Bert Deacon (8 November 1922 – 3 January 1974) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Carlton in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He is remembered for being Carlton's first ever Brownlow Medal winner.
A centre half back, Deacon began his league career in 1942. He was a premiership player for Carlton in 1945 (after acting as captain-coach of an Army stores team that won all ten games in a services competition in Darwin) and 1947, the latter in a year which he won both a Brownlow Medal and shared Carlton's best and fairest medal with his captain Ern Henfry. The previous season Deacon had finished fourth in the Brownlow Medal count but this time around finished on top, thus becoming Carlton's inaugural winner of the award.
Deacon left Carlton after the 1951 season and became captain-coach for Preston in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), the club where he had played for prior to being recruited by Carlton. He later served as Carlton vice-president and club secretary.
He is the centre half back in Carlton's official 'Team of the Century'.
Off the field, Deacon worked for many years for long-serving VFL and Carlton president Sir Kenneth Luke. Bertram Deacon died of a heart attack on 3 January 1974 while on holiday at Balnarring. Deacon was just 51 years of age and died despite the desperate efforts of his Preston team-mate, Pat Foley to revive him.
Famous quotes containing the words bert and/or deacon:
“Members of the faculty, faculty members, students of Huxley and Huxley students. I guess that covers everything.”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx)
“In a Kelton church, when a heated argument once began at morning services, a devout old deacon arose from his seat in the ‘amen corner’ and announced he was going to do for the church what the devil had never done—leave it.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)