1930-1940 (Fitzroy)

 

150

 

31

 

Brownlow Medal - 1933

Victorian State Representative

He had one of the best-known nicknames in AFL history… Wilfred “Chicken” Smallhorn… and he was one of Fitzroy’s greats through the 1930’s.

 

So named because his mother could never catch him when he was young, Smallhorn played 150 games from 1930-40, won the Brownlow Medal in 1933, was named on the wing in Fitzroy’s Team of the Century, and is an AFL Hall of Famer.

 

A seven-time Victorian representative, he was calm, clever and courageous…  one of the game’s best in his prime…

 

He polled 100 career Brownlow votes – behind only Kevin Murray, Garry Wilson and Haydn Bunton in Fitzroy history –polling more votes even than Paul Roos, and John Murphyin barely half as many games.

 

Having enlisted in the Australian army in 1940, he spent three years as a prisoner of war in the horrific Changi Prison and in 1942 organized a six-team football competition in Changi that had clearances, tribunals and even the “Çhangi Brownlow”. As legend has it, the final game was Victoria against the ‘Rest of Australia’ in front of 10,000 spectators.