James Joseph Taylor (6 January 1932 – 18 April 2000) 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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
er who played with
South Melbourne
South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at the 2021 ...
in the
Victorian Football League
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...
(VFL) during the 1950s.
Junior career
Athletics
He was an outstanding schoolboy athlete, and displayed great talent both a sprinter and as a high-jumper whilst at
Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School is a private, co-educational, Anglican, International Baccalaureate, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as a boys' school, Caulfield Grammar began admitting girls exactly ...
.
At the 1947
Associated Grammar Schools Combined Athletics Meeting, Taylor won both the under-16 high-jump and the open high-jump — his winning jump in each event was — and, according to Wilkinson (1997, p. 151), he was part of the winning team in the under-16 4x220 yard relay.
At the 1948 A.G.S. Combined Sports he won the open high-jump, setting a new record of , and won the open 100 yards (in 10.7 secs), which was an extraordinary feat, given that he had badly strained his ankle a week earlier, and had been unable to train at all for the five days prior to the competition. He also competed in the long-jump.
At 15 he had already cleared using a
"scissors jump" technique. His best-ever jump was . He eventually gave up high jumping because he became too heavy; and, in particular, because no up-to-date high jump coaching was available to him.
Football
He played in Caulfield Grammar's First XVIII; and, in 1949, he was recruited from the
V.A.F.A. team
Caulfield Grammarians.
Senior career
Promoted from the Third XVIII, and then the Second XVIII, Taylor played his first senior match for South Melbourne, at 17, on 16 July 1949 (
round 13
''Round 13'' is the thirteenth studio album by the Swiss hard rock band Krokus, and the only album to feature Welsh vocalist Carl Sentance, formerly of Persian Risk and the Geezer Butler Band. It includes a cover of "Heya" by J. J. Light (a.k. ...
) against
St Kilda at the St
Junction Oval
Junction Oval (also known as the St Kilda Cricket Ground, or the CitiPower Centre due to sponsorship reasons) is a historic sports ground in the suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The oval's location near the St Kilda Jun ...
. Playing as a
forward 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 ...
and in the second ruck, he kicked one goal and was one of South Melbourne's best players.
He played as both a defender (mainly centre-half back) and ruckman for South Melbourne, and was a regular for both Victoria and South Melbourne during the next decade.
He played 81 senior games with South Melbourne between 1949 and 1954.
In 1955, aged 23, he moved to
Norwood in the
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's sports governing body, governing body for the sport.
...
. He played 13
S.A.F.L. games for Norwood, including the Grand Final, in which he was the best player for the losing team. He played four Interstate matches for South Australia in 1955.
He then returned to South Melbourne and played another 72 senior VFL matches from 1956 to 1961.
Taylor played in the first ruck in his first return match (round 1, 1956) against Geelong at the Lake Oval. The match against Geelong was a very low standard scrappy affair. Geelong won 11.11 (77) to 7.8 (50), and Taylor was one of South Melbourne's best players (on one occasion he took a spectacular diving one-handed mark, with his left hand). Taylor came off the ground after the match only to be told that his father, who had served as vice-president of the South Melbourne Football Club from 1952 to 1954, had died in the committee reserve whilst the match was in progress, and that his mother had requested that he not be told until after the match was over.
He represented Victoria at interstate football 13 occasions.
In 1973 he was chairman of selectors at South Melbourne.
Beames, P., "South upset by umpiring", ''The Age'', (Monday, 27 August 1973), p.26.
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Awards
He was South Melbourne's Best and Fairest player in 1953 and 1957.
In 1957 he was fourth in the Brownlow Medal
The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as Charlie), is awarded to the best and fairest player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by the f ...
, and in 1961, his final VFL season, he finished equal fifth, in a year he played only 12 games
See also
* List of Caulfield Grammar School people
Caulfield Grammar School and Malvern Memorial Grammar School (amalgamated with Caulfield in 1961), has had many notable students and staff. Alumni of the school are known as "Caulfield Grammarians" and are supported by the Caulfield Grammarians ...
Footnotes
References
*
External links
*
*
AFL Player Statistics (Round by Round): South Melbourne Football Club 1949
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Jim
1932 births
Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state)
Sydney Swans players
Bob Skilton Medal winners
People educated at Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammarians Football Club players
Norwood Football Club players
2000 deaths
20th-century Australian sportsmen