OBITUARY
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
PORT Fairy legend George Swarbrick is being remembered as a gentle giant who left a lasting legacy at the Hampden league club.
The former Geelong footballer made an indelible mark during his four-year stint at Gardens Oval, playing a key role in the Seagulls’ sole premiership in 1958.
Swarbrick won back-to-back Maskell Cups in ‘58-59 as a ruckman and was also runner-up in the league best and fairest in his final two seasons in the competition.
Swarbrick passed away on December 12, aged 86.
Port Fairy president Ashley King – the mascot for the Seagulls’ flag 58 years ago – described the Hawkesdale-raised Swarbrick as a gentle giant who was imposing on the field.
“He was a quiet man. He didn’t seek any limelight – he would be about but he would be in the background a bit,” he said.
“He is one of the club’s most decorated players and highly-regarded, up there with our greats such as Bernie Baxter and Kevin Leske.
“He had an extraordinary record (in Maskell Cup voting).”
Wingman Jimmy Murray regards his premiership teammate as one of Port Fairy’s most significant figures.
“He was a great ruckman and could read the play and when the crisis was on, he was a player who stood his ground,” he recalled.
“We’d be playing and we’d think in the last nine minutes in a close game that we were in trouble.
“The next minute you’d see the big fella down there and the big hands would go up and he’d pull the mark down.
“He never got ruffled.”
Swarbrick played 23 VFL games for Geelong in 1952-53, including the Cats’ losing grand final to Collingwood in his second season.
“In those days he had to travel down by train,” Murray said.
“I believe he’d go down of a Thursday night and train at Geelong and then he’d come home and help milk the cows and run the farm and then he’d go back on Saturday on the train. He was a very dedicated player.”
Murray described Swarbrick, a father of four who also played in a 1966 premiership for Hawkedale, as a private man who was musically-minded.
His son George was highly-regarded during his Port Fairy career and his grandson, also named George, won the Hampden league’s Judd Cup in 2015.