Charlie Sutton (3 April 1924 – 5 June 2012) was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who represented in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Although he served the club for many years as coach and committee man, he is perhaps best known for captaining the Bulldogs to their first VFL premiership in

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

. Recruited from Spotswood, Sutton was a tough, nuggety footballer who embodied the club's fighting spirit. He played as a rover and half forward, but it was as a

back pocket In the sport of Australian rules football, each of the eighteen players in a team is assigned to a particular named position on the field of play. These positions describe both the player's main role and by implication their location on the gro ...

player that he made his name. In 1950, he finished equal third in the Brownlow Medal count and won the Con Weickhardt Trophy (as it was then known) as the Bulldogs' best and fairest player that season. He was captain-coach of the team from

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

. After his retirement as a player, Sutton coached Footscray from

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...

until 9 July

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...

, when he was unceremoniously dismissed and replaced by Ted Whitten. Sutton later returned to coach Footscray in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

(replacing Ted Whitten) and

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

(after which he resigned having decided that the ever-increasing demands of coaching clashed far too much with his business of running a hotel at Yarraville). In

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

Sutton took over the position of President of the Footscray Football Club when

Dick Collinson Richard John Collinson (28 May 1923 – 22 September 2013) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Footscray in the Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Au ...

resigned. He has the Western Bulldogs

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

award, the Charles Sutton Medal, named in his honour. In

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

Sutton was inducted into the

Australian Football Hall of Fame The Australian Football Hall of Fame was established in 1996, the Centenary year of the Australian Football League, to help recognise the contributions made to the sport of Australian rules football by players, umpires, media personalities, coa ...

. Sutton died in 2012 at the age of 88.

References

Bibliography

* Ross, J. (ed), ''100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported'', Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. * Ross, J. (ed), ''The Australian Football Hall of Fame'', HarperCollinsPublishers, (Pymble), 1999.

External links

* * * Western Bulldogs players Western Bulldogs Premiership players Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Western Bulldogs coaches Western Bulldogs Premiership coaches Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees Charles Sutton Medal winners Spotswood Football Club players 1924 births 2012 deaths One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership coaches {{AFL-bio-1920s-stub