2017 Australian Football Hall of Fame: John Halbert’s long journey in Australian football leads to high honour
FOOTBALL has been the “great love” of John Halbert’s life — and his lifelong commitment to it has carried the new Hall of Famer to glory on and off the field.
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JOHN Halbert’s playing record is filled with fame.
The Sturt premiership captain’s Magarey Medal record tells of his greatness — and consistency.
Halbert was runner-up by one vote in the Magarey Medal count in his first SANFL season in 1955. And runner-up in his fourth and sixth years.
He won the trophy in his seventh year at Unley. And he was still rising on the leaderboard with a third placing in his 10th season in 1964.
Halbert’s post-playing record is filled with commitment.
Across four decades, Halbert was a league coach at two SANFL clubs, chairman of selectors with the successful SA Origin games and in the Crows’ formative years, served on the AFL Laws of the Game committee, SA Football Commission and even took a seat on the SANFL umpires’ board for more than a decade.
And he was at the forefront of less-fashionable committees charged with serving the game’s “future direction”.
No surprise then Halbert earned two honours — an MBE and then an AM — and now recognition of his lifelong commitment to Australian football with national Hall of Fame status.
“Footy is my great love — my greatest love,” said Halbert, who also had a fair cricket record with two Bradman Medals as SA’s best club cricketer while also achieving Sheffield Shield selection for SA.
“Cricket was there … but football is my great love.”
Halbert’s journey in league football began in 1955 when he was at teachers’ college and planning to play amateur football. He had not trained at Sturt during the summer, despite having played in the senior colts while studying at Unley High.
“My mum found my name in the paper one day for the scrubbers’ trial at 12pm,” recalls Halbert.
“At the end of it (Sturt great) Bo Morton and (club boss) Jack Wadham grabbed me and said I should come to training …”
After one senior trial and one game in the reserves at centre, Halbert was in the Sturt league side for a journey that lasted 244 games until injury forced an end in 1968.
And it includes being the centreman in the great SA team that conquered the Big V at the MCG in 1963.
That match is among three moments Halbert would relive from his 14 playing seasons.
“Along with the 1966 grand final,” said Halbert of the match that marked the start of Sturt’s five-in-a-row dynasty.
“To win that game after 12 years with not a lot of success and as captain of the first Sturt premiership team in 26 years.
“And my first game at centre half-forward. I kicked 8.9 against Central District at Elizabeth Oval — as much as they did as a team. I thought ‘how easy is this centre half-forward role?’
“I found out later it not always like that.”
Halbert was fulfilled as a player, but not as a coach — despite taking Glenelg and Sturt teams to three consecutive SANFL grand finals from 1981-83.
“I had hassles at Glenelg where they never accepted me; I was the ‘foreigner’,” Halbert recalled.
“But it was a privilege for me to get some great names started in league football — Stephen Kernahan, Chris McDermott, John Paynter, Tony Symonds, Tony Hall …”
Halbert took Sturt to the 1983 grand final in his first season back at Unley and was sacked after an indifferent 1984.
A heart attack in 1985 stopped accepting the offers that followed at other clubs, in particular West Adelaide in 1988.
“The game has given me an incredible amount of enjoyment — and lifelong friendships I still cherish today,” Halbert said.
“I hope that when I played I gave some enjoyment. I hope as a coach I helped some young men follow their dreams. And in administration I felt a sense of responsibility to the game I love.
“I’ve had a very fulfilling involvement in football. It has been a tremendous part of my life.”
Originally published as 2017 Australian Football Hall of Fame: John Halbert’s long journey in Australian football leads to high honour
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