Geoffrey William Ainsworth (27 May 1946 – 2 February 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 who played with

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

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) during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The son of a local lawyer, William Charles Ainsworth, Geoff matriculated to the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

in 1965, where he was resident at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

. He represented the college in tennis, athletics, cricket and football, and also played football with the

University Blues Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. The club fields two teams, known as the "Blacks" and "Blues", who both compete in the Victorian Ama ...

, where he was noticed by the senior teams. Ainsworth played in jersey no. 25 with Geelong, who used him as a defender in the

back pocket In the sport of Australian rules football, each of the eighteen players in a team is assigned to a particular named position on the field of play. These positions describe both the player's main role and by implication their location on the gro ...

over the course of his eight-season career. He was a member of Geelong's losing

1967 VFL Grand Final The 1967 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Richmond Football Club and Geelong Football Club at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 23 September 1967. It was the 70th annual grand final of the Victorian Footb ...

side in his first year at the club. After missing all but one game of the 1971 season as he was travelling in Europe, Ainsworth went on to become club captain in 1973. He lost the captaincy role the following season and retired, aged only 28, at the end of the year in order to concentrate on his legal career. During his career Ainsworth had polled a total of five

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. In 1976 he was made a life member of the Geelong Football Club. Ainsworth died on 2 February 2011.

References

*Holmesby, Russell and Main, Jim (2007). ''The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers''. 7th ed. Melbourne: Bas Publishing.

External links

* Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Geelong Football Club players Geelong Football Club captains People educated at Trinity College (University of Melbourne) University Blues Football Club players 1946 births 2011 deaths Deaths from cancer in Victoria (state) {{AFL-bio-1940s-stub