Grant Wilmot (15 October 1956 – 4 July 2016) 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 with Collingwood 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).

Playing career

Wilmot played his junior football at

Diamond Valley Football League The Northern Football Netball League (formerly known as the Diamond Valley Football League and later Northern Football League) is an Australian sports league based in the Diamond Creek, Victoria, Diamond Valley region of suburban Melbourne, Vi ...

club Montmorency and broke into their seniors in 1974. He was a member of Montmorency's 1976 premiership team. From 1977 to 1979, Wilmot played for Preston in the

Victorian Football Association 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 ...

(VFA). He played in the 1978 VFA Grand Final, which Preston lost to

Prahran Prahran (), also pronounced colloquially as Pran, is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City ...

. Wilmot, who had previously fought a professional boxing bout as a middleweight in 1976, received a six-week suspension for his actions during the game. He made five senior appearances for Collingwood in the

1980 VFL season The 1980 VFL season was the 84th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 29 March until 27 September, and comprised a ...

. His best performance, which earned him three

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 ...

votes, came in a win over St Kilda at

Victoria Park Victoria Park may refer to: Places Australia * Victoria Park Nature Reserve, a protected area in Northern Rivers region, New South Wales * Victoria Park, Adelaide, a park and racecourse * Victoria Park, Brisbane, a public park and former golf ...

, where he had 20 disposals and kicked four goals. Injuries brought an early end to his VFL career and he spent the rest of his playing career at Montmorency, Heidelberg West and

Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards of Elt ...

. While at Heidelberg West in 1982, Wilmot finished second, to Wayne Headlam, in the Frank Smith Medal.

Coaching

Wilmot started his coaching career in his one-season stint at Eltham, where he was both a player and assistant coach. Eltham defeated Epping in the Division 2 Grand Final that year. In 1990 and 1991 he was senior coach of Croydon, then head coach at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

for next two years. He coached Eltham to a premiership in 1995 and returned to Montmorency as an assistant coach the following year. In 1997 he was senior coach of Montmorency.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmot, Grant 1956 births 2016 deaths Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Collingwood Football Club players Preston Football Club (VFA) players Montmorency Football Club players Eltham Football Club players Eltham Football Club coaches Boxers from Melbourne Australian male boxers Middleweight boxers Sportsmen from Victoria (state)