John Gerovich (born John Mateo Gerecivich, 23 June 1938) 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 with South Fremantle in the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL - now WAFL) during the 1950s and 1960s.

Playing career

Gerovich was a key-position forward, best known for high-flying marks and his prolific goalkicking. One famous mark, which he took in the 1956 WANFL preliminary final over East Fremantle's Ray French, is commemorated in a statue at Fremantle Oval by local sculptor Robert Hitchcock. The statue was based on an iconic photograph of the mark, taken by ''

The West Australian ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, ''The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuousl ...

'' photographer Maurie Hammond and published on Wednesday, 10 October 1956. The mark is also depicted in Jamie Cooper's painting ''the Game That Made Australia'', commissioned by the AFL in 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sport. On three occasions he was the WAFL's top goalkicker: in 1956 with 74 goals, in 1960 with 101 goals, and 1961 with 74 goals again. He also topped South Fremantle's goal-kicking tally eight times. When he retired after the 1969 season he had kicked a total of 744 goals for South Fremantle.

State football

Over the course of his career, he regularly represented

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 ...

at interstate football and kicked 56 goals from his 18 representative games. Gerovich, of Croatian heritage, was an

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...

at the 1956 Perth Carnival and played in the side which won the 1961 Brisbane Carnival.

Honours

In 2004 he was one of the inaugural inductees into the West Australian Football Hall of Fame. Gerovich is also a member of the

Fremantle Football Hall of Legends The Fremantle Football Hall of Legends was inaugurated by the Fremantle Football Club in 1995, in recognition of the new Australian Football League team's links with its home city's football heritage. The inductees are nominated by the two clubs ...

and a centre half-forward in the Fremantle Team of Legends, which was established in 2007. The trophy for each season's leading goalkicker at South Fremantle is named after him.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerovich, John 1938 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Western Australia South Fremantle Football Club players All-Australians (1953–1988) West Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees Australian people of Croatian descent