More than 1500 St Kilda players have taken the field since the club joined the VFL in 1897 but while all have worn the red, white and black there have been more than a few who have done so with a few variations on the uniform.
Football, as we are reminded from our early days in the juniors, is a uniquely team sport but St Kilda has always been known for more than a dash of individual flair that sometimes shone through in the playing uniform.
With that in mind, SAINTS.com.au has given a nod to the five greatest Saints accessories.
For a relatively brutal contact sport, football helmets were a relatively under-developed technology in the 1980s so players needing protective headgear were left to their own creativity. Some, like Carlton’s Rodney Ashman or Fitzroy’s Garry Wilson sported lightweight padded helmets that were the origin of the headgear seen these days. Then there was Phil Narkle.
After a series of head knocks in his junior days in Western Australia, Narkle took to wearing a large, bulky helmet that looked more appropriate for motorcycle riding rather than football.
The talented wingman kept to uniform though with red, white and black panels painted on the helmet. He played 48 games in three seasons with the Saints from 1984-86 before returning to his native Western Australia to play another 18 games with West Coast.
While the helmet would have protected him from a swiftly swung sledgehammer, it was a series of leg injuries that brought his talented career to an early end.
Burkey’s helmet
Not as outlandish as Phil Narkle’s headwear but Nathan Burke’s helmet became iconic simply because of the man it was attached to. For the first four years of his career, Burke took to the field bare-headed but a behind the play hit from Gary Ablett sr in the 1991 preliminary final left Burke with a severe head injury and forced him to wear a helmet for more than a decade afterwards. It was during this time that Burke built a reputation as one of the hardest working midfielders in the AFL and quickly developed into a genuine leader of his beloved Saints. Towards the end of his career Burke ditched the helmet but he remains, probably along with Garry Wilson the greatest helmeted player the AFL has ever seen.
Burke’s helmet has spent the past few years in the Melbourne Sports Museum at the MCG where it remains a big attraction.
Spida’s headband
Since earning the first ever AFL Rising Star nomination in his debut match in 1993, Peter Everitt had a knack of standing out.
The fact he was lanky, extroverted and 6 foot 7 was enough to draw attention to him everywhere he went but the man known as ‘Spida’ (his spelling, not ours), went to extra efforts to make himself noticed.
He was one of, if not the first player to bring dreadlocks to the AFL, paving the way for modern-day fan favourites Dyson Heppell, Luke Dahlhaus, Scott Pendlebury, Nic Naitanui and Eli Templeton.
Not content with simply having dreadies, Everitt dyed his hair blond as his AFL career began to blossom and was known for needing a headband to keep his distinctive hair out of his eyes.
Everitt’s unique look became so popular among the St Kilda faithful that he actually commissioned special ‘Spida’ headbands to sell as merchandise. His intention of wearing the headbands in games was quickly knocked on the head by the AFL as it was not an official AFL product. The headbands were still one of the club’s most popular merchandise items for that year.
Everitt eventually chopped the dreadlocks and in his later years with Hawthorn and Sydney sported a more distinctive, tightly cropped grey look.
Chris Stone’s squash goggles
A rover who played 23 games over five years in the 70s and 80s, Stone didn’t leave a huge legacy from his time at St Kilda but he will be forever remembered as the man who wore squash goggles in the football field.
Stone suffered the same unusual injury twice in 14 months when he was struck in the eye by a football and then a cricket ball. He had a 14-month layoff between his second and third VFL games as he recovered from the injury and took to wearing modified squash goggles whenever he took the field.
Jamie Shanahan’s gloves
The modern day incarnation of gloves in football can be traced back to former Melbourne and Footscray defender Tony Campbell who caused a stir when he wore gloves for the first time against St Kilda in early 1992. The trend caught on around the AFL, with Saints defender Jamie Shanahan probably the Saints’ most prominent glove wearer, along with Stewart Loewe. Not content with simply using his extraordinarily long arms to his advantage, Shanahan was also big on gloving up to get maximum grip on the ball and occasionally his opponent in a marking duel. Whether it was the gloves or not, Shanahan justified the choice and he is remembered as one of the greatest St Kilda defenders of the 1990s.
