Kevin "Skeeter" Coghlan (14 October 1929 – 22 August 2002) 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 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). Coghlan, said to have been the smallest player of his era, earned his nickname of "Skeeter" when during a junior high jump competition he successfully made it over a target which was three inches above his height. Not surprisingly, Coghlan played his football as a rover. He won a

Gardiner Medal {{Use Australian English, date=January 2018 The Gardiner Medal was an Australian rules football award, formerly awarded to the best and fairest player in the VFL Reserves competition. Officially named the Seconds prior to 1959 and the Reserves fr ...

in 1949 for his efforts in the league seconds. He took a while he establish himself in the Collingwood senior side, with just four appearances from his first two seasons. Over the next two years however he played 27 games. Collingwood went on to win the premiership in 1953, but Coghlan was at Hawthorn, having applied for and been granted a clearance to the Hawks. Coghlan was the leading goal-kicker for Hawthorn in three successive seasons from 1953 to 1955. His tally of 19 goals in 1953 remains the lowest ever total to top the Hawthorn goal-kicking. After retiring, Coghlan worked as a football journalist. He was a teacher of senior school maths and physics at Melbourne Girls Grammar school and taught at

Melbourne High School Melbourne High School is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1905, the school caters for boys from Year 9 t ...

and at

Northcote High School , motto_translation = Let us follow the better path , established = 1926 , address = 19-25 St. Georges Road , city = Northcote , state = Victoria , postcode ...

. He was also a television and radio football commentator.''The Age'
"Better go for the lowly"
20 March 1980, p. 23

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coghlan, Kevin 1929 births Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Collingwood Football Club players Hawthorn Football Club players Australian rules football commentators 2002 deaths