SOMEWHERE in the pages of football history, Ted Fordham's story has been lost, an injustice for a player who can legitimately claim the tag 'premiership hero'.

When you add Coleman Medal winner to his football CV and a close association to the man the medal is named after, it is not quite right that he hasn't been given the recognition he deserves.

Some might argue he was a one-hit wonder but, on closer inspection, Fordham's record puts him in pretty good company.

He kicked seven goals in Essendon's 1965 premiership side and, if they were handing out retrospective Norm Smith Medals, the Bomber spearhead, who started his career as a half-back flanker and occasional half-forward, would be a shoo-in.

In fact, the day we met at Docklands recently, Fordham raised the point that he thought a Norm Smith Medal had been put aside for him at AFL headquarters.

Alas, that is not the case, but I gave him the news that, in 2001, the AFL Record dusted off old tapes of Grand Finals from 1965-78 and selected a panel of past players and media experts to choose who they thought was best on ground in those 14 Grand Finals (the first 'official' Norm Smith Medal was presented to Carlton's Wayne Harmes in 1979).

The list also features annually in the AFL Record Season Guide and I gave Fordham a copy of the 2011 Guide to keep as a permanent reminder of his achievement.

The panel that judged the 1965 Grand Final - ex-players Nathan Burke (St Kilda) and Terry Wheeler (Footscray) and freelance football journalist Stephen Phillips - gave Fordham six votes, ahead of teammates John Birt, Brian Sampson and Ken Fraser, who all polled four votes.

So he has an unofficial Norm Smith Medal to go alongside the Coleman Medal he won the following year when he topped the VFL goalkicking at the end of the home and away season with 73 goals.

His great regret is missing the presentation of retrospective Coleman Medals in 2004, when there was a mix-up over his invitation, which, sadly, never arrived. He has since been presented the medal.

Part of that regret is what the Coleman Medal represents to Fordham and, by extension, the Essendon family.

Even today, 38 years after Coleman's passing at the age of 44, Fordham talks in awed tones about the man who gave him his first crack at League football, then turned him into a match-winning full-forward.

"I played my first game for Essendon in 1961 under John Coleman and he was absolutely fantastic," Fordham said.

"He had a wonderful ability to handle people one-on-one. He was a hard coach but he was fair. He could put you down one moment and pick you up the next … I like that in a coach."

He paused for a moment and looked ahead to the Bombers of today. "Do you know what?" he said, with a touch of excitement. "I think James Hird is a replica of John Coleman. He (Hird) was a star like Coleman, he can handle men and he has a great footy brain. Coleman got a flag in his second year (1962) - I have reminded 'Hirdy' of that."

Coleman was in his first season as coach in 1961 when he succeeded another Bomber legend, Dick Reynolds, who had coached the club for the previous 21 seasons.

Fordham was a local, recruited from Essendon Baptists-St John's, a club that had provided the Bombers other premiership players of that era, including Fraser, Ron Evans and Don McKenzie.

In his late teens, Fordham had to juggle his National Service commitments with his ambition to make the grade as a footballer, be it in the local league or the big league with Essendon. Somehow he managed both and he played in two under-age premierships and one senior premiership, all in successive years, for Essendon Baptists-St John's in the late 1950s.

He joined Essendon's under-19s in 1959, coached by another club legend, Bill Hutchison, and spent 1960 playing in the Bombers' reserves.

But it was Coleman's appointment to succeed Reynolds in 1961 that was the catalyst for Fordham launching his League career, and for turning him into a premiership hero in 1965.

Fordham made his VFL debut in the opening round of 1961, against North Melbourne at Arden Street. He played 10 games that year, mainly on the half-back flank, and seven were in losses, which saw him in and out of the team.

The Bombers finished seventh, with nine wins and a draw from its 18 games and it was the portent for natural improvement the following year.

Essendon finished in top spot (16-2) in 1962 and won through to the Grand Final, but it had to wait an extra week to meet Carlton. The Blues and Geelong drew in the preliminary final - a game best remembered for the Doug Wade-Peter Barry shorts-pulling incident.

Late in the game, Wade, who had kicked six goals for the Cats, took a mark right in front of goal, but was ruled to have pulled the shorts of his Carlton opponent.

Senior games were harder to come by for Fordham that season and he had managed just four in the early part of the year and made one more appearance in round 16.

But he was named an emergency for the Grand Final and couldn't believe his luck when he was told to get changed before the game.

"At 2.20pm, I was still stripped and ready to go. (Ruckman) Geoff Leek had a sore ankle and they got a medicine ball out and gave him all these tests where he had to actually kick the big ball," Fordham said.

"In the end, they said he was right so I got back in my clothes and sat on the bench next to Coleman.

"Years later, 'Leeky' told me he'd actually been kicking the medicine ball with his good foot ... I think he was having me on, though."

Although not part of the premiership 20, Fordham knew he was close to Essendon's best side and put all his energy into becoming a regular senior player. He played 14 games in 1963 as the Bombers missed the finals by percentage, and 16 in 1964, a defining season for the then 24-year-old.

Late in 1964, Coleman took Fordham aside and asked if he would like to play at full-forward. The hook was that the greatest full-forward the game had seen, Coleman,would act as his tutor.

"I wasn't a very good kick for goal, but Coleman said it didn't matter," Fordham said.

"He said he would teach me when to lead and how to position myself. He was a great believer in (full-forwards) standing on the far side of the goals as the ball came in because you'd give yourself a better chance of getting to the contest."

