Sturt honours the Anzac who kicked the winning goal in 1919 final with special book tribute

Sturt Football Club historian John Lysikatos is honouring the centenary of Anzac hero Ivor Nicolle’s winning goal in the 1919 SA football grand final.

Sturt’s 1919 premiership triumph — after a four-year wait to defend the 1915 title as football was put on hold with World War I — is being remembered with a special book on Anzac hero Ivor Nicolle’s winning goal in the grand final at Adelaide Oval.

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Sturt is remembering — and honouring the centenary moment — of the Anzac who returned from the World War I battlefields of France to kick the winning goal in the 1919 SA league football grand final.

Ivor Nicolle’s last-minute goal in the 1919 SAFL Challenge Final at Adelaide Oval allowed Sturt to successfully defend its 1915 premiership, after a four-year wait as league football was cast aside during the war.

Bill Mayman and Tom Leahy, Sturt and North Adelaide captains, shake hands before the memorable challenge grand final of 1919.

The cover for John Lysikatos will have the book, titled “Ivor Nicolle’s Goal”,

Sturt Football Club historian John Lysikatos is marking the centenary of SA football resuming after the so-called Great War by remembering Nicolle’s extraordinary story in a special publication that will go on sale during this weekend’s Anzac Round of football.

Nicolle was one of the Sturt’s pioneers who beat Port Adelaide’s “Invincibles” to claim the Double Blues’ first league premiership in 1915 — and then within days set off for war.

By June 1918 Nicolle was in an English war hospital drawing willpower to overcome his battle scars by his dream to once again play Australian football and wear his No. 7 Sturt guernsey.

The story — and legend — is completed with Nicolle scoring the winning goal against North Adelaide with a set shot from 35 metres in the last nine seconds of the final.

Lysikatos says of Nicolle’s kick: “Of all those goals kicked by Sturt footballers in grand finals, Nicolle’s has survived the longest in footy folklore.”

His book, that retails for $15, is to ensure the story behind the kick “lives on today”.

Lysikatos will have the book, titled Ivor Nicolle’s Goal, on sale at Unley Oval on Sunday when Sturt honours the Anzacs before playing South Adelaide.

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Originally published as Sturt honours the Anzac who kicked the winning goal in 1919 final with special book tribute