How Many Games Did George Coulthard Play?

It’s a pity that more work hasn’t been done to locate how many games were played by nineteenth century footballers. It seems that the task has been written off, and unfortunately, this has led to the virtual blackout of any information about how many games champions like Albert Thurgood, George Coulthard and Billy Hannaysee played. The task is incredibly difficult – for starters, one has to decide which games to count. Up to 1882 one can safely count all matches. This includes games against other senior clubs, junior and regional clubs, and inter-colonial clubs. However, the process gets complicated after that. In 1883-1884 the VFA began to admit enough teams to have a viable competition between senior clubs alone. Therefore, games against junior teams were considered less significant. And, from 1885-1888 inter-colonial games are less important for premiership contests. During this time however games against Ballarat clubs are usually considered part of the VFA premiership season. From 1889-1896 things get a bit easier as only games between senior clubs are counted towards the premiership so only those games should be counted as part of a players’ career.

That’s the first part of the difficulty. Next, how does one secure reliable reports about who played when? In the early days you often get selected teams that are published in Saturday morning editions like The Age, but this does not guarantee that the selected 20 was indeed the starting 20. The only way to check this is to look at the match reports and add up the names, making sure to cross reference these because occasionally one ends up having 21 players reported! The process can also be complicated when some players use pseudonyms! Fortunately, from 1889 The Melbourne Herald began to publish starting 20s, but not on every occasion, and one needs the 6th edition for the starting 20s (and not all 6th editions are available on microfilm). Also, occasionally the Sportsman (owned by the Herald) would also publish starting 20s. The Sporting Standard sometimes published starting 2os as did a Geelong newspaper in the late 1880s. I have worked through these reports and double-checked them against names actually mentioned in match reports and feel I have a pretty comprehensive record for the period 1889-1896. Before this time I have been working through all newspaper match reports in an attempt to accumulate the best record possible. Sometimes one gets lucky; i.e. a complete games list for Geelong in 1888, but this is rare.

Anyway, without boring you with additional details about reading newspaper account for injuries and players gathered from the crowd for some games I have come up with some totals for great players. Thurgood for instance played 57 games in the VFA for Essendon. Before 1889 things are very tough and one can only get close to an actual figure. In the case of Carlton champion George Coulthard the figures are as follows:

Carlton Imperial

1874 – Unknown (6-10?)

Carlton

1874 – 1-2

1876 – 17-20

1877 – 13-15

1878 – 24

1879 – 19-20

1880 – 22

1881 – 23-24

1882 – 16

Total: 135-143 (Games with Carlton)

Over time I am hoping to locate one or two more games, but I will never find the exact amount. Despite this, it is still very useful to find an approximate number of games that is backed up by research rather than relying on myths about games played by champions in the past (i.e. H.C.A. Harrison’s laughable 300 game figure).