Bert Gook

Bert Gook
Personal information
Full name Albert Henry Gook
Born c. 1914
Died 15 December 1964 (aged 50)
Dianella, Western Australia
Original team South Perth
Height 5 ft 10 in (178 cm)
Weight 11 st 0 lb (70 kg)[1]
Positions Centre, full-forward
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1933–1940 Perth 148 (512)
Representative team honours
Years Team Games (Goals)
1934–1938 Western Australia 7 (20)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1940.
Career highlights
Source: AustralianFootball.com

Albert Henry Gook (c. 1914 – 15 December 1964) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Perth Football Club[note 1] in the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL). He was the league's leading goalkicker in 1939.

Gook began his career with South Perth in the Band of Hope Association,[2] His senior debut for Perth came in 1933. Playing either as a centreman or at full-forward, he became known as a goal-kicking specialist, leading the club's goalkicking from the 1934 season through to the 1939 season. Gook led the WANFL's goalkicking in 1939, kicking 102 goals from 18 games. This included hauls of 10 goals against Swan Districts[3] and 16 goals against West Perth.[4] His tally against West Perth is a club record, as is his tally of 107 goals in 1937,[note 2] although he was not the WANFL's leading goalkicker that season.[5]

Gook also represented the WANFL in seven interstate and carnival matches between 1934 and 1938, kicking 20 goals, including six against the VFL in 1938. In his final season, 1940, he took out Perth's best and fairest award, playing mainly as a centreman.

In 1941, Gook suffered a fractured skull and leg in a motorcycle accident while riding pillion on Scarborough Road, with the motorcyclist, Alexander Brown Burton Stevens, being killed.[6][7] A benefit match was held in October 1941 for Gook and another footballer, J. Hulme of Swan Districts, who had also been injured in a road accident.[8] Gook died in Dianella in December 1964, aged 50.[9] In 1999, Gook was named at full-forward in Perth's Team of the Century.[10]

Notes

  1. ^ The Perth Football Club was known as the "Victoria Park Football Club" in the 1934 and 1935 seasons.
  2. ^ Ron Tucker kicked 115 goals in the 1950 season, but that tally includes eleven goals in three finals games, so that his home-and-away tally was only 104 goals – three fewer than Gook in 1937

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bert Gook.
  1. ^ "THE STATE TEAM. 23 PLAYERS CHOSEN. MATCHES AGAINST S.A." The West Australian. 9 July 1934. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  2. ^ "Band of Hope Association". The West Australian. 26 February 1934. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  3. ^ "PERTH WINS AGAIN. Ten Goals to Gook". The West Australian. 22 May 1939. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  4. ^ "BERT GOOK'S ORGY OF GOAL-KICKING". The Sunday Times. 30 April 1939. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  5. ^ Atkinson, Graeme; Hanlon, Michael. 3AW Book of Footy Records: All the Great Players, Matches, Goals, Kicks, Brawls and Sensations from More Than 100 Years of Aussie Rules in Australia. ISBN 1863210091.
  6. ^ "Injured footballer". The Sunday Times. 2 March 1941. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  7. ^ "MOTOR CYCLIST'S DEATH". The West Australian. 16 May 1941. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  8. ^ "FOOTBALL. Benefit match on Sunday". The West Australian. 16 October 1941. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  9. ^ "ALBERT HENRY GOOK". Metropolitan Cemeteries Board. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
  10. ^ "Perth Official 'Team of the Century'". Full Points Footy. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012.
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