Earl George Spalding (born 11 March 1965 in South Perth) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and Carlton in the Victorian Football League/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL), as well as for Perth and East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League. He is known as "the Duke" or "Snake" because of his unusual running style, and also the "golf ball" in reference to his surname. Spalding grew up in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, Western Australia, where he attended Wesley College. His father, George Spalding, was a well-known

West Australian National Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WANFL) player with the

Perth Football Club The Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club based in Lathlain, Western Australia, currently playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Representing the south-east area of the Perth metropo ...

. After leaving school, Spalding played for 63 games for Perth between 1983 and 1986, reaching the preliminary final in 1986. He also played four games of

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

for

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

as a fast bowler, during the 1984/85 season, taking 12 wickets at an average of 25.66. He started his VFL/AFL career with Melbourne and was there from 1987 to 1991, playing 109 games. The following season he signed with Carlton and played all 22 games for the year. He played in a premiership with Carlton in 1995, a year in which he played all 25 games and brought up his 250th game of elite Australian rules football, and in 1996 played his 200th game in the VFL/AFL. He played his last senior AFL game in 1997 before returning to Western Australia to play for

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

alongside his brother Scott, who also played one game for Carlton in 1993. Earl played 32 games over the next two seasons, including their 1998 WAFL Premiership winning team, and retired at the end of the 1999 season, having played 306 games across the WAFL and VFL/AFL. Spalding was the reserves and assistant coach at East Fremantle in 2000 before becoming the league coach in 2001. He resigned from the position at the end of the 2002 season, and since then has working with the

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fr ...

as an assistant coach. Spalding was appointed senior coach of the Perth Demons Football Club in 2015. With an extremely young list and a deliberate policy not to recruit extensively so that the young players could develop, Perth won only two games in 2015. In 2016, the team has won six of its first 14 games, including a victory over top team Subiaco.

Statistics

: , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

, , 35 , , 24 , , 6 , , 5 , , 188 , , 97 , , 285 , , 75 , , 21 , , 35 , , 0.3 , , 0.2 , , 7.8 , , 4.0 , , 11.9 , , 3.1 , , 0.9 , , 1.5 , , 5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

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 Bicenten ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 9 , , 22 , , 161 , , 72 , , 233 , , 71 , , 24 , , 8 , , 0.4 , , 1.0 , , 7.3 , , 3.3 , , 10.6 , , 3.2 , , 1.1 , , 0.4 , , 1 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs ...

, , 5 , , 19 , , 19 , , 22 , , 190 , , 97 , , 287 , , 103 , , 16 , , 23 , , 1.0 , , 1.2 , , 10.0 , , 5.1 , , 15.1 , , 5.4 , , 0.8 , , 1.2 , , 8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 15 , , 9 , , 186 , , 108 , , 294 , , 85 , , 24 , , 22 , , 0.7 , , 0.4 , , 8.5 , , 4.9 , , 13.4 , , 3.9 , , 1.1 , , 1.0 , , 3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

, , 5 , , 22 , , 14 , , 10 , , 199 , , 136 , , 335 , , 111 , , 20 , , 20 , , 0.6 , , 0.5 , , 9.0 , , 6.2 , , 15.2 , , 5.0 , , 0.9 , , 0.9 , , 0 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1992 , , 11 , , 22 , , 19 , , 23 , , 206 , , 120 , , 326 , , 95 , , 21 , , 21 , , 0.9 , , 1.0 , , 9.4 , , 5.5 , , 14.8 , , 4.3 , , 1.0 , , 1.0 , , 6 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

, , 11 , , 21 , , 23 , , 22 , , 170 , , 110 , , 280 , , 88 , , 16 , , 12 , , 1.1 , , 1.0 , , 8.1 , , 5.2 , , 13.3 , , 4.2 , , 0.8 , , 0.6 , , 2 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

, , 11 , , 18 , , 12 , , 17 , , 123 , , 121 , , 244 , , 79 , , 25 , , 14 , , 0.7 , , 0.9 , , 6.8 , , 6.7 , , 13.6 , , 4.4 , , 1.4 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" , style="text-align:center;background:#afe6ba;",

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

† , , 11 , , 25 , , 34 , , 22 , , 213 , , 164 , , 377 , , 127 , , 35 , , 50 , , 1.4 , , 0.9 , , 8.5 , , 6.6 , , 15.1 , , 5.1 , , 1.4 , , 2.0 , , 8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1996 , , 11 , , 12 , , 18 , , 10 , , 85 , , 50 , , 135 , , 37 , , 26 , , 10 , , 1.5 , , 0.8 , , 7.1 , , 4.2 , , 11.3 , , 3.1 , , 2.2 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, , 11 , , 4 , , 0 , , 1 , , 26 , , 13 , , 39 , , 14 , , 5 , , 3 , , 0.0 , , 0.3 , , 6.5 , , 3.3 , , 9.8 , , 3.5 , , 1.3 , , 0.8 , , 0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 211 ! 169 ! 163 ! 1747 ! 1088 ! 2835 ! 885 ! 233 ! 218 ! 0.8 ! 0.8 ! 8.3 ! 5.2 ! 13.4 ! 4.2 ! 1.1 ! 1.0 ! 33

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spalding, Earl 1965 births Living people Melbourne Football Club players Carlton Football Club players Carlton Football Club Premiership players East Fremantle Football Club players East Fremantle Football Club coaches Perth Football Club players Western Australian State of Origin players Western Australia cricketers Cricketers from Western Australia Australian cricketers People educated at Wesley College, Perth Australian rules footballers from Perth, Western Australia One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players