Allan Lindsay Jeans (21 September 1933 – 13 July 2011) was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er and coach. He was inducted into the

Australian Football Hall of Fame The Australian Football Hall of Fame was established in 1996, the Centenary year of the Australian Football League, to help recognise the contributions made to the sport of Australian rules football by players, umpires, media personalities, coa ...

at its inception in 1996. Jeans was known for his oratory and motivation skills as a coach and led St Kilda and

Hawthorn Hawthorn or Hawthorns may refer to: Plants * '' Crataegus'' (hawthorn), a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae * ''Rhaphiolepis'' (hawthorn), a genus of about 15 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosace ...

to a total of four premierships.

AFL career

Allan Jeans was recruited to St.Kilda after playing in

Finley Football Club The Finley Football Club, nicknamed the ''Cats'', is an Australian rules football and netball club based in the town of Finley located in the Riverina district of New South Wales. The club's football and netball teams currently play in the pla ...

's 1954

Murray Football League The Murray Football Netball League is an Australian rules football and netball league affiliated with the Victorian Country Football League. The league covers a large area of northern Victoria (Australia), Victoria and southern New South Wales ...

(MFL) senior premiership, and he was also runner up in the 1954 MFL O’Dwyer Medal. After a modest 77-game playing career with the

St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club ...

(1955–1959), Jeans, known as "Yabby", took the reins of the Saints in 1961 for a remarkable 16-year career as senior coach. He coached St Kilda to successive

grand finals Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

, in

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...

and 1966, including the Saints' first (and only) VFL premiership in 1966. He took the Saints to another grand final appearance in 1971. Claiming "burn-out", he retired from coaching the team at the end of 1976. In 1981, Jeans revived his coaching career when he was appointed coach for the

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawt ...

. He coached them until 1990 (excluding a year off in 1988 due to brain injury) establishing them as the dominant VFL team of the 1980s, with premierships in 1983,

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

and 1989 from seven consecutive grand finals. Finally, he had a short-lived one-year stint at

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, winning only five out of 22 games.

Later life

Jeans, following his retirement from his job as a Senior Sergeant with

Victoria Police Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of the Australian States and territories of Australia, state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria. It was formed in 1853 and currently operates under the ''Victoria Police Act 2013''. , Victo ...

, became an avid social

lawn bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

player at Cheltenham Lawn Bowls Club. One of his last public appearances was at the post-match presentations of the 2006 AFL Grand Final. He died following years of ill health on 12 July 2011.

References

External links

St Kilda Saints profile of Allan Jeans
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jeans, Allan 1933 births 2011 deaths Australian rules footballers from New South Wales St Kilda Football Club coaches St Kilda Football Club Premiership coaches Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees St Kilda Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club coaches Hawthorn Football Club Premiership coaches Richmond Football Club coaches Finley Football Club players Australian police officers Four-time VFL/AFL Premiership coaches