Allan E Jeans
A strongly built footballer he played the first game in the centre and the last in the ruck.
1955-59 77 games 26 goals. (b: 21 Sep 1933 180 cms 82.5 kgs). Jeans had trained with Carlton in 1952 and he first caught St Kilda's eye at Tocumwal and then Finley. A strongly built footballer he impressed no less a critic than Alf Brown in his first season - he played the first game in the centre and the last in the ruck. He was never allowed to settle down but showed plenty of ability. He was vice-captain in 1959 and his bustling play earned a state guernsey against Tasmania in the same year. A chest injury prevented him playing a game early in 1960 and he retired mid year at the age of only 26. St Kilda used him as reserves coach in the latter part of the year. It was a humble start to a career that would stamp his mark on VFL football. He was appointed senior coach for 1961 - and was believed to be the youngest ever non-playing appointment in VFL history. It was no easy transition as he was coaching players who had been his teammates only months earlier but he guided the Saints to their first finals series for 22 years. Within five years he carved a niche by bringing home its first ever flag. He coached the side to grand finals in 1965 and 1971 and was at the helm when Victoria won the 1972 Carnival. After 16 seasons he drew the curtains on his St Kilda coaching career saying: A coach gets tired of it. It's very demanding. He kept involved with the game over the next few years in a junior development role at St Kilda and as New South Wales state coach before being appointed coach of Hawthorn in 1980. He entered a club seething with discontent. The players pulled a strike on his first night as coach captain Don Scott walked out over a contract dispute and when he came back he wouldn't talk to anybody. In this worst possible environment Jeans won the confidence of everyone at the club. He had not lost the magical touch and under his guiding hand Hawthorn was back in the finals in 1982 and bolted away from Essendon to record a huge premiership win in 1983. The Hawks were runners-up in 1984 and 1985 won another flag in 1986 and were runners-up in 1987. Jeans suffered a brain haemorrage that almost killed him after the 1987 season and he stood aside from coaching for 12 months. He resumed in 1989. Never one for great media contact his homespun homilies were legendary. Perhaps the most famous was his comment on coaching teams. They're like sausages. You can boil them grill them or curry them but ultimately they're still sausages. At the end of 1990 he retired from the Hawthorn coaching post but within a year was back into coaching this time at Richmond where he coached for the 1992 season only.
Player profile © The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers by Russell Holmesby and Jim Main
Queen's Birthday 1965
Rod Martin
Saints Hall of Fame memorable moments
The upcoming holiday has reminded me of a memorable holiday Monday in 1965. The Saints were playing Melbourne, a team that was on top of the ladder, having a win-loss ratio of 8-0 for the season. At the start of the game, Allan Jeans pulled a tactical surprise by moving full-back Verdun Howell to full-forward, and inserting a full-forward, the little known Bob Murray, in his place.
In the first quarter, the move appeared to be disastrous. Melbourne full-forward John Lord seemed to be too big and powerful for the slightly built Murray, and gave Melbourne a handy lead. Jeans must have said something at quarter-time, however, for the whole scenario changed after that. Murray forced his way to the front in tussles and eclipsed Lord for the rest of the day. A champion full-back was born! The rest of the team rose to the occasion and Melbourne scarcely had a look-in for the remainder of the game. The Saints tripled the Demons' score, with names such as Ditterich, Cooper, Baldock, Stewart, Morrow and Howell paving the way to a grand final appearance at the end of the season.
Yes, it was very memorable, and satisfying as well, given that I watched it while seated between two increasingly shell-shocked Demons supporters!
Rod Martin
Melbourne v St Kilda (MCG June 1965)
Ray Wasserman
Sainters Say
Reading Graham Stevens' item on this match and Ian Cooper's mark brought back some wonderful memories. Despite being at our one and only Premiership win against Collingwood in 1966, the game against Melbourne in 1965 is the one I remember most fondly, because it is one that almost no-one thought we could win and we proved them all wrong.
As Mr Stevens said, Melbourne were 1964 premiers, sitting on top of the ladder in 1965 without a defeat for the season. Perhaps the alarm bells should have been ringing for them, because although they had won their first 7 games straight, they were all by surprisingly small margins. (Somebody please correct me, but I seem to recall that although we were having a pretty good season, we had lost 2 games).
Other than current and past St Kilda players who either wrote for the press or commentated, the media pundits didn't give us a prayer against the undefeated Demons on their own home ground. That year, there was a new weekly footy magazine which was written by 12 supporters (there were 12 teams in those days) from the point of view of their own clubs; they wrote 2 articles each, one a review of the previous game and the other a preview of the next week's game. Nearly all of them wrote pretty balanced and objective pieces, except for the St Kilda guy - he was a real one-eyed wonder. Our wins were all crushing victories and our losses were down to a combination of unfair play by the opposition, poor umpiring and probably Venus in conjunction with Scorpio. And of course, there was no way the Saints could lose the following week.... until this game. Finally, our Saint supremacist had to grudgingly admit we weren't likely to win this one. That meant that the Saints had to be in trouble.
However, it was a day for the weird and definitely the wonderful. Bob Murray, who had looked to be a promising full forward, had been out injured for all of 1964. He returned for this game and I did a double take when I saw him go down to full back and our longstanding champion full back, Verdun Howell go to full forward. I thought I'd got mixed up as to which end we were kicking. It was, in fact, a stroke of inspiration by our coach, Alan Jeans. Verdun, always short for a full back, relied on speed and a prodigious leap. In truth, by that time, neither pace nor jump was what it had been in his heyday and he had not been performing all that well at full back. It was a bold move on Jeans' part, but the results were devastating: Bob Murray became the greatest full back of his generation, and Verdun, of whom the same had been said, gained a new lease of life and an extension of his career up forward (he kicked 5 goals that day and 9 against a hapless Hawthorn the following week).
The Saints got off to a real flier in a high scoring 1st quarter, and I kept thinking the Demons had to come back at us at some stage. Very simply, they didn't because we didn't let them. We made all the running and I watched in disbelief as we just kept getting further ahead of them. As Mr Stevens pointed out, we doubled their score and won by 60 points, and Melbourne didn't win another game that season.
And of course, there was that mark by Ian Cooper off the boot of Bob Murray. It was right underneath where I was sitting and it seemed physically impossible to get up to that height. It was replayed on TV for weeks. The pundits were calling it the greatest mark ever in football. Having seen some of the old pictures of Bob Pratt, Coleman and so on, the statement may have been arguable, but not by much - it certainly would have looked well-placed in the same album of all time great marks.
Much later, in an interview, Coops said that Bob Murray told him he had passed it to him. Sadly, Ian Cooper later contracted rheumatic fever and had to give up VFL (as it was then) football. The game lost a wonderful player and a great character, but it was television's gain. Later, he made a comeback in the VFA, playing at full forward, which is where I had always wanted to see him play for St Kilda.
Ray Wasserman
London, UK
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