1. George Coulthard was an Australian cricketer, umpire and Australian rules footballer.
60 Facts About George Coulthard
1. 2.
George Coulthard umpired one of the earliest Tests at age 22, and although he remains the youngest ever Test umpire, he is perhaps best known in cricket for instigating the sport's first international riot when, in 1879 in Sydney, he controversially gave New South Wales batsman Billy Murdoch out against Lord Harris's English XI.
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George Coulthard was co-officiating the match with Edmund Barton, later the first prime minister of Australia.
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George Coulthard's sporting exploits made him a household name throughout Australia.
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George Coulthard is known as Australian football's first "man in white" for umpiring an 1880 match in the now-traditional all-white uniform.
6.
In 1882, while serving as the England cricket team's umpire on its first quest to regain The Ashes, George Coulthard became ill with tuberculosis, from which he died the following year, aged 27.
7.
George Coulthard first started playing club-level football in 1874 for Carlton Imperial, a junior side then referred to as the "training establishment" of the senior Carlton Football Club.
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George Coulthard proved to be a match-winner for the Imperials with his goal-kicking, and in 1876 was recruited by Carlton, then a powerhouse of Victorian football.
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George Coulthard's speciality is, undoubtedly, running with the ball; many are the runs he has made, warding off his opponents with his long, muscular arms.
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George Coulthard stood out in both fixtures and briefly joined the Waratahs to play rugby.
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George Coulthard quickly dominated at the sport, scoring all five goals and four tries in his second and last game for the club.
12.
George Coulthard was remembered decades later for "[showing] the Rugby men how their game should be played".
13.
On 15 September 1877, soon after his arrival, George Coulthard joined several local footballers on a fishing trip in Sydney Harbour.
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The group was anchored off Shark Island when George Coulthard, sitting on the boat's gunwale with the back of his tailcoat hanging over the side, was pulled overboard by "a monster shark, 13 feet long".
15.
The club denied rumours that it had lured its star player back with financial incentives, stating that George Coulthard returned due to a falling out with his associates in Sydney.
16.
Nonetheless, the shark entered sporting folklore in the 20th century as the reason why George Coulthard abandoned his plans in Sydney, which, as the story goes, kept Australian rules from becoming the city's most popular football code.
17.
George Coulthard was instrumental in maintaining Carlton's supremacy and was voted by The Australasian in its end-of-season review as one of the VFA's best backline players.
18.
Carlton was considered the best side early on in the 1878 VFA season with George Coulthard putting in best-on-ground efforts for the club.
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George Coulthard capped off the season with 18 goals, the most of any player that year, and was singled out for his prowess in the ruck.
20.
George Coulthard contributed two goals for Victoria in a best-on-ground display, and again led the way when his colony trounced South Australia in the return match a few days later.
21.
George Coulthard ended 1879 with a record 21 goals, seven more than the runner-up.
22.
George Coulthard kicked all five goals in the first game of the 1880 VFA season.
23.
George Coulthard tried squaring up to Watson but was pulled back by a police constable and taken from the field to recover.
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George Coulthard finished on top of the goal-kicking ladder for the third consecutive season with 21 goals, and was again recognised as a champion of the colony.
25.
In July of the 1881 VFA season, George Coulthard, attempting a mark in front of Carlton's goal, was tackled by a Melbourne opponent and accidentally kicked behind the right ear.
26.
George Coulthard was still suffering the effects of the injury one week later when he returned to the field to face Geelong.
27.
George Coulthard struggled during Carlton's 1881 tour of Adelaide, the local press stating that he was manned so persistently due to his footballing reputation that "he does not get the same chance of showing his sterling qualities".
28.
George Coulthard was serving as Carlton's vice-captain in 1882 when events conspired to end his VFA career.
29.
Later in the match, George Coulthard challenged Tankard to a fight in the pavilion, but he refused.
30.
Lawrence accused George Coulthard of insulting and threatening Tankard outside the meeting, and considered going to the police.
