Edwin Walter "Teddy" Rankin (11 March 1872 – 31 July 1944) was anAustralian rules footballer, originally with Riversdale, who began playing withGeelong in the VFA in 1891, and later played in theVictorian Football League (VFL).[2]
Studio portrait (c.1892) Edwin Walter "Teddy" Rankin.Cliff and Bert Rankin with their father, on the occasion of their selection in the 1923 Victorian team.
Two of hisbrothers played for Geelong Football Club:[3]Tom Rankin (1881–1958), 47 games (1904–1906), and Samuel John Rankin (1872–1958) (who was never selected in the VFL team's First XVIII).
Two of his sons from his first marriage,Bert Rankin (1893–1971) andCliff Rankin (1896–1975), were captains of the Geelong Football Club (1925–1927 and 1923 respectively); and both were selected to play for Victoria in 1923.
A son from his second marriage,Doug Rankin (1915–1987), also had a brief but successful career with the club, playing just nine senior games in two seasons (1938–1939).[4]
He played his first match for Geelong's senior team was against South Melbourne on 27 June 1891,[14] when he replaced injured wingman Charlie Wheatland in the selected side.[15] He was one of Geelong's best players.[16]
After 88 games in the VFA, Rankin was a member of the inaugural Geelong VFL side that played Essendon on Saturday, 8 May 1897.[17] His career spanned 20 seasons of football for Geelong, and during the VFL part of it (1897, 1899–1910), he played 180 games, being captain for 15.[2] He missed the 1898 season due totyphoid, but returned to the side in the next year and appeared in every season until his retirement, though by then in the backline.[18]
Rankin retired during the 1910 season at the age of 38, with his career total of 268 games remaining a club record until it was broken by John "Sam" Newman in Round 4 of 1979.[19][20] At the time, Rankin's 268 games was also second in elite Victorian football behind his longtime Geelong teammate Peter Burns (305 games, 216 in the VFA and 89 in the VFL), and fourth in elite Australian rules football behind the South Australian Jack "Dinny" Reedman (319 games), David "Dolly" Christy (317, 132 in the VFA and 185 in the WAFL, would pass Reedman later that year and retire during 1912 with 345 games), and Burns.
Rankin represented Victoria three times, and in 1903, won the GeelongBest and Fairest award, as well as becoming the first Geelong player to reach 100 VFL games in the Second Semi-Final.
During his prime, Rankin declined offers to transfer to a number of other clubs. He was an advocate of amateurism, arguing against the emerging practice of player payments.[21]
At the end of the 1899 season, in the process of naming his own "champion player", the football correspondent forThe Argus,Reginald Wilmot ("Old Boy"), selected a team of the best players of the 1899 VFL competition:
From those he considered to be the three best players — that is, Condon, Hickey, and Pleass — Wilmot selected Pat Hickey as his "champion player" of the season.[22]
Many credit Rankin with being the first player in the league to touch the ball on the ground, rather thanbouncing it.[23]
Although many modern accounts situate the event in the 1890s, it seems certain that, on the (1925) account ofGerald Brosnan, a former Geelong (VFA) team-mate or Rankin, it happened during the time that Brosnan was playing forFitzroy (viz., 1900–1909), that it happened at theBrunswick Street Oval, that it took place on an extremely wet day (the playing conditions on the Brunswick Street Oval were notoriously bad on wet days due to the slush and mud that ran from one end of the ground to the other), and that Jim D'Helin was the umpire:
By the way, Ted was instrumental in having the clause regarding wet day bouncing inserted in the rules. Playing against us at Fitzroy on a very wet day, when it was impossible to bounce the ball, Ted conceived the brilliant idea of running 10 yards, stooping down and touching the ground with the ball, and going on. He got only the first 10 yards, however, for [James Otto] Jimmy D'Helin, who, I think, was the umpire, free-kicked him, though undoubtedly he was wrong in doing so. I'll never forget Ted's look when he found himself penalised for his clever idea. (The Geelong Advertiser, 16 October 1925)[10]
After football, Rankin was caretaker at theCorio Oval for about eight years, until he was replaced byArthur Rayson c.1924.[24]
He was employed as the head groundsman at theGeelong College from 1904 to 1941, and as the Principal's gardener from 1941 to 1944. He also coached the college's First XVIII from 1905 to 1921.[25]
^J. Ross (ed.),100 Years of Australian Football, Ringwood, 1996, pp. 339,352; M. Maplestone,Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club, 1872–1996, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 561.
^"Georgie Rankin". www.geelongcats.com.au. Retrieved26 January 2021.
^ For many years, it was believed Rankin's games total was 241 due to incomplete records, and this total was passed byReg Hickey in Round 18 of 1939: Hickey was taken to be the club record holder on that basis until Round 20 of 1971, when Bill Goggin passed him, with Newman subsequently passing Goggin in Round 20 of 1977, though Hickey and Goggin both held the club record for most games played in the VFL/AFL.
^The Age, 9 August 1939, p. 6;Sporting Globe, 12 August 1939, p. 6.
^Others credit West Adelaide (1898–1902) and Carlton (1903–1913) wingmanGeorge Bruce: "George Bruce, of Carlton, was the first player to introduce the tricky dodge of bending down, touching the ball on the ground, and then shooting past the man playing against him. Many have imitated him, but none has equalled him in this move." (Play and Players,The Herald, (Friday, 1 August 1913), p.3.)
Ross, J. (ed),100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.ISBN0-670-86814-0
