Earl George Spalding (born 11 March 1965 in South Perth) is a former

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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er who played for

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and Carlton in the Victorian Football League/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL), as well as for Perth and East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League. He is known as "the Duke" or "Snake" because of his unusual running style, and also the "golf ball" in reference to his surname. Spalding grew up in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Western Australia, where he attended Wesley College. His father, George Spalding, was a well-known West Australian National Football League (WANFL) player with the

Perth Football Club The Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club based in Lathlain, Western Australia, Lathlain, Western Australia, currently playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). R ...

. After leaving school, Spalding played for 63 games for Perth between 1983 and 1986, reaching the preliminary final in 1986. He also played four games of

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

as a fast bowler, during the 1984/85 season, taking 12 wickets at an average of 25.66. He started his VFL/AFL career with Melbourne and was there from 1987 to 1991, playing 109 games. The following season he signed with Carlton and played all 22 games for the year. He played in a premiership with Carlton in 1995, a year in which he played all 25 games and brought up his 250th game of elite Australian rules football, and in 1996 played his 200th game in the VFL/AFL. He played his last senior AFL game in 1997 before returning to Western Australia to play for

East Fremantle East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that eas ...

alongside his brother Scott, who also played one game for Carlton in 1993. Earl played 32 games over the next two seasons, including their 1998 WAFL Premiership winning team, and retired at the end of the 1999 season, having played 306 games across the WAFL and VFL/AFL. Spalding was the reserves and assistant coach at East Fremantle in 2000 before becoming the league coach in 2001. He resigned from the position at the end of the 2002 season, and since then has working with the

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers or colloquially Freo, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represen ...

as an assistant coach. Spalding was appointed senior coach of the Perth Demons Football Club in 2015. With an extremely young list and a deliberate policy not to recruit extensively so that the young players could develop, Perth won only two games in 2015. In 2016, the team has won six of its first 14 games, including a victory over top team Subiaco.

Statistics

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1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

, , 35 , , 24 , , 6 , , 5 , , 188 , , 97 , , 285 , , 75 , , 21 , , 35 , , 0.3 , , 0.2 , , 7.8 , , 4.0 , , 11.9 , , 3.1 , , 0.9 , , 1.5 , , 5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 9 , , 22 , , 161 , , 72 , , 233 , , 71 , , 24 , , 8 , , 0.4 , , 1.0 , , 7.3 , , 3.3 , , 10.6 , , 3.2 , , 1.1 , , 0.4 , , 1 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

, , 5 , , 19 , , 19 , , 22 , , 190 , , 97 , , 287 , , 103 , , 16 , , 23 , , 1.0 , , 1.2 , , 10.0 , , 5.1 , , 15.1 , , 5.4 , , 0.8 , , 1.2 , , 8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 15 , , 9 , , 186 , , 108 , , 294 , , 85 , , 24 , , 22 , , 0.7 , , 0.4 , , 8.5 , , 4.9 , , 13.4 , , 3.9 , , 1.1 , , 1.0 , , 3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 14 , , 10 , , 199 , , 136 , , 335 , , 111 , , 20 , , 20 , , 0.6 , , 0.5 , , 9.0 , , 6.2 , , 15.2 , , 5.0 , , 0.9 , , 0.9 , , 0 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, , 11 , , 22 , , 19 , , 23 , , 206 , , 120 , , 326 , , 95 , , 21 , , 21 , , 0.9 , , 1.0 , , 9.4 , , 5.5 , , 14.8 , , 4.3 , , 1.0 , , 1.0 , , 6 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

, , 11 , , 21 , , 23 , , 22 , , 170 , , 110 , , 280 , , 88 , , 16 , , 12 , , 1.1 , , 1.0 , , 8.1 , , 5.2 , , 13.3 , , 4.2 , , 0.8 , , 0.6 , , 2 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

, , 11 , , 18 , , 12 , , 17 , , 123 , , 121 , , 244 , , 79 , , 25 , , 14 , , 0.7 , , 0.9 , , 6.8 , , 6.7 , , 13.6 , , 4.4 , , 1.4 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" , style="text-align:center;background:#afe6ba;",

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

† , , 11 , , 25 , , 34 , , 22 , , 213 , , 164 , , 377 , , 127 , , 35 , , 50 , , 1.4 , , 0.9 , , 8.5 , , 6.6 , , 15.1 , , 5.1 , , 1.4 , , 2.0 , , 8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, , 11 , , 12 , , 18 , , 10 , , 85 , , 50 , , 135 , , 37 , , 26 , , 10 , , 1.5 , , 0.8 , , 7.1 , , 4.2 , , 11.3 , , 3.1 , , 2.2 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

, , 11 , , 4 , , 0 , , 1 , , 26 , , 13 , , 39 , , 14 , , 5 , , 3 , , 0.0 , , 0.3 , , 6.5 , , 3.3 , , 9.8 , , 3.5 , , 1.3 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 211 ! 169 ! 163 ! 1747 ! 1088 ! 2835 ! 885 ! 233 ! 218 ! 0.8 ! 0.8 ! 8.3 ! 5.2 ! 13.4 ! 4.2 ! 1.1 ! 1.0 ! 33

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spalding, Earl 1965 births Living people Melbourne Football Club players Carlton Football Club players Carlton Football Club premiership players East Fremantle Football Club players East Fremantle Football Club coaches Perth Football Club players Western Australian State of Origin players Western Australia cricketers Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Australian cricketers People educated at Wesley College, Perth Australian rules footballers from Perth, Western Australia VFL/AFL premiership players 20th-century Australian sportsmen