GRAEME Sladdin kicked 139 goals in 1971.<\/p>\n
A milestone he may never have achieved had he not broken his nose in a practice match that season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played mainly in the centre before that \u201971 season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were up in Hamilton for a practice match and I got my nose broken in the centre. I went off and then came back on and went to full-forward and that\u2019s where I stayed. But it was only because I got my nose broken that I went there to begin with, or else I\u2019d have been in the centre and [the 139-goals] may never have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 21-years-old, Sladdin, a left footer who \u201cdidn\u2019t hook the ball\u201d and \u201ccould not kick a torpedo to save [him]self\u201d, became just the second Ararat player to kick over 100 goals in a season; setting a, then, league-record of 121 home-and-away goals, before kicking two bags of nine across two memorable finals.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a centreman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a pretty good supply chain. We had some very good footballers in the centre-line,\u201d he said,<\/p>\n
\u201cIn \u201971 we could take the backline to the forward line without the opposition getting near it. Everyone knew their job and it did very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if written in the stars, Sladdin kicked his 100th<\/sup> goal of the season against Dimboola, playing on ex-Hawthorn defender Norm Watson, on the day of the club\u2019s centenary celebrations.<\/p>\n Heading into the match on 96 goals, it did not take Sladdin long to reach the coveted milestone in front of a packed Alexandra Oval, which saw him finish the day with a career-high 16 goals.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather was watching in the car with my mother. I came into the game on 96 goals and kicked three early on at the tennis court end and he wanted to move to the other end in case I kicked the 100th<\/sup> at the opposite end to where he was,\u201d Sladdin said.<\/p>\n \u201cI kicked the fourth goal where he was. All the boys were trying to get me to kick as many as possible that day. The boys were running backwards and kicking the ball it was ridiculous. I had \u2018Turkey\u2019 Thomas stopping on the goal line to pass the ball backwards to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Sladdin\u2019s form continued into well into the finals, as Ararat went on to win a drought breaking 15th<\/sup> premiership.<\/p>\n His nine-goal haul in a Second Semi-Final helped the Rats to a famous victory over premiership favourite Horsham, before following it up with another nine in a big Grand Final victory over Warracknabeal a fortnight later.<\/p>\n With an average of just under seven goals a game, Sladdin\u2019s 139 goals that season remains a club-record.<\/p>\n He sits seventh on Ararat\u2019s all-time goalkicking list in the seniors, with 327 goals in 128 games.<\/p>\n After a stint with Sunshine in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), playing as a ruck-rover, Sladdin returned to the Rats where he became a centurion for a second time.<\/p>\n Ten years after reaching the ton with the seniors, Sladdin kicked 113 goals, including 10 in the Grand Final, in the 1981 premiership winning reserves team.<\/p>\n \u201c[1981] was a very enjoyable year. It was good because I played with a lot of the kids I coached and those that were coming up,\u201d Sladdin said.<\/p>\n Sladdin would pass on the baton as the Rats\u2019 gun full-forward to Garry Todd, who kicked over 100 goals three times and remains the last Rats player to do so.<\/p>\n Sladdin, who even today never misses a gameday, believes Tom Mills, who plays representative football in Ballarat, would \u201cget close\u201d to reaching the milestone if he played a full season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GRAEME Sladdin kicked 139 goals in 1971. A milestone he may never have achieved had he not broken his nose in a practice match that season. \u201cI played mainly in the centre before that \u201971 season,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were up in Hamilton for a practice match and I got my nose broken in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Ararat Centurions: Graeme Sladdin","_seopress_titles_desc":"GRAEME Sladdin kicked 139 goals in 1971.\r\nA milestone he may never have achieved had he not broken his nose in a practice match that season.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/g-sladdin-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-ml","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}