Ivan George McAlpine (19 July 1907 – 16 April 1992) 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 Footscray and

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

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). McAlpine was wingman and regularly represented Victoria in interstate football. He won the inaugural Footscray

Best and Fairest 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 ...

award in 1927 and won the award again in 1930 and 1932. For consecutive seasons in 1931 and 1932 he finished in the top 5 of the Brownlow Medal count. Having captained Footscray in 1933, his job at Menzies Creek made it difficult for him to attend training so he crossed over to Hawthorn which was closer. He had accepted the role of captain-coach. Despite retiring as a player in 1937 he stayed at the club for the following season as coach. After the war, McAlpine taught and captain-coached the local St James side near Benalla. In 1947 he transferred from Benalla to Alfredton. While coaching in Ballarat he led

Sebastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

to the premiership in the Ballarat B grade competition in 1949.

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* 1907 births Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Western Bulldogs players Hawthorn Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club coaches Charles Sutton Medal winners 1992 deaths {{AFL-bio-1907-stub