Who is the best AFL footy ever player?

Answer 1

Denis Towers (Victoria); and Stephen Menzies (Tasmania)

AFL football has gone through many different changes and fashions over its quite long history. Among those, in many of its past decades, especially during the long period of kick-to-position and high mark football - that is, for at least the 70 years prior to about 1980, the impromptu, competitive, end-to-end football game was very keenly entered into by enthusiastic young footballers at any moment of the day - on daily basis.

In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that it was far more popular as a competitive game than the real AFL game itself - 'Aussie rules football'. Every possible opportunity or 'excuse' was resorted to by young people in particular, to engage this activity. So popular was it in fact, that every possible moment available was resorted to this end - just to 'have a kick' - the end-to-end game.

The end to end game usually comprised 2 packs, where people competed, as individuals, for possession of a ball having been kicked in the group's direction from someone in the other pack- the players in each pack impartially kicking the ball back and forth between the 2 groups, each competitor applying the same rules in competing for the ball as in the formal AFL Aussie Rules football game itself. The significant difference being that once the possession of the ball was won, the person winning the ball was then free to kick it without interference to the pack at the other end.

So, the sole point of the activity for each individual was to win the ball for himself. His reward? ... that he 'got' to kick the football unimpeded to the group at the other end!

Despite its informal, impromptu nature, because of its ready accessibility, and therefore an almost daily engagement by the keen, the game also had its own sensational, outstanding and brilliant exponents.

As an experienced physical educator working in many varied organizations, both - professionally and non-professionally and living through this post-War period, I gained experience in nearly every state in Australia and had opportunity to engage and gauge many of the very best of players.

The best exponent I ever witnessed of end-to-end or kick-to-kick Australian footy was Denis Towers, of Melbourne Victoria. He was virtually unbeatable. Denis Towers' feats became the stuff of legend in his day wherever he went, even interstate, even from a young age. He was a true champion. He projected an almost miraculous style of play, regularly achieving what seemed 'impossible' - coming from apparently impossible positions on the ball. Also being tireless and comparatively tall, he could virtually do it all - whether in the air or on the ground, he was equally 'at home'. So dominant was he, in fact that virtually all other players competing at his end would gradually gravitate to the other end in order to get a kick! ... so that there would be something like 15 to 20 players at one end, all competing with one another for the ball, and virtually only Denis Towers at the other end! Even on occasions where two balls were introduced into the fray, he was still able to monopolize both balls.

Another popular and tirelessly brilliant exponent of this type of football was Stephen Menzies, from Tasmania. Though shorter than Towers, he was also, nevertheless, able to dominate play with a spirit of fearlessness, total involvement, fitness and commitment to the activity.

Coupled with intelligent approach to the ball and intelligent use of body, both of these players exhibited this same type of spirited, bodily commitment and total involvement of soul which allowed them absolute domination of the game in their respective times and places.