| Ted Tyson | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Edward Arthur Tyson | ||
| Born | 4 February 1910 Kalgoorlie,Western Australia[1] | ||
| Died | 5 February 1996(1996-02-05) (aged 86) Hamersley,Western Australia[2] | ||
| Original team | Cunderdin | ||
| Position | Full Forward | ||
| Playing career1 | |||
| Years | Club | Games (Goals) | |
| 1930–1941, 1945 | West Perth | 228 (1196) | |
| Representative team honours | |||
| Years | Team | Games (Goals) | |
| 1935 | Western Australia | 4 (13) | |
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1945. | |||
| Career highlights | |||
| |||
| Source:AustralianFootball.com | |||
Edward Arthur Tyson (4 February 1910 – 5 February 1996) was anAustralian rules footballer who played for theWest Perth Football Club in theWestern Australian National Football League (WANFL).
An inaugural member of theWest Australian Football Hall of Fame, Tyson held the League record for career goals before being overtaken byAustin Robertson, Jr. His career achievements were somewhat overshadowed by the fact that he was a contemporary and often compared toEast Fremantle legendGeorge Doig. If Doig was known as the "Bradman of WA Football", Tyson was the equivalent ofWally Hammond.
Tyson came from a leading Western Australian footballing family; his uncleCharlie Tyson played forCollingwood andNorth Melbourne Football Clubs in theVictorian Football League (VFL), while his grandfather, father and four other uncles also played football to a high standard.[3] He debuted for the Cardinalsin 1930 and kicked over fifty goals despite the club winning only six and drawing one of its eighteen games. The following year, Tyson established a permanent position at full forward and kicked eighty-one goals, which at the time was the fifth-highest total in league history.[4]1932 saw Tyson move further with ninety-six goals, equallingSol Lawn's record from three seasons beforehand. To cap it off, Tyson had eight goalsin the Grand Final, a record for a WANFL Grand Final not beaten until Eric Gorman in 1963.
The following season, Tyson made four appearances for Western Australia in interstate football, all at the1933 Sydney Carnival, where he kicked thirteen goals.[5] However, the emergence ofEast Fremantle’sGeorge Doig put paid to Tyson's ambitions for regular interstate representation. Doig's 152 goalsin 1934 saw him take over the full-forward position for the state team until the pair were forced into virtual retirement byWorld War II. Between 1933 and 1937, although Tyson kicked over 100 goals four times, Doig beat him for the league'sleading goal-kicker award and the full forward position in the State's team. Nonetheless, Tyson played in two further Cardinal premiership teams in 1934 and 1935, andin 1938 managed to head the WANFL goalkicking with 126 goals, a figure made more remarkable because the once-powerful Cardinals had fallen to finish last on the ladder with only three wins.[6] In the last match of that season Tyson kicked 17.5 of a team total of 18.7against Swan Districts, which is the most goals for a losing side in elite Australian Rules football.[7]
The1939 season was even worse for the Cardinals, who had lost twenty-seven successive matches before their only win late in the season, in which Tyson kicked his thousandth career goal during the final quarter.[8] Tyson was presented with the ball with which he kicked this thousandth goal, and a subscription fund was opened for him following this accomplishment, which ultimately reached aboutA£80 (about$5,000 in today's terms).[9] Ironically, the following match saw Tyson goalless for one of only three times during his 228-game career,[10] but when 1939 closed he was second in the goalkicking behindPerth’sBert Gook.
With the Cardinals improving phenomenallyduring 1940, Tyson kicked sixty goals beforeappendicitis ended his season.[11] He planned to retire after an operation[12] before being coaxed into playing again.In 1941 he again kicked a century of goals and capped it off with six in a Grand Final win over East Fremantle, becoming one of five players to play in four Cardinal premiership teams.[13] After the under-age competition of 1942 to 1944 ended, he made another brief comebackduring 1945.
Tyson married a grand-daughter ofWally Watts, a formerMidland Junction player, and was also a brother-in-law ofLaurie Bandy, who playedcricket forWestern Australia.[14] He died in February 1996, aged 86, inHamersley, a northern suburb of Perth.[2] In 2004, Tyson was one of the inaugural inductees in theWest Australian Football Hall of Fame. He was also named thefull-forward in West Perth’s official “Team of the Century”.[5]
