BY AND large, the Australian Football Hall of Fame is dominated by players who throughout its history, were champions of the game.

There are also 14 umpires who, through their service to the game, have been inducted.

And now there is George Owens, a champion footballer with East Perth, who then turned to umpiring and can truly claim to have been a champion with the ball and the whistle in hand.

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Born in Kalgoorlie, he had not yet turned 17 he made his debut for East Perth. Within two years he was a premiership player, and he won six more for the Royals.

An old-school ‘Collingwood six-footer’, which by today’s measurements is 180cm, he nevertheless played in the ruck for East Perth.

“I’ve seen photos where he towered over my grandmother,” said his granddaughter Sarahlouise Owens, who represented the family at the family at the Hall of Fame ceremony.

“For his time, he was a big man.”

Owens won the Sandover Medal in 1925 and the following year after he won the trophy for the best-on-ground in a match between WA and Victoria in Perth, a reporter from Melbourne newspaper The Argus was glowing in his praise, describing Owens as the best footballer in Australia.

“My dad always said he had a great instinct for the ball,” Sarahlouise Owens said.

“He had an eye that could scope everything.

“He could almost intuit where the ball was and who was doing what to whom.”

It was his keen eye for the game and his desire to give something back after he retired as a player that led him to umpiring.

He started umpiring school matches before making the leap to League football and in 1935 he umpired the first of six WANFL Grand Finals, sealing his record as one of the all-time greats of West Australian football.

When asked in 1936 by the West Australian to compare playing with umpiring he said, “The umpire’s job is much harder because of the responsibility. The player can make 100 mistakes which are condoned, but the umpire knows all about it if he makes one.”

Owens’ descendants are spread far and wide these days. In fact, few of any family members remain in Western Australia, but they are delighted to know that his footballing deeds have been recognised.

“We are taken aback, but perhaps this was a long time coming because he was a really good footballer,” Sarahlouise Owens said.

GEORGE OWENS

• East Perth (1917-32): 195 games
• Western Australia: 17 games
• Premierships: 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1926, 1927
• Sandover Medal: 1925
• Umