The amazing figures of Jack Owens in 1926 and 1930

Although I have ever since childhood been interested in (Australian rules) football statistics, it is only since reading the Full Points Footy site in the 2000s that my interest was extended beyond the VFL/AFL. Whilst I did have some background knowledge of other football competitions, it was only with Full Points Footy that I gained any detailed knowledge of the SANFL and WA(N)FL before the national completion began in the late 1980s.

One of the most remarkable things I discovered from reading the SANFL season scores of the middle to late 1920s was the extent to which Jack Owens monopolised scoring for Glenelg in some seasons. In his book Goals, Goals, Goals: A Study of League and Association Full-Forwards, Marc Fiddian paid limited attention to cases of players kicking all their team’s goals in a match, in favour of focusing on the extremely large goal tallies common in the VFA during my childhood. Nevertheless, there is an attraction to cases where one player monopolises scoring to an unusual degree — the team is totally dependent upon one player to score, and that naturally affects the attention granted to that player, and may make that player work much harder knowing that nobody else can do his job. (The phenomenon is well known to me from such county bowlers as “Tich” Freeman and George Dennett, who often took over half their team’s wickets for an entire season, feasible for a spin bowler under conditions not rigged against them by covering and “log bats”.)

Owens, who came from Broken Hill to Glenelg at a time when the club had not won a game in three seasons, would established himself very quickly around the time the club finally opened its account in the first game of 1925. He would set SA(N)FL goalkicking records — that would almost immediately be broken by North Adelaide’s Ken Farmer — in 1927 and 1928. Although Glenelg would improve substantially from their first three seasons, this improvement would during the period under discussion not be sufficient to lift them above seventh in an eight-club competition. What has attracted my attention for some years, though, is the proportion of Glenelg’s goals Owens kicked. The 1989 3AW Book of Footy Records, which I discarded many years ago, noted Ted Tyson’s goalkicking feats for the West Perth team of 1938 and 1939, who lost 27 consecutive games. Whilst these are remarkable, my study of the scores and season goalkicking figures for the SA(N)FL seasons between 1925 and 1932 shows that Owens actually surpassed Tyson’s monopolisation of the scoring. In fact, in the seasons of 1926 and 1930, Owens kicked over half of all Glenelg’s goals, a feat which the 2000s AFL Record encyclopedias show never to have been achieved over a full season in the VFL/AFL. The closest approach occurred in 1944 when Melbourne’s Fred Fanning kicked 48.33 percent of the team’s goals in the fourteen games he played. Fanning, though, missed four through suspension.

1926:

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Total
Owens	0	1	5	4	6	6	7	1	5	7	7	3	6	6	64
	0.00%	20.00%	55.56%	44.44%	75.00%	50.00%	70.00%	14.29%	71.43%	63.64%	43.75%	75.00%	66.67%	66.67%	54.24%
C. Sallis			1	1		3	1	3	1	2					12
Drew			1					1		2	2	1		1	8
Hack			1	1		1	1								4
P. Leverington		1						1			2				4
C. Hoft											1		2	1	4
Lyne	1	1				1									3
W. Hill				2	1										3
Gun						1		1	1						3
Exley		1					1							1	3
L. Sallis			1								1				2
L. Leverington											2				2
J. Davies											1		1		2
Toms	1														1
Lloyd		1													1
C. Hill				1											1
Barbary					1										1
Total	2	5	9	9	8	12	10	7	7	11	16	4	9	9	118

1930:

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Total
Owens	5	6	4	10	1	5	8	5	5	1	5	3	4	10	8	11	8	99
	71.43%	60.00%	44.44%	90.91%	11.11%	41.67%	53.33%	55.56%	71.43%	16.67%	35.71%	33.33%	40.00%	83.33%	80.00%	68.75%	80.00%	56.25%
Thompson						1	2		1	3	3				1	1		12
Link		2			1		2			2			3					10
Sallis								1			2	3		1		1		8
Rosewarne		1			2	2										2	1	8
Coller			3		2	2												7
Winkler				1	2						1	1	1					6
Morrow					1	1		1										3
Hill			1				1	1										3
Drew							2		1									3
Griffiths		1									1		1					3
K. Oliver												1		1			1	3
Johnston								1				1						2
Whitehead											1		1					2
Guiney			1													1		2
Edwards	1																	1
Percy	1																	1
Wickham						1												1
Lloyd											1							1
Wright															1			1
Total	7	10	9	11	9	12	15	9	7	6	14	9	10	12	10	16	10	176

From these two tables, we can see that:

1. in the last four games of 1930, Owens kicked 37 of Glenelg’s 48 goals —more than 75 percent, a proportion unrivalled for so long a period
2. in 1926, Owens kicked at least half of Glenelg’s goals in nine of fourteen matches (64.28 percent)
3. in 1930, Owens kicked at least half of Glenelg’s goals in ten of seventeen matches (58.82 percent)

With Tyson, John Coleman, Austin Robertson junior, Peter Hudson, Tony Lockett, and Brendan Fevola, scoring monopolisation was never as pronounced as 1), although, apart from “Ocker”, I have not thoroughly checked. It is odd that 3AW did not notice this.