Allen Aylett dead: North Melbourne and AFL mourning death of legend
North Melbourne legend and former VFL president Allen Aylett has died at the age of 88.
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The AFL and North Melbourne are mourning the loss of pioneering football administrator and champion rover Dr Allen Aylett, who has been lauded as “the father” of the national competition.
Aylett died on Friday morning, aged 88.
Despite his relatively short stature, Aylett was a giant of Australian football, towering over the game with his impact on and off the field.
As a footballer, he gave the struggling Kangaroos hope and a reason to cheer through some difficult seasons, playing 220 games and kicking 311 goals from 1952 to 1964.
As a president of the club he played for and also president of the VFL, he transformed the game like few others, all with the clear ambition of taking the game to a national audience.
“Allen Aylett is a keystone of the national competition we have today,” AFL chairman Richard Goyder said.
“His drive and ambition for the game to be as great as it could be opened new boundaries for our sport, and started the difficult but important steps to build the national competition we see today.
“Allen was a player of the very highest level - twice being part of a national carnival for Victoria and winning a Tassie Medal - as well as guiding North Melbourne (as president) to its maiden VFL premiership in 1975 when he transformed the club by appointing Ron
Barassi as coach.
“In many ways, he was the father of the national competition and a visionary who saw the game expanding across all parts of Australia.
“Throughout his time in football his wife Marj was by his side and the competition, and the code owe Allen, Marj and the Aylett family a great and enduring debt for the decades of service he gave the game.”
Aylett was a three-time Kangaroos best-and-fairest winner (a hat-trick of wins from 1958-60) and captained the club for four seasons.
He was an inaugural member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame and was named in the North Melbourne Team of the Century.
But Aylett’s influence and impact off the field was even more significant in the years after injury forced him into a premature retirement - aged only 30 - in late 1964.
He became North Melbourne president in 1971 and set about transforming the once-struggling club into a powerhouse of the VFL competition during the 1970s.
In that time the Kangaroos modernised their operations, revolutionised sponsorship deals, recruited the game’s most in-demand coach Ron Barassi and capitalised on the short-lived 10-year recruiting rule which helped the club win its historic first VFL premiership in 1975.
Number 4 in our top 150 of all time ... Allen Aylett.
— North Melbourne FC (@NMFCOfficial) August 3, 2019
220 games, 311 goals from one of the greats of our club. A three-time best and fairest winner, captain, twice All-Australian and Team of the Century member. #North150pic.twitter.com/yu3HVuq0M5
By the time North Melbourne had won its second flag - in 1977 - Aylett had been appointed VFL president. He held the role until late 1984 and oversaw some of the biggest changes in the history of the game.
In his time at the helm, the VFL began to regularly play matches for premiership points outside of Victoria, which led to the move of South Melbourne to Sydney in 1982; staged the first live Grand Final television broadcast in 1977 and made the competition’s first move to playing football on Sundays.
Aylett was also a well known dentist who combined his work with his football and administrative passion.
He returned for a later stint as North Melbourne president from 2001-2005.
Shinboner Spirit from Allen Aylett today, coming straight to the game from hospital #BeAShinbonerpic.twitter.com/KiDstv9tHC
— North Melbourne FC (@NMFCOfficial) May 14, 2017
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said Aylett was “a giant of our game and had a vision that Australian Football should be played in every state and territory.”
“He was an innovator who continued to energetically drive change in our game and to forge a path where so many Australians are today able to play and watch our game.”
North Melbourne president Dr Sonja Hood paid tribute to Aylett’s extraordinary contribution to the game and to the football club he loved.
“No single individual has had a greater impact on the North Melbourne Football Club than Dr Allen Aylett,” Dr Hood said.
“He was a great onballer through the 1950s and ‘60s and he famously presided over our first successful era in the 1970s.
“It was a source of great pride for our football club when he became President of the VFL, overseeing the first steps to building the national competition we enjoy so much today.
“He came back home to lead the club (as president) from 2001 until 2005 and ‘The Doc’ will forever be remembered as a North Melbourne Legend.
“Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time.”
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