31.
George Coulthard began his cricket career at the Carlton Cricket Club.
32.
George Coulthard was only twenty-two when Lord Harris, captain of the touring England XI, put him on trial as the team's umpire on the advice of the MCC.
33.
In reply to the tourists' first innings total of 267, Billy Murdoch, the star of New South Wales, carried his bat for 82 out of 177 and had reached 10 in the follow-on when George Coulthard gave him run out.
34.
Outside the ground, George Coulthard was cornered by a 200-strong mob but escaped without further trouble when a group of sailors intervened and "polished off" his would-be attackers.
35.
The Sydney press maintained that George Coulthard was either incompetent or "wilfully corrupt" as umpire.
36.
George Coulthard wrote an open letter to The Sydney Evening News denying accusations that he had bets on the match, and Harris stated publicly that had he suspected his umpire of taking any interest in the result, he would not have employed him.
37.
George Coulthard was brought into a Victoria XV in March 1880 to take on that season's Australian representative team.
38.
George Coulthard failed to make much of a statistical impact for Victoria in any of these intercolonials.
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Beyond cricket and football, George Coulthard excelled at other sports, and he was remembered as "one of the best all-round sportsmen of all time".
40.
George Coulthard was born on 1 August 1856 in Boroondara to Thomas George Coulthard and his wife Elizabeth, both of whom migrated to Victoria from England in 1854.
41.
George Coulthard married a woman named Letitia Ann Jackson in July 1880 with whom he had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.
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In March 1879, George Coulthard spied on and captured William Grieves, a notorious criminal who had eluded detection for five years, and delivered him into police custody.
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George Coulthard was later reportedly admitted as a member of the Victoria detective force.
44.
George Coulthard donated a koala to the precursor of the Melbourne Zoo in 1880.
45.
In November 1882, George Coulthard was appointed umpire for Ivo Bligh's touring England XI on its famous quest to recover The Ashes.
46.
George Coulthard fell ill during a sea voyage early on in the tour, and on the second day of a match in Newcastle, suffered "severe indisposition" and retired from his post.
47.
George Coulthard had contracted tuberculosis, and he was feared to be on the verge of death by the start of the 1883 VFA season.
48.
The Melbourne press, noting George Coulthard's popularity, anticipated a record attendance for football in Australia.
49.
Hotham, the club with which George Coulthard had feuded the previous year, was among the contributors to his fund.
50.
On 20 October 1883, George Coulthard was reportedly "confined to his bed in a dangerous state".
51.
George Coulthard was buried at the Melbourne General Cemetery next to Princes Park, home of the Carlton Football Club.
52.
George Coulthard earned a place in the annals of Australian horse racing for a dream he reportedly had in the weeks before his death.
53.
The story went that George Coulthard, lying on his deathbed, dreamt that Martini-Henry would win the Victoria Derby, Dirk Hatteraick the Melbourne Cup, and that he himself would die before the first-named race was run.
54.
George Coulthard's dream was "the great topic of the day" and received significant media coverage.
55.
George Coulthard is often ranked alongside Jack Worrall, Albert Thurgood and Fred McGinis as one of the greatest Australian rules footballers to emerge in the first fifty years of the game.
56.
George Coulthard's clever handling, his pace, his expertness in dodging, his sureness in the air, and his masterful kicking were items that proved invaluable to his team.
57.
George Coulthard was the brightest star in the galaxy, such as does not, even to-day, shed its effulgent beams on Carlton.
58.
George Coulthard was inducted into the Carlton Football Club Hall of fame in 1990, and is one of the few players of his generation to be a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
59.
George Coulthard is depicted in the MCG Tapestry, designed by artist Robert Ingpen and unveiled at the MCG in 2003 to commemorate the ground's 150th anniversary.
60.
George Coulthard was named as a follower in historian Mark Pennings' "Team of the Nineteenth Century", published in the fifth and final volume of his Origins of Australian Football series.