Gary Ablett, Sr.

Gary Ablett, Sr.

Gary Robert Ablett, Sr. (born 1 October 1961) is a retired professional Australian rules football player who played the majority of his career with the Geelong Football Club. Ablett was best known as a prolific goalkicker and spectacular marker of the ball, and his biography on the Australian Football League (AFL) website states, "He has left a legacy wherein Gary Ablett is one of the greatest players to have played the game".

After making several country league representative teams, Ablett was recruited by the Hawthorn Football Club from Drouin and made his professional senior debut in the 1982 season. However, he failed to settle down in the city and retreated to Myrtleford the following year. The Geelong Football Club managed to lure him back to the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1984, where he eventually settled down to become one of the league's biggest stars during the late '80s and early '90s. His leaping ability; illustrated by performing "speckies" on a regular basis, and prolific goalkicking records earned him the nickname "God". Ablett helped Geelong to a Grand Final appearance in 1989, where he kicked a Grand Final-record nine goals in a losing team. Although Ablett abruptly retired from football at the beginning of the 1991 season, he rejoined Geelong 5 months later to the club through three more Grand Final appearances in the 1992, 1994, and 1995 seasons.

Ablett's individual accolades and achievements include induction into the AFL's Hall of Fame, selection in the AFL Team of the Century, selection in the Geelong Football Club Team of the Century, the 1993 AFLPA MVP award (now known as the Leigh Matthews Trophy), three Coleman Medals, four All-Australian jumpers, eleven State representative jumpers for Victoria, selection in the Victorian Team of the Century, a Norm Smith Medal, a Carji Greeves Medal as the 1984 Geelong Best & Fairest Player, and being the leading goal-kicker for the Cats on nine occasions. He is the only player to have won the Coleman Medal and kicked 100 goals in three consecutive seasons. Ablett is Geelong's all-time leading goalkicker with 1021 goals and in 2006, was voted by past and present Geelong Football Club players as the greatest Geelong footballer of all time.