ALAN Woodman never deviated in his will to win on the football field and a remarkable record bore testimony to his prowess. As a player he ranked among the toughest to have pulled on a guernsey for the Geelong Cats and as a coach and player in leagues across the region he led by fearless, ferocious, supremely fit example. Now people of football can’t quite believe one so powerful has been cut down by cancer at 58. “He played the game the way it should be played,” Bannockburn club stalwart and enduring mate Bill Caldow said yesterday. Woodman died on May 8. He was husband of Lyndsey, previous husband of Deb, and father of Laura, Tim and Jess. He won Geelong District Football League and club best and fairest counts playing with Bannockburn as a teen before famously returning and repeating the feat 15 years later on the way to a flag. The 191cm, 100kg juggernaut played 63 games with Geelong between 1975 and 1979 before coaching in Geelong, Hampden, Geelong District and Colac and District leagues. He claimed league best and fairest honours in each competition, coached premierships with Bannockburn and Winchelsea, won 13 club best and fairest counts, twice represented the Victorian Country Football League and played senior football until his retirement at 45. His love of the on-field contest was legendary and his appetite for training astonished. He was known to run up to 10km to training and 10km home from training. A Geelong Advertiser listing of the toughest players to have pulled on a Cats guernsey put Woodman at number eight, rating him as playing as tough as he looked.. “As much as the opposition tried, he was hardly beaten in a contest. Woodman was built like a lumberjack and did not shirk,” it said. Geelong Cats Past Players and Officials Association president Brian Brushfield remembered his straight-ahead style. “It seemed to me that his career with Geelong was shorter than it should have been,” Mr Brushfield said. “He was genuinely a good hard, strong, tough player who did it by actions rather than words.” Woodman told the Geelong Advertiser in 2008 that all he did was try his best. “It didn’t matter who we were playing against or who the opposition ruckman was. I just tried to make sure I beat them,” he said. “As a coach I didn’t expect anybody to do anything I didn’t do. “I played to win and was prepared to do whatever was needed to achieve that.” Alan Woodman’s funeral will be at Barrabool Hills Centre, Province Blvd, Highton at 1pm tomorrow, Wednesday. I cannot believe that my fiercest competitor in my years of football has passed away...and out of football, we became good mates...RIP Alan
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 09:59:33 +0000
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