The new challenge had immediate results. In the last home and away game in 1964, Fordham kicked eight goals against South Melbourne at Windy Hill. He was no Coleman, but Bomber fans were smiling.

After Essendon bowed out in the first week of the 1964 finals, Fordham returned to goalkicking duties in 1965 and throughout the home and away season was consistent without being spectacular.

Then came his defining moments: the preliminary final against Collingwood, when he kicked six goals, and the Grand Final, when he booted a match-winning seven.

The preliminary final was a match tarnished by one of the most controversial incidents in the game's history. With play down the other end of the ground, Essendon half-forward John Somerville was suddenly spotted lying unconscious on the ground; the only person near him was Magpie defender Duncan Wright.

No charges were ever laid over the incident and, while Somerville has since passed on (in 1984), Fordham believes Wright, now 71, should give his version of what took place.

"I'd love to know the truth. I'd like him (Wright) to come out and say, 'I did do it or I didn't do it'," Fordham said.

Fordham said he didn't see what caused Somerville to go to ground, even though he was playing in the forward line himself.

Losing their popular teammate for the Grand Final gave the Bombers even more incentive. "We'd come from fourth and in every final we played, including the Grand Final, we were the underdogs," Fordham said.

On the eve of the Grand Final, Fordham picked up a copy of the Melbourne afternoon broadsheet, The Herald. As was tradition, its veteran chief football writer Alf Brown had written a preview that was so typical of the game's coverage then.

Long and analytical, it was a forum for Brown to offer his well-regarded opinions.

But it also served as a means for any club official or coach who was close to Brown to not let a player, particularly a young one, get ahead of himself.

"Alf wrote that maybe Fordham had played above himself in the preliminary final. To this day, I have no doubt Coleman got him to write that but, I have to say, it worked beautifully," he said.

Fordham was awesome. He kicked 7.4 in the Bombers' 37-point win over the Saints and beat two of the game's finest defenders of the day, Bob Murray and Verdun Howell.

Writing in The Age, under the heading 'Clever Dons had too many guns', Melbourne star Brian Dixon said: "Essendon had too many good players, with Ted Fordham best on the ground. Saturday's effort was his own best in a great finals series for him, during which he has amassed 17 goals.

"He has played more confidently with each appearance and he will be the League's top goalkicker if he carries on in the same way."

The celebrations were full-scale but Fordham said he was spent. "I remember we went to some place in Bourke Street and I didn't enjoy it," he said. "I think someone took a photo of me outside this place sitting on the stairs by myself. To me, the job was done and I was flat."

But his teammates quickly lifted his spirits when they reminded him they were about to embark on a 10-day end-of-season trip to Surfers Paradise.

"I remember I earned 1300 pounds ($2600) that year, the most I got out of footy in my career. So we headed up there and we had a great time, even though I got burned like a lobster."

The following season, Coleman predicted his rising star would be the next player to kick 100 goals in a season (Coleman had been the last to achieve three figures, in 1952).

Fordham appreciated the sentiments of his coach, but he knew his conversion rate was not up to scratch.

"I kicked a hell of a lot of points," Fordham said. "One day, we were playing at Footscray and I'd kicked something like 1.5. Anyway, Ron Brophy, who was the umpire, had arranged for a few of the boys to go away duck shooting the next day. After I missed another one, he ran past me and said, 'Hey 'Boof' (Fordham's nickname), I hope you shoot ducks better than you kick goals'."

But Fordham had some magical moments in 1966, including a bag of 10 against Collingwood at Victoria Park. It remains equal with St Kilda's Bill Mohr (in 1930) and Melbourne's George Margitich (in 1933) as the most goals kicked by an individual against Collingwood at Victoria Park.

Mohr and Margitich played in losing sides; Fordham led the Bombers to a 65-point victory and he is still bemused by the fact he received just two Brownlow Medal votes.

Despite winning the Coleman Medal in 1966, Fordham spent more time on the ball the following season, Coleman's last as coach, and under new coach Jack Clarke, he shared ruck-roving duties with Charlie Payne in 1968.

However, a quiet effort in the 1968 losing Grand Final against Carlton and a back injury in 1969, when he managed just six games, signalled the end for Fordham.

He considered a lucrative offer to play for South Bendigo in country Victoria in 1969 but the Bombers refused his clearance. By then, Fordham was working full-time for Coleman in the hotel business and his football career ground to a halt through injury and work.

"John asked me to manage the Victoria Hotel in Brunswick for him," Fordham said. "He had other hotel interests down at Dromana, so it suited me to become my own boss and manage the pub."

They remained close mates, as they had done as player and coach, and no one was more devastated than Fordham when he received the news Coleman had died of a heart attack working at his hotel in Dromana in 1973. "It was devastating; he was too young," Fordham said.

Fordham never pulled on a boot after his last game in 1969. He coached local club Ascot Vale in the Essendon District Football League for a couple of seasons in the 1970s and later served as a committeeman and chairman of selectors at Essendon.

At 71, he is still working his own business, driving a delivery van around Melbourne, and his children, Jason and Libby from his first marriage, and Kaliste from his second marriage, keep him occupied. So do his two grandchildren, Riley and Jamison.

Perhaps now his grandchildren will grow up knowing their 'Poppy Feather' (the nickname derived from the Sylvester the Cat cartoon they have bestowed on him) was a bona fide star.

This article first appeared in the AFL Record