Ray Smith (Australian footballer)

Last updated

Ray Smith
Personal information
Full name Raymond Kehm Smith
Date of birth (1948-09-23) 23 September 1948 (age 75)
Original team(s) Western Districts
Height 183 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight 81 kg (179 lb)
Playing career1
YearsClubGames (Goals)
1971–1975 Essendon 77 (1)
1975–1976 Melbourne 27 (1)
Total104 (2)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1976.
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Raymond Kehm "Ray" Smith (born 23 September 1948) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Essendon and Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL) during the 1970s. He also played professional rugby league for Fortitude Valley in 1970 and was a part of their premiership-winning team.

Contents

Junior football

Smith began playing junior Australian rules football for Sherwood until the age of 14. He then commenced playing senior football for the Western Districts in the QANFL as a 15-year-old while also playing schoolboys rugby union for Brisbane Grammar School in the position of centre. He continued to play both sports throughout his schooling and earned representative honours for the under-19 Queensland rugby union team as well as the Queensland Australian rules football state team.

Australian National Football Council rules at the time stated that New South Wales and Queensland were considered developmental states and would not allow players to switch into the VFL in fear of diminishing the local talent pool. Smith instead decided to sign for the Fortitude Valley Diehards professional rugby league team in the Brisbane Rugby League after impressing in a touch football game. [1]

Rugby league career

In 1970, Smith began playing rugby league for the Fortitude Valley Diehards in the Brisbane Rugby League. He played the position of centre for the Diehards and was chosen to represent Brisbane in the 1970 Bulimba Cup. He was a part of the Fortitude Valley side that defeated the Northern Suburbs 13–11 in extra time to claim the 1970 BRL premiership. [2] Smith also finished equal first in the 1970 Brisbane Player of the Year award but lost the award on countback. He was seen as a good chance to be chosen for the Australian national rugby league team in 1971 but sent shock waves through rugby league circles when it was announced that he had signed to play for VFL club Essendon in the 1971 season.

VFL career

He moved to Victoria in 1971 and joined Essendon, with whom he would spend five seasons. [3] A half back flanker, Smith played 91 consecutive games in the period from 1972 to 1976. [3] After playing in the first twelve rounds of the 1975 VFL season for Essendon, he would switch clubs during the week and play the remaining ten rounds at Melbourne. [3] In 1976, when Melbourne defeated Footscray at Western Oval, Smith became the first footballer from Queensland to play 100 VFL games.

Smith finished his career in the Victorian Football Association, where he captain-coached Camberwell in 1977 and 1978. He then played with Brunswick for the season and was a member of their 1980 premiership team. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1898 VFL season</span> Second season of the Victorian Football League (VFL)

The 1898 VFL season was the second season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured eight clubs, ran from 14 May until 24 September, and comprised a 14-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring all eight clubs.

The 1970 VFL season was the 74th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1908 VFL season</span> Twelfth season of the Victorian Football League (VFL)

The 1908 VFL season was the twelfth season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian rules football in Queensland</span> First official football code played in 1866

Australian rules football in Queensland was the first official football code played in 1866. The Colony of Queensland was the second after Victoria to adopt Australian rules football, just days after the rules were widely published. For two decades it was the most popular football code, however a strong desire for representative football success saw Queenslanders favour British football variants for more than a century. As a result, Queensland is one of the two states to the east of the Australian cultural divide described as the Barassi Line. 120 years later in 1986 Queensland was the first state awarded a licence to have a club, the Brisbane Bears, in the national (AFL) competition, also its first privately owned club. However the Gold Coast based Bears had a detrimental effect until the 1993 redevelopment of the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba). In contrast the Bears transformation into a Brisbane and traditional membership based club resulted in enormous growth, and a tripling of average AFL attendances by 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fortitude Valley Diehards</span> Australian semi-pro rugby league club, based in Brisbane, QLD

The Fortitude Valley Diehards, often referred to simply as Valleys, are an Australian semi-professional rugby league football club based in the Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley.

Barry Davis is a former Australian rules footballer who played in the Victorian Football League (VFL) with Essendon and North Melbourne, before coaching his original team between 1978 and 1980. He is a 3time premiership player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian rules football in Victoria</span>

Australian rules football in Victoria is the most watched and second most participated code of football. Australian rules football originated in Melbourne in the late 1850s and grew quickly to dominate the sport, which it continues to. Victoria has more than double the number of players of any other state in Australia accounting for approximately 42% of all Australian players in 2023 and continues to grow strongly. Only Soccer in Victoria has more football participants, though the code's growth in Victoria has made up much ground lost to that code over previous decades such that they have now a similar number of players. The sport is governed by AFL Victoria based in Melbourne. The national governing body, the AFL Commission is also based in Melbourne.

The 1996 AFL season was the 100th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixteen clubs and ran from 29 March until 28 September. It comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs, as well as several celebrations of the league's centenary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steele Retchless</span> US international rugby league footballer

Steele Retchless is a former United States international rugby league footballer who played as a second-row and prop forward in the 1990s, and 2000s. He played for the Brisbane Broncos and the South Queensland Crushers in the ARL Premiership and the London Broncos in the European Super League. He also played for the Ipswich Jets and Easts Tigers in the Queensland Cup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1915 VFL season</span> 19th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL)

The 1915 VFL season was the 19th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

The 1995 AFL season was the 99th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989.

The 1989 VFL season was the 93rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition and administrative body in Victoria and, by reason of it featuring clubs from New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, the de facto highest level senior competition in Australia. The season featured fourteen clubs, ran from 31 March until 30 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

The 1987 VFL season was the 91st season of the Victorian Football League (VFL). The season ran from 27 March until 26 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1923 VFL season</span> 27th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL)

The 1923 VFL season was the 27th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured nine clubs, ran from 5 May until 20 October, and comprised a 16-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The 1952 VFL season was the 56th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 19 April until 27 September, and comprised a 19-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The 1973 VFL season was the 77th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 7 April until 29 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

The Australian rugby league premiers are the winners of the top grade competition in Australian rugby league, which is currently the National Rugby League. From 1908 until 1995, when the ARL Premiership was formed, there were two premiers, one each from Sydney and Brisbane. This occurred again in 1997 during the Super League war.

The AFL Australian Football League is the top professional Australian rules football league in the world. The league consists of eighteen teams: nine based in the city of Melbourne, one from regional Victoria, and eight based in other Australian states. The reason for this unbalanced geographic distribution lies in the history of the league, which was based solely within Victoria from the time it was established in 1897, until the time the league expanded through the addition of clubs from interstate to the existing teams starting in the 1980s; until this expansion, the league was known as the VFL (Victorian Football League).

In Australian rules football, zoning refers to a system whereby a given area, either region or lower-level football league, is reserved exclusively for one club.

Neville John Miller is a former Australian rules footballer who played with South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

References

  1. ↑ "Ray Smith says Israel Folau faces uphill battle as he didn't start in AFL". NEWS.com.au. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  2. ↑ "Ray Smith - Player Bio". Australian Football. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 AFL Tables: Ray Smith
  4. ↑ "Smith, Raymond K". Essendon Football Club official website. Archived from the original on 26 March 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.