George P. Anderson

George Power "Geordie" Anderson (3 June 1885 – 10 June 1958) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Collingwood in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

He and his wife, Sarah Ann Anderson (1883–1950), née Carson had three sons and four daughters. He moved to Wagga Wagga from Melbourne in 1919.

Anderson played on the half-back flank for most of his career at Collingwood. He was recruited from the Howlong Football Club in 1911; and, when he first came to Collingwood he was known as "Snowy Martin", due to his similarity to an Essendon player of the same name.

He was unable to play in the first five matches of the 1911 season because his clearance from the New South Wales league was delayed. In the meant time, The Argus was reporting that "Anderson is showing splendid form at practice". He played his first senior game for Collingwood on his 26th birthday (Saturday, 3 June 1911), against Melbourne in round 6 of the 1911 VFL season on the forward line; he kicked one goal. Noting that he was "a player from a rural association", the football correspondent of The Age — who thought that Collingwood full-forward Dick Lee was quite out of form during the match — remarked that "in the want of lofty markers in the forward division [for Collingwood]… Anderson was the most proficient in this department" and, further, asserting that "[Anderson will undoubtedly prove to be a valuable acquisition to his team".

Anderson played on the forward flank in the Collingwood team for the 1911 VFL Grand Final. The Collingwood team, carrying two of its champion players — its full-forward and captain, Dick Lee, and its centre half-forward, Dan Minogue — who had both been badly injured during the match, lost to Essendon by 6 points.

In 1912, his second season, and the first year that VFL players wore numbers on the back of their guernseys, Anderson's guernsey carried the original number one for Collingwood.

Playing on the half-back flank, he was one of the few consistently good players for the Collingwood team that was soundly beaten by Carlton 11.12 (78) to 6.9 (45) in the 1915 VFL Grand Final, on 18 September 1915, in what was considered to be a "fast and furious game".