western Bulldogs Red white and Blue |
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Height: |
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Weight: |
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Birthday: |
30 May 1948 | |||
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Period on list: |
1965 to 1973 | |||
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Senior Games: |
152 | |||
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Goals: |
78 | |||
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Disposals: |
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Recruited From: |
North Footscray | |||
| Honours: |
Vice Captain, State player for Victoria 3 times. Twice club best and fairest. Headed league's most possessions list 3 times. Nominated for Team of the Century. All Australian 1972. Played in Richmond's premiership team. Vice Captain 1970, Captain 1973. |
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| Played on the wing, centre or was a follower. | ||||
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Footscray |
His early years were a bit up and down in form but everybody knew that he had the skills and they persevered with him. | |||
| Western Bulldogs | ||||
| Came good in a spectacular way in a reserves game where he had 63 possessions. Needless to say that we won that day. | ||||
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He was a good size player with a well-proportioned
body. He loved to carry the ball and dodge and weave around opponents,
sometimes he got caught but mostly he got by them and left them standing
around or fallen to the ground and embarrassed by it all. He'd stick out the
ball like in the picture there, and around them he'd go. Thorpie was sometimes called a show pony, he used to do his warm up stretches in front of the grandstand. I remember getting the Sunday papers when they were first introduced and always checking for Thorpie's huge stats. I also remember being at our Best and Fairest and some sections of the crowd booed when he won it. During this era he was my favourite player and I looked forward to his dodging and weaving on on-filed antics. He was a prolific ball winner but his disposal could be very erratic at times. I can remember one day, must have been in the 1970's my mother coming home from the football all disgusted. I asked her the reason why and it turns out that Thorpe got the ball on the wing and tried to kick the ball down field but put it straight out on the full. To quote my mother " He said F, F, F, right in front of us" Ah grass roots football!
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| In 1972 he was selected for the Victorian state side and when in Adelaide he biffed one of the officials. So, they didn't let him play. | ||||
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When Ted Whitten retired as coach David had a chance to be coach, was almost offered the job, but Bob Rose turned up. David slagged off at Bob quite a bit. They didn't get on well, David and Bob. Some not-so-good player management here. David quit and went to Richmond. I was devastated. | |||
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After finishing with Richmond he went on to coach
Yarraville in the VFA when they had this massive recruitment campaign. The
recruitment drive was sponsored by Masseys the car yard on the corner of
Williamstown Road and Francis Street. In the end it might have been what
sent the car yard and the footy club broke.
One day Yarraville had a huge lead and Thorpie called for
a count. Sure enough the other team had 17 men on the ground so their score
was wiped. He was pretty ruthless. I think that's the only time I've
seen a count on the field. |
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