Every child’s dream is to play on that one day in September.
The bubbling desire for glory is the petrol that fuels all teams and players.
Players like 426-game Hawthorn star Michael Tuck have been fortunate enough to win seven premierships, while other players like St Kilda Legend Trevor Barker, didn’t even get to run out in a final across his 230-game career.
*Editor's note: This article was originally written the week before the 2021 AFL Grand Final.
The Nathan Jones story is a particularly heart-breaking one. Captain for six-years, three-time Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Medallist, 302 games, 198 losses and one admirable decision to fly home back to Melbourne and be with his wife for the birth of twins. A choice that is likely to leave a lump in the throat of any footy lover.
As a man who did so much for a club when they needed a leader, Jones now won’t be able to join in the potential success of breaking the 57-year drought he worked his backside to topple.
Sport is unquestionably hard, and that is why we love it.
Only a matter of days before one club tastes September glory, we are looking at some of the unluckiest grand final stories in history, and the players behind them.
13. Claude Curtin - Fitzroy/North Melbourne (1939-1949)
There’s no greater display of selflessness than fighting for your country.
Claude Curtin who was a lynchpin in the goal-square for Fitzroy in the early 1940s kicking 181 goals between 1940-42, enlisted in the army on September 14th, 1943 and was sent up north to Katherine.
While on R&R during 1944, Curtin came and played four games, but untimely for the soldier, he was sent away again and missed the chance to play in the 1944 Premiership - Fitzroy’s last until their heart-breaking extinction in 1996.
