Gary Ablett, Sr.
| Gary Ablett Sr. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Gary Robert Ablett | ||
| Nickname(s) | God | ||
| Date of birth | 1 October 1961 | ||
| Place of birth | Drouin, Victoria, Australia | ||
| Original team(s) | Myrtleford/Drouin | ||
| Height / weight | 185 cm / 97 kg | ||
| Position(s) | Half-forward, Wing | ||
| Playing career1 | |||
| Years | Club | Games (Goals) | |
| 1982 | Hawthorn | 6 (9) | |
| 1984 – 1997 | Geelong | 242 (1021) | |
| Total | 248 (1030) | ||
| Representative team honours | |||
| Years | Team | Games (Goals) | |
| 1984–1996 |
 Victoria
|
11 (43) | |
|
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1996.
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| Career highlights | |||
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Club
Representative
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| Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com | |||
Club
Representative
Gary Robert Ablett (born 1 October 1961) is a former Australian rules footballer who represented Hawthorn and Geelong in the Australian Football League (AFL). Nicknamed "God", Ablett is widely regarded as one of Australian football's greatest players, and was especially renowned for his spectacular high marking and his prolific goalkicking.
After making several country league representative teams, Ablett was recruited by Hawthorn from Drouin and made his professional senior debut in the 1982 season. However, he failed to settle down in the city and retreated to Myrtleford the following year. The Geelong Football Club managed to lure him back to the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1984, where he eventually settled down to become one of the league's biggest stars during the late '80s and early '90s. Ablett helped Geelong to a Grand Final appearance in 1989, where he kicked a Grand Final-record nine goals in a losing team. Ablett shocked everyone by abruptly announcing his retirement from football at the beginning of the 1991 season, but made a comeback midway through the year. Ablett made three more Grand Final appearances in the 1992, 1994, and 1995 seasons before retiring for good after the 1996 season.
Ablett's individual accolades and achievements include induction into the AFL's Hall of Fame, selection in the AFL Team of the Century, selection in the Geelong Football Club Team of the Century, the 1993 AFL Players Association MVP award (now known as the Leigh Matthews Trophy), three Coleman Medals, four All-Australian jumpers, eleven State representative jumpers for Victoria, a Norm Smith Medal, the 1984 Geelong Best & Fairest, and being the leading goal-kicker for the Cats on nine occasions. Ablett is Geelong's all-time leading goalkicker with 1021 goals and in 2006, was voted by past and present Geelong Football Club players as the greatest Geelong footballer of all time.
Born in Drouin to Alfred and Colleen Ablett, Gary Ablett grew up in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria's Gippsland region alongside his four elder brothers and three sisters. Ablett displayed a love for sport at an early age, winning the state school high jump at 10 years of age. He was also awarded both club and competition best and fairest awards for Drouin at the under-11s, under-12s and under-14s levels. After citing waning interest in school, Ablett dropped out of high school at the age of 15 years to become a bricklayer's labourer. Outside of work, Gary Ablett began to concentrate on his football and joined his brothers in the Drouin senior team at just 16 years of age. After appearing in several country league representative games, the Hawthorn Football Club, which had already signed Gary's elder brothers Geoff and Kevin onto their lists, invited him to play reserves football.
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