South Melbourne great Graeme John remembered as one of AFL’s founding fathers

The AFL will remember one of its founding fathers in Graeme John, the South Melbourne high-flyer who made the bold call to move his beloved Bloods north.

Graeme John, pictured here in 1965, was a high-flying centre half forward.

Words such as “brilliant” and “brave” will be heard about Graeme John at a tribute for the former Hall of Fame player, senior coach and later president of the South Melbourne Football Club.

Credited as one of the founding fathers of the AFL as we know it today, John made the bold move to take his beloved South Melbourne club to Sydney.

The Bloods great and centre half forward had a leap that saw him selected four times for Western Australia, before moving from Perth to Melbourne to play for the Swans in the VFL.

Graeme John with Graham Teasdale in 1980.

John as South Melbourne coach in 1973.

John as a Blood in 1969.

John will be honoured by many of AFL’s greatest players, along with captains of industry, at a memorial organised by the family next week, at Melbourne’s Ritz-Carlton Grand Ballroom, with more than 250 expected.

Sydney was where John took the South Melbourne club against the wishes of many of its diehard supporters, but which saved the Swans from merger obscurity.

Such was his love for the club, John and seven other committee members were personal guarantors for two loans that kept the South Melbourne Football Club afloat from 1978 to 1979.

When injury brought his football career to an end John became an AFL commissioner and the long-time chief of Australia Post.

His mates said he had the voice of an operatic tenor and lifted the roof singing the club song.

He was 80 when he died in June after a long illness battling Parkinson’s disease, faced with the same spirit he showed on the ground for his beloved Bloods.