Alex Gillon
| Alex Gillon | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Alexander George Gillon | ||
| Date of birth | 23 December 1909 | ||
| Place of birth | Broadmeadows | ||
| Date of death | 25 August 2007 (aged 97) | ||
| Original team(s) | Brunswick | ||
| Playing career | |||
| Years | Club | Games (Goals) | |
| 1933–1939 | Brunswick | ||
| 1939 | Coburg | ||
Alexander George "Alex" (or "Alec") Gillon (23 December 1909 – 25 August 2007) was a civic and sporting administrator in Melbourne, Australia. He was most notable as the longest-serving president of the Victorian Football Association, and as a mayor of the City of Brunswick.
Gillon was born in Broadmeadows in north-western Melbourne. He played Australian rules football when he was young, and at his peak played 88 games for the Brunswick Football Club in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) during the 1930s, where he was part of Brunswick's 1938 premiership team. He was cleared to Coburg in May 1939 and played there for one season.
After World War II, Gillon took a position on the Brunswick Football Club committee. He served as a club delegate on the VFA Board of Management from 1949 until 1953. Then in February 1954, he successfully challenged Lewis Page for presidency of the VFA. When Gillon took on the presidency, the VFA was in decline and struggling badly compared with the strong position it had enjoyed during the 1940s: crowds were declining due to the abandoning of the popular throw pass rule in 1950, various social and demographic changes in post-war Melbourne were reducing crowds and revenues, and the Association board was suffering from factional fighting as a result of the fall-out from the changes. Gillon soon provided strong leadership, which largely re-unified the Association's board, and the Association began to recover from a situation which threatened its viability.
One of the first challenges Gillon faced during his presidency was grounds control, as there were several bids by other football codes during the 1950s, and then by Victorian Football League (VFL) clubs during the 1960s, to take over the tenancy of VFA grounds; Gillon refused to compromise on the VFA's requirement that clubs had sole winter use of their grounds, which cost Prahran (temporarily) and Moorabbin (permanently) their places in the Association, but it set a strong example that the VFA was prepared to defend itself against stronger opponents, a trait which Gillon carried throughout his presidency. Gillon then oversaw the introduction of Sunday football in 1960, the early 1960s expansion of the Association into the outer suburbs to overcome post-war demographic shifts in the inner suburbs, and the partitioning of the VFA into two divisions in 1961; and after the VFA secured weekly television coverage from 1967, the VFA enjoyed one of its most successful periods ever during the 1970s. Also under Gillon's presidency, however, the VFA's relationship with the VFL soured, culminating in the VFA's expulsion in 1970 from the Australian National Football Council (of which Gillon had served as vice-president during the late 1960s) and a lingering adversarial relationship between the competitions which lasted until the 1980s. When asked about his relationship with the VFL on television during the 1970s, Gillon replied "I don't hate the VFL; I'm just pro-VFA."
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