Norman Aubrey Beckton (4 May 1898 – 8 September 1984) 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

Essendon Essendon may refer to: Australia *Essendon, Victoria **Essendon railway station **Essendon Airport *Essendon Football Club, in the Australian Football League *Electoral district of Essendon *Electoral district of Essendon and Flemington United Kin ...

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 1920s. Born in Brunswick, Beckton enlisted aged 18 in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 18 July 1916, and served as a

sapper A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...

with the 3rd Division Signal Corps. The 3rd Division Signal Corps served on the Western Front until the end of the War, and Beckton returned to Australia on 25 March 1919.

Football

A ruckman, Beckton was recruited from

Victorian Football Association 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 ...

(VFA) club Essendon Association, and made his senior VFL debut for Essendon in Round 1 of the 1921 season, against

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 ...

at the

East Melbourne Cricket Ground The East Melbourne Cricket Ground was a grass oval sports venue located at the southwest corner of Jolimont Road and Jolimont Parade (now known as Wellington Parade South) in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Santo Caruso, Marc Fiddian and Jim ...

, kicking two goals. Beckton played in the Essendon premierships of

1923 In Greece, this year contained only 352 days as 13 days was skipped to achieve the calendrical switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar. It happened there that Wednesday, 15 February ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Thursday, 1 March ' ...

and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

, won Essendon's

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 ...

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...

and captained Essendon in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

and

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

. He also represented

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

during his career. In the famous photo of

Roy Cazaly Roy Cazaly (13 January 1893 – 10 October 1963) was an Australian rules footballer who played for South Melbourne and St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also represented Victoria and Tasmania in interstate football and, af ...

taking a one-handed mark, Beckton is the opposition player seen from behind. Seeing the mark, Beckton asked Cazaly "How the fuck did you do that?" Following the end of his VFL career, Beckton captain-coached

Sandringham Sandringham can refer to: Places Australia * Sandringham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Sandringham, Queensland, a rural locality * Sandringham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne **Sandringham railway line **Sandringham railway station * ...

in the VFA, playing 74 games and kicking 59 goals before his retirement at the end of 1934.

Notes

References

Australia's Biggest Footballer: Who can claim the distinction?: Beckton -- The Man and His Physique, ''The Sporting Globe'', (Wednesday, 2 June 1926), p.1.
* Maplestone, M. (1996), ''Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996'', Essendon Football Club: Melbourne. * Stoward, J. (2002) ''Australian Rules Football in Tasmania'', self-published: Hobart. .

External links

*
Norm Beckton
at ''Boyles Football Photos''.
Profile at Essendonfc.com
1898 births 1984 deaths Australian rules footballers from Melbourne Australian Rules footballers: place kick exponents Essendon Football Club players Essendon Football Club premiership players Sandringham Football Club players Sandringham Football Club coaches Essendon Association Football Club players Crichton Medal winners Australian military personnel of World War I VFL/AFL premiership players People from Brunswick, Victoria Military personnel from Melbourne {{AFL-bio-1898-stub