Wally Donald

Wally Donald
Personal information
Full name	Wally Donald
Date of birth	27 May 1927
Place of birth	Fitzroy
Date of death	8 November 2003 (aged 76)
Place of death	Footscray
Original team(s)	Braybrook
Height/Weight	178 cm / 80 kg
Playing career^1
Years	Club	Games (Goals)
1946-1958	Footscray	205 (1)
Coaching career
Years	Club	Games (W–L–D)
1952-1953	Footscray	3 (1-2-0)
^1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1958 season.

Wally Donald (27 May 1927 – 8 November 2003) was recruited by Footscray Football Club (now Western Bulldogs) in the Victorian Football League, now Australian Football League, in 1946 from Braybrook. He played only one senior game that year, but from 1947 to 1957 he was a fixture in the Footscray team, missing only a total of seven games. By 1949, Donald was established as one of the best defenders in the league, and in 1950 he represented Victoria during the Brisbane Carnival. Donald even did fairly well in the Brownlow Medal that year, polling a total of nine votes out of a career total of 27.

His unique understanding with full-back Herb Henderson, made for an almost impassable backline, whose record of conceding only 959 points in the 1953 home-and-away season stands as the best defence by any team since 1920. He was a member of Footscray's 1954 premiership team (playing his landmark 150th game in the Grand Final), and was chosen as a member of the Bulldogs Team of the Century in 2002. In 2012, Donald was inducted into the Footscray/Western Bulldogs Hall of Fame, alongside Henderson. Donald was a part of the second wave of past Footscray/Western Bulldogs players and officials to be inducted into the prestigious group.

Donald played a total of 205 games for one goal — curiously kicked in the "National Day Round" of the 1952 season,^[1] when a depleted Footscray (its stars playing at the MCG for Victoria) was beaten by St Kilda on a very muddy ground at Yallourn.^[2][3][4] He is the only player to have two separate sequences of 100 games without a goal: the Yallourn game was his 102nd.

Donald won Footscray’s Best and Fairest in 1949 and was runner-up in 1952, 1953 and 1954. He retired in 1958.

References

1. VFL Games Tomorrow, The Age, (Friday, 13 June 1952), p.16.
2. First Win for Saints, The Age, (Monday, 16 June 1952), p.12
3. VFL Statistics, The Age, (Monday, 16 June 1952), p.12
4. Wet helps Saints to first victory, The Argus, (Monday, 16 June 1952), p.8.

External links

• Wally Donald's statistics from AFL Tables
• Wally coaching stats from AFL Tables