Ted Whitten

His 321st and final game was against Hawthorn at the Western Oval, a game which Footscray won by three points.

Edward James Whitten Sr. OAM (27 July 1933 – 17 August 1995) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Footscray Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

He was regarded by his contemporaries in the 1950s and 1960s as the greatest naturally talented player of his era;

Born and raised into a working-class family in Footscray, Whitten debuted for the Bulldogs in 1951, quickly becoming one of the league's best key position players, either at centre half-forward or centre half-back.

Whitten made his senior VFL debut in Round 1 of the 1951 VFL season against at Punt Road Oval and joined a special group of players who scored a goal with his first kick.

During the match, Don "Mopsy" Fraser, a notoriously volatile defender for Richmond, knocked Whitten out late in the third quarter.

Whitten later said that Fraser did him a favour that day, hardening his attitude and making him realise that League football was a no-nonsense game that only the toughest could succeed at.

In Round 5 against at the Western Oval, Whitten kicked two goals in a 28-point win, but he suffered a serious injury to his left ankle.

Although his injury responded quickly to treatment, Whitten would not play again until Round 8 against.

In August, Whitten was called up for National Service and sent to Puckapunyal in central Victoria.

When Footscray qualified for the finals, club officials tried to obtain special leave for Whitten to play in the First Semi-Final against.

The Army refused to grant permission, but a last-minute intervention by the Prime Minister Robert Menzies allowed Whitten to return to Melbourne for the match.

Unfortunately, Footscray lost a hard-fought game by eight points.

In 1954 he won his first of five club best and fairest awards and earned a spot in the All-Australian team, the same year that Footscray won its first VFL/AFL premiership.

After finally breaking their finals hoodoo the previous year, Footscray looked primed and ready to challenge for the VFL Premiership in 1954.

He was a key member of Footscray's 1954 VFL Premiership victory, the club's only premiership until 2016.

After their magnificent Grand Final victory, many expected Footscray to become a powerhouse of Victorian football.

However, the club faded away even though Whitten continued to excel.

With superb all-round skills, Whitten had the extraordinary talent of being able to kick equally well with his right and left foot.

Appointed as captain-coach in 1957, he developed a successful but controversial game plan centred around the since-outlawed flick pass, and in 1961 led the club to its second grand final appearance, losing to Hawthorn.

On one occasion, playing against Richmond at Footscray, in the mid-1960s, he broke out of the ruck, to the left, from a centre bounce, ran two paces to balance himself, and kicked a left-foot torpedo kick for a goal.

The ball was returned to the centre, bounced, and Whitten burst out of the pack, to the right, ran three paces and kicked a right-foot torpedo kick for a goal.

One of the best exponents of the "flick pass", which was eventually banned, Whitten was one of few football players to have the ability to play any position on the field.

Over the course of his playing career, Whitten experienced conflict with the Footscray committee, none more dramatic than at the end of the 1966 VFL season, when he came close to joining after he was replaced as coach.

When Footscray refused the clearance, Whitten threatened to retire, and the matter was only resolved when former teammate Jack Collins took over as club president and convinced Whitten to return and play under his former coach Charlie Sutton.

In 1967, he broke Arthur Olliver's club record of 271 senior games, and retired from playing after establishing a league record of 321 games in 1970.

Whitten was also passionate about interstate football and made 29 appearances for Victoria, and was a leading promoter of State of Origin along with his South Australian sparring partner and friend Neil "Knuckles" Kerley.

After retiring, Whitten became a popular football panellist and commentator.

With the demands of coaching and playing beginning to take a toll on his ageing body, Whitten was allowed by the Footscray committee to play four games in 1970 to break Dick Reynolds' long-standing VFL record of 320 games before he retired as a player.

In Whitten's last game as a player (and captain-coach), he gave a famous speech at three-quarter time at Western Oval to inspire his troops; the Round 5 game against Hawthorn in 1970 would see Footscray clinch the win by 3 points.

He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and elevated to Legend status in 1995.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1991, and in 1995, frail and in the final stages of the disease, received a farewell lap of honour during a State of Origin match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, later ranked as football's most unforgettable moment.

Football writers Russell Holmesby and Jim Main described Whitten as a "prodigious kick, a flawless mark" and as having unequalled "ground and hand skills".

Nicknamed "Mr. Football", he was a folk hero in Melbourne's working class western suburbs, admired not only for his footballing abilities, but his showmanship and larrikin streak.

His enthusiasm for State of Origin is marked by the E. J. Whitten Legends Game, a charity match held annually since 1995.

Whitten grew up in the western suburbs of Braybrook and Footscray in Melbourne.

As a youth, Whitten played for Braybrook on Saturdays and Collingwood Amateurs on Sundays; he was urged by the Collingwood Amateurs coach Charlie Utting (a former Collingwood VFL star) to try out for the Collingwood team but was told later to come back in a few years after building up body strength.

Within 12 months he was playing for Footscray, the team he had always supported.

During the AFL's Centenary Year celebrations in 1996, he was one of twelve inaugural Legends inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, and was voted captain and centre half-back in the AFL's Team of the Century.

Western Oval, Footscray's home ground, was renamed Whitten Oval in his honour.