Ian Charles Cooper (2 April 1946 – 14 December 2021) was a former

Australian rules 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 ...

footballer who played for St Kilda 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 ...

during the 1960s. In a retrospective poll by a team of experts, Cooper was voted best on the field in the

1966 VFL Grand Final The 1966 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Collingwood Football Club and St Kilda Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 24 September 1966. It was the 69th annual grand final ...

, which St Kilda won. It was St Kilda's first and (as of 2020) only VFL/AFL premiership by a margin of one point over Collingwood. Cooper's VFL career was cut short by

rheumatic fever Rheumatic fever (RF) is an inflammatory disease that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain. The disease typically develops two to four weeks after a streptococcal throat infection. Signs and symptoms include fever, multiple painful jo ...

. In 1970 and 1971, Cooper played for Swan Districts in the

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, ...

, and was a Western Australian state representative player. In 1972, he returned to Victoria and became a prominent full forward with the

Sandringham Football Club The Sandringham Football Club, nicknamed The Zebras, is an Australian rules football club based in Melbourne which was formed in 1929 and plays in the Victorian Football League (VFL) which was formerly called the Victorian Football Association ...

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 ...

, where he played 35 games and kicked 73 goals. In 1973, he kicked 104 goals to be the VFA Division 1 leading goalkicker for the home-and-away season, although he was passed in the finals by

Jim 'Frosty' Miller Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim ...

. Altogether, Cooper played 56 games for Sandringham between 1972 and 1975, and kicked 282 goals. His older brother

Graham Graham and Graeme may refer to: People * Graham (given name), an English-language given name * Graham (surname), an English-language surname * Graeme (surname), an English-language surname * Graham (musician) (born 1979), Burmese singer * Clan ...

played for

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 ...

in the early 1960s, appearing in that club's first premiership team.

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* 1946 births 2021 deaths Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) St Kilda Football Club players St Kilda Football Club Premiership players Sandringham Football Club players Swan Districts Football Club players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players {{AFL-bio-1940s-stub