SANFL renaming of ovals after players

Unley oval has recently been changed to Peter Motley Oval
Motley deserves this prestigious recognition
What about the other SANFL clubs, who can they be named after ?

In naming an oval after a player some considerations might be any of the following:
Given great service to the club in a playing careers
Helps out at the club after his playing career
A popular person
A loyal person
A legend
Anything else that would make a person a good choice
Not necessarily a star player
Any other worthwhile agenda

Here are some of my nominations

CD: ROY LAIRD
GL : PETER CAREY
NA: BARRIE ROBRAN
NW: MICHAEL COLIGAN
PA: BOONEY
SA: JIMMY DEANE
ST: PETER MOTLEY
WA: NEIL KERLEY
WWT : BOB HANK
AC : no oval yet


I will post about each nomination as I go along
The 2 standouts are Barrie Robran and Jimmy Deane for mine , both legends at their clubs

Agree with those except for one glaring error.

Michael Coligan?

Alan Stewart should be a contender for Centrals. Could Ken Farmer oust Sir Barrie?

South Adelaide already named our oval after former player Alan Hickinbotham!

Personally I think adapting the name "Panther Park" would be the better name for our home ground.

I think for the Bloods you can't go past Doug Thomas because of the service he gave to the club, both on and off the field.

Played 218 Games between 1951 and 1965 and then went on to be general manager for many years for a total of over 50 years of good service.

Testy - Without trying to cause any friction among West fans, aren't there two schools of thought among your supporters about whether DT was good or bad for your club?

Scrunch wrote:Testy - Without trying to cause any friction among West fans, aren't there two schools of thought among your supporters about whether DT was good or bad for your club?

All I will say about that is while he was in charge we NEVER made a financial loss.
Maybe he stayed on just a couple of years longer than he should have but to me you couldn't get a more loyal club man than him. I got to know him over the years and he is a great guy.

Scrunch , my 2 bobs worth
When you are at a  club for as long as Doug has been , invariably any person will get some negativity along the way
FWIW
Ive met the great man at the trots a few times, an extremely nice person to chat with

Doug Thomas Oval
Sounds better than
Doubting Thomas Oval

Thanks for the insight Testy and Scrappy. I grew up with DT at the helm and for a long time, so had always considered him a great West servant. Was just surprised that sentiment wasn't shared by some West people I know. Glad to hear that my impression was accurate.

It may be that the reason there is divided opinion about Doug's time depends on the priorities of the observer.

There is no doubt that Doug managed the club for a long time, with minimal staff who were great club people, and he left us in a very sound financial position indeed. That is what is now enabling the club to make arrangements to rectify its current poor cash flow position, after the strong position was badly eroded after the last eight or nine years.

There is also little doubt that the strong financial position came at the cost of spending on a number of areas. It was a bit of a joke at the club that replacement items always 'fell off the back of a truck'.

I make no judgement about that, as it led to a financially strong club, but many found it frustrating when they were trying to be as professional as possible.

The major conflicts, though, were that Doug ran a tight ship, he was definitely in charge and his reach extended to how the football side of things operated, which led to frustrations with more than one coach, Kevin Morris being the obvious example.

I could see both sides.

Personally, I always got on well with Doug. He always supplied everything I asked for in my position there without question. Perhaps the following is typical of Doug's approach:

He appointed me as Head Trainer. he said "this is your honorarium amount, we'll review it at the end of your first year".

"OK", I said.

Eventually I went to him to ask him to review it.

"Doug, you said you'd review it after the first year".

"Yes", he said.

"Well, it's now been ten years, how about it?", I said.

That was Doug, a legend, flawed definitely, but West Adelaide first and foremost.

As for his departure, people forget that he was very ill at the time and hadn't been at work for some time and probably wasn't capable of running the club and battling his illness at the same time.

As ever with Doug, his departure caused conflict, but, as ever with Doug, he's been a very welcome figure at the club at functions for some time now.

That puts things into perspective nicely.

Everyone is flawed, but much easier to accept when the intent of an individual is to create a stronger, more successful environment within an organisation. Especially when they have a degree of success in what they've set out to achieve.