The St Kilda Football Club would like to pay respect to former player Peter Bennett, who died overnight at the age of 85.

He was an all-round sportsman in an era when it was possible to pursue your sporting dreams in different spheres.


His remarkable sporting life included representing Australia in water polo at Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and earning Victorian guernsey four times as a result of his football excellence at full-forward for St Kilda where he kicked 259 goals in 103 games.

He headed St Kilda’s goalkicking five times and, amazingly, in an era when the side was constantly at the foot of the ladder, managed to run third on the overall League goalkicking table.

Opportunities were often sparse for Saints forwards, and Bennett could joke about it in later years . Once, when he had eked out 12 goals in three weeks he was stunned to find that he was omitted by selectors who told him that the forward wasn't doing enough.

“We had some dreadful sides in those days,” he recalled in a 1995 interview.

"You’d lead out but they had absolutely no idea where to kick it”.

In his day he was rarity as he could kick with either foot. It was a talent he had developed at Wesley College where the boys had left foot kicking competitions.

His football for Melbourne High School Old boys attracted the Saints’ attention and when the teenager booted 10 goals in the final practice match of 1944 the Saints were licking their lips.

But it all turned bad in his debut game, when he landed awkwardly and caught his foot in an uncapped sprinkler hole. The resulting knee injury put him out for the rest of the season, then he joined the army where he re-injured the knee in another footy game.

Once he was out of the army Bennett resumed playing in amateur ranks but after a season with Collegians was invited back to St Kilda where he instantly picked up the threads of the career that had looked to have halted there years earlier.

He reckoned he was one of the first footballers to have a knee cartilage operation and successfully play again, but for the rest of his footballing days he would be troubled by the knee and would wear an elastic bandage for support.

All though he maintained his involvement in his favorite summer sports of surfing and water polo. It was possible at that time because of a clearer division between the seasons.

In his scrapbook he kept a letter from St Kilda inviting him down to the first training session of the year on March 11.

He caused a controversy when he was chosen for Australia’s water polo team for the 1948 Olympics but turned down the invitation saying he preferred to play footy for St Kilda.

His father Horrie , then president of the Australian Swimming Union, was perplexed by Peter’s decision:

“He said I was an idiot, but I didn’t have any regrets . I was in the Olympic teams of 1952 and 1956 and they were great," Bennet said.

Bennett needed to be tough in an era where he was regularly opposed to hard as nails full-backs. And in one game at Junction Oval he also suffered an unusual injury when a Collingwood fan hurled a rock which hit him in the head.

He enjoyed his opportunities in the Victorian team even if the presence of John Coleman meant he had to play in positions other than full-forward.

In one game he got the chance in front of goals but surprisingly for  a normally deadly kick he finished with a scoreline of  7.15.