Peter Steward the first Australian footballer to undergo a knee reconstruction but not the last

Peter Steward is part of Australian medical history, becoming the first sportsperson to undergo a knee reconstruction. Sadly, he was the first in a long line of footballers struck down by the dreaded ACL injury. Here’s the best of them.

Peter Steward had never actually heard of an anterior cruciate ligament until he became a trailblazer for Australian sporting surgery in 1964.

It’s an injury that remains all too common, with Hawthorn’s Jarman Impey the most recent victim when he landed awkwardly against Geelong at the MCG last weekend.

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE GREATEST TEAM OF ACL VICTIMS

But 55 years ago it was foreign territory until a pioneering Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon named John Grant suggested radical surgery to Steward, an alternative that was known as Jones surgery after a US-based medico named Kenneth Jones.

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Grant, who died in 2009 aged 84, had read an article in a US journal written by Jones which sparked his interest. He had seen knee injuries end VFL careers prematurely, including the great Essendon full forward John Coleman, and Grant was determined to find a cure.

So he taught himself by reading the Jones article and in Steward found a willing guinea pig, a young man whose highly-promising VFL career appear ended at just 21 when he went down in Round 17 of the 1963 season at Arden Street.

Steward, 77, who remains forever indebted to Grant, recalled his place in VFL/AFL medical history this week from his Perth home in the suburb of Nedlands.

“We were playing Hawthorn when I took possession of the ball. These days I would have handballed it off but back then it was a matter of trying to barge my way through my opponent Kevin Coverdale.

Ando's champion team of ACL victims.

“But he caught me and twisted my body, which in turn twisted my right knee as I came down. I was in agony for a while so I knew it was pretty serious,” said Steward, who originally came from a sheep farm near the northern Victorian township of Kerang.

“The operation wasn’t on the landscape in those days but our doctor John Grant, who I thought was just a doctor and not a surgeon, asked me if I wanted to take a risk and be part of the surgery. I said I would do anything to play again because I was lost, thinking of what I was going to do if I couldn’t play footy?

“I worked for the Commercial Bank in those days. What I didn’t know was just how talented John Grant was as a surgeon and I was extremely fortunate the operation was such a success, even if I missed two years of footy. I was just very grateful to John Grant for providing such an option.

“I had previously done a cartilage playing bush footy, but this was a lot more painful and I have never felt pain like it. John Grant did the testing of my knee, grabbing my leg and pulling it away from my knee cap which highlighted a lot of looseness so he knew. I don’t remember him taking any X-rays.

North Melbourne's Peter Steward.

“He just said ‘don’t worry, I’ll go down to my garage and get a few implements like a drill, hammer and chisel’. He said he would take some tissue from my patella tendon and use that to tighten things up. I was then in plaster for a couple of months from hip to toe.”

Steward was fastidious in his recovery, travelling to the club most lunchtimes for strengthening exercises. When he came back in Rd 1 of 1966, he was ready and despite the odd cases of swelling after matches, never had problems with the knee again.

In fact he hardly missed a game for the Kangaroos between 1966-70, finishing seventh in the 1968 Brownlow and earning All-Australian selection after being chosen for Victoria at the 1969 Interstate Carnival in Adelaide.

In 1971 he joined West Perth in the WAFL, playing in two Premierships for the Falcons in 1971 and 1975, plus representing Western Australia five times. Next week he will travel to Melbourne to attend North Melbourne’s 150th anniversary dinner at the Exhibition Centre, Steward being named in North’s Team of the Century in 1999.

He doesn’t watch a lot of footy these days, finding the on-field congestion more unbearable than peak hour traffic: “But I have good memories, such as playing on Peter Hudson and Darrel Baldock who were exceptional, although the best footballer I have seen on a given day would still be Sam Kekovich.”

Peter Daicos endured an anterior cruciate ligament injury.

Robert Harvey overcame an ACL and won two Brownlows.

Kekovich, who played three seasons with Steward at Arden Street between 1968-70, is believed to have been Grant’s third ACL patient following Steward in 1964 and Melbourne rover John Townsend in 1966.

John Bartlett was a second-year resident when he sat in on the Kekovich operation before following his mentor John Grant into the same field.

“When you go back to the 1950s and 1960s, they weren’t really diagnosed and the use of MRI made the diagnosis simple. I understand John Grant did see John Coleman and said it wasn’t an ACL that finished his career, but a fracture dislocation of his patella. Either way Coleman would have played again today,” said Bartlett, 75, who is now retired.

Grant and Bartlett are two of the leading names in the ACL world since Steward first went under the knife. Other surgeons have included the late Owen Deacon and John Hart, Ian Henderson, Iain McLean, Peter Wilson, David Young, Julian Feller and Hayden Morris.

A CHAMPION TEAM OF ACL VICTIMS

B: Mark Thompson, Alex Rance, Peter Steward

HB: Neale Daniher, Glen Jakovich, Robert Murphy

C: Doug Hawkins, Keith Greig, Michael Turner

HF: Sam Kekovich, David Schwarz, Robert Harvey

F: Peter Daicos, Peter Hudson, Jason Dunstall

R: Paul Salmon, Tim Watson, Tony Liberatore

Originally published as Peter Steward the first Australian footballer to undergo a knee reconstruction but not the last