In the USA former presidents are referred to by their Presidential title.

To those at the St Kilda Football Club who knew Andrew Plympton he was forever addressed as “Prez”,  long after his own reign in the club’s top job had finished.

Andrew Plympton, who passed away on the weekend at the age of 74, was a man who left an indelible mark on the story of this club, and with his great mates Gerry Ryan and Stuart Trott guided St Kilda through a torrid era of our history.

His trademarks were a great sense of humour and down to earth manner and a garrulous nature which was allied with a tremendous work ethic and total commitment to furthering the club’s cause. He was aways willing to get his hands dirty in a football sense, and even on interstate trips he was prepared the fill the boundary line role of interchange recorder when there was a staffing shortfall. He didn’t consider it beneath his dignity to turn his back on the glitz of a match day function behind glass.

He tackled the unenviable role of president with rare enthusiasm and dedication which necessitated countless hours of commitment at the same time as he was running a successful business.

Andrew was a local boy who grew up in the St Kilda heartland and was a noted sportsman in his own right as a sailor winning the world championship and three Australian titles in the Etchells class. His business interests took him to Sydney for seven years, and when he returned to Melbourne he again took up his favorite position on the Moorabbin terraces to follow the Saints.

It was a time when St Kilda struggled for wins, but Andrew was keen to put his shoulder to the wheel and make a meaningful contribution. The initial step was to be a member of the Halos Coterie and when Allen Aylett was a consultant to the club Andrew was asked to be a part of the newly formed President’s Room group. His business acumen and creative work ethic enhanced that group and helped make it a successful fund-raising operation. By the time he joined the St Kilda Board he had been involved in the club’s coterie groups for 12 years.

His hard work and capacity for innovation made an instant impression and he became involved with the marketing sub-committee. He was approached to join the board in 1990 but work commitments initially prevented him taking up the position. Then in 1991 a vacancy arose and he took it up.

His abilities shone through and in December 1992 he replaced Stuart Trott as St Kilda director at the AFL table. Andrew became president of St Kilda in 1993 and faced a massive task in resurrecting the club’s financial and playing positions which were at the lowest ebb.

In 1994 the football club made a small operating profit which was the first time since 1981 that St Kilda had been in the black without the assistance of a Social Club contribution. Andrew’s diplomacy and negotiating skills helped to establish a better working agreement between the football and social clubs after the relationship had been fraught with problems and held back the football club’s advance for many years.

The football club, however, still faced a large debt from previous years and Andrew Plympton spearheaded the Save our Saints campaign which enabled St Kilda to survive. During this time he devoted 40 -50 hours a week as president, coming to a club where the board had often been criticised externally and internally.

He had to sort out the major issues of a long running and damaging feud between the social club and football club, the introduction of gaming machines, the move of home games to Waverley, and then to Docklands, and the Save our Saints campaign. It was unusual for any president to have his reign encompass so many landmark situations, but Plympton handled them all successfully. He was certainly no “arm’s length” president and was remembered for filling in as a member of the bench staff for a game played interstate. He did not consider the role beneath him and as ever was keen to assist.

He had initially intended to occupy the president’s chair for two or three years, but in the end he stayed as president for eight seasons until the end of 2000 when he thought it was appropriate to hand over the role. By then St Kilda had become financially viable and had progressed to a Grand Final in 1997.

The chairman of our Honours and Awards committee Ross Smith paid tribute:

Andrew’s sporting involvement extended beyond footy as he was a board member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, had stints on the Australian Olympic Committee, was president of Sailing Australia, board member for the Australian Sports Commission and Commodore of the Sorrento Sailing and Couta Boat club. Legendary yachting figure John Bertrand credited Andrew with having “reinvented Sailing Australia by bringing all the different clubs in the country together”.

As he had shown during the melding of the Saints football and social clubs, he had the rare knack of getting disparate elements to work together.

Andrew Plympton restored respect and viability to St Kilda both on and off the field, and if a contribution is judged by leaving the club in a better state than when you found it then Andrew Plympton epitomised that ethos.

Our sympathies are extended to his wife Kim and two daughters Katrina and Amanda.