Edward Goderich "Carji" Greeves, Junior (1 November 1903 – 15 April 1963) 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 who played for the

Geelong Football Club The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...

in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(VFL), now known as the Australian Football League (AFL). He won the inaugural

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as "Charlie"), is awarded to the " best and fairest" player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by ...

in 1924, awarded to the VFL/AFL player adjudged

fairest and best In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

during the home and away season. He is the son of

Ted Greeves Edward Goderich Greeves (16 December 1878 – 11 August 1935) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Geelong in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Early years Greeves, the son of Edward Goderich and Julia Anderson, was born in S ...

, who also played with the Geelong Football Club. Greeves is the namesake of the

Carji Greeves Medal The Carji Greeves Medal is a name given in recent decades to an Australian rules football award given to the player(s) adjudged best and fairest for the Geelong Football Club for the season. The voting system has changed a number of times. ...

, the Geelong Football Club's best and fairest award.

Family and personal life

In the 1860s, Greeves' grandmother Julie (née Anderson) was briefly engaged to Tom Wills, the famed

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er and founder of Australian rules football. Historian

Col Hutchinson Colin Hutchinson (born c. 1943) is a veteran statistician, most notably in the Victorian/Australian Football League in the sport of Australian rules football. He was the AFL's official historian from the 1990s until around 2005. A part of the AF ...

noted that "If Tom Wills had married Julie, we wouldn't have had Carji Greeves". Greeves was given the nickname "Carji" as a baby by a friend of the family, the New South Wales golfer Michael Scott, most likely after a character in '' A Country Girl'', a popular musical play of the day. Greeves also attended The Geelong College after receiving his early education at the Struan Dam School, South of

Lismore, Victoria Lismore is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Hamilton Highway west of Melbourne. It is part of the Corangamite Shire local government area. At the 2016 census, Lismore had a population of 420. History The area was first settled by ...

, where he was a schoolmate of Geelong champion

Reg Hickey Reginald Joseph Hickey (27 March 1906 – 13 December 1973) was an Australian rules footballer who was a player, the captain, the captain-coach, and the non-playing coach for the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) ...

VFL career

Table Talk 29-May-1930 p10 - Edward Carji Greeves - Geelong

Greeves played with the

from 1923–31 and wore jumper number 20. Greeves was honoured with having the

's best-and-fairest award named after him, the

. In 1996, Greeves 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 ...

. He also won the first Brownlow Medal, the award given to the player deemed to be the "fairest and best." "Best" refers to the players being voted upon by officials for who was best on ground, and "fairest" means that the player did not serve a suspension during the competition. Greeves represented Victoria in interstate matches seven times.

Post Football

Greeves kicking prowess had him head hunted by

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

club

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1928 as a kicking coach and he moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. He would study at Stanford University, where he coached students there in Australian Rules. From the 1930s, Greeves suffered from

pulmonary tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

and

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

. He died on 15 April 1963 at the age of 59. Since 2004, The 'Carji' Greeves Club is the name of the Football Parents’ Support Club at The Geelong College.

References

External links

AFL site: Australian Football Hall of Fame

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greeves, Edward Geelong Football Club players Geelong Football Club Premiership players Brownlow Medal winners Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees 1903 births 1963 deaths People educated at Geelong College Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Ararat Football Club players People from Warragul Two-time VFL/AFL Premiership players