Wesley College was a fertile breeding ground for St Kilda footballers but when the young Wesley Collegian joined the Saints in 1942, it wasn’t his former school masters or the Saints themselves who initiated the short walk across St Kilda Road.
He explained that Brigadier General Locke was a mad St Kilda supporter who directed any player of talent in the ranks towards the Saints. Wartime football was a stop start affair, and Loxton’s appearances in red, white and black were interspersed with army duties.
The matches between the various services teams were not fixtured with any attention to VFL games and often players like Sam Loxton would play a League game on the Saturday then back up for a Sunday match.
A fluent mover and a long kick, he kicked 114 goals in 41 games for the Saints.
Loxton made his VFL debut in 1942 with five goals against Melbourne at Punt Road but often told the story against himself of how he booted 1.13 and four out of bounds in a subsequent game against Richmond’s George Smeaton at the same venue.
Loxton was posted to Queensland with the Army. With Japanese forces advancing through South East Asia there was a very real possibility of facing an invasion, it was later revealed that Allied commanders had virtually written off Northern Australia and had decided to defend “The Brisbane Line”.
Loxton was only able to play 10 games across his first two years with the Saints. In the second of those seasons, 1943, the VFL decided that after 10 rounds one team would drop out to reduce the comp to even numbers and the game between the two bottom sides St Kilda and South was a cut-throat decider. Loxton booted three goals but the side lost by 35 points and their season was over.
His stint serving in Queensland came to an end when his wife suffered an illness back in Melbourne and he was allowed to return to Victoria on compassionate grounds.
In 1944 he spent the entire winter in Melbourne and had a mighty season, booting 52 goals (28 per cent of the team’s goals) and running second to Ken Walker in the Best and Fairest.
He played just a single game in 1945 and then played a dozen in 1946 including one against Geelong which produced his biggest personal haul of eight against Geelong’s George Gniel. In an interview two years ago he told of how his career was ended by a freak injury.
“We were doing sprints across the ground at St Kilda and you wouldn’t want to believe it, I went down in one of those sprinkler holes in the middle. That was the end of me. They carried me off and took the boot off and it swelled up immediately.”
Loxton was just 25 and didn’t play any football again. Two winters later he was part of one of cricket’s most legendary teams - Don Bradman’s Invincibles on an all-conquering tour of England. After a 12 Test career he continued to be a mighty servant of Victorian cricket as skipper, and subsequently became a Test selector.
While the Saints struggled during his time on the football field, Loxton was part of a golden era of cricket, for which he was always grateful.
He had a fascinating life and retained his interest in the Saints for the rest of his life.
