Les Foote - First Grand Final

First Grand Final

Foote was the first man to captain North Melbourne into a VFL Grand Final in 1950, having played a career-best game against Geelong in the previous week's Preliminary Final, in which he almost single-handedly converted a seven goal (42 point) deficit into a 17 point win for North Melbourne.

Essendon had already beaten North Melbourne in the Second Semi-Final 11.14 (80) to 11.11 (77) when, in driving rain, and with 30 seconds remaining, and with North Melbourne three points in front, North Melbourne's Jock McCorkell unexpectedly punched a ball that was already rolling out over the boundary line back into play just before it crossed the line, Essendon's John Coleman pounced on the ball, and passed it to Ron McEwin in the goal square. McEwin kicked the goal, and Essendon won by three points.

North Melbourne's disappointment with such a narrow and unexpected loss was compounded by the fact that North Melbourne's champion full-forward Jock Spencer had earlier had what had seemed to be a legitimate spectacular aerial mark (i.e., a "speckie") disallowed in controversial circumstances.

Although Essendon had only lost one match during the season, many thought that North Melbourne, having lost such a close match two weeks before, and having played so well against Geelong, really had a good chance of winning the Grand Final against Essendon.

However, in an unexpectedly one-sided match, with a rain lashed third quarter, North Melbourne "went the knuckle", rather than playing football, and they specifically targeted the Essendon star players Dick Reynolds, Ron McEwin, Bill Snell, Bert Harper, Ted Leehane, and John Coleman. Essendon won the 1950 Grand Final 13.14 (92) to 7.12 (54) in front of a crowd of 87,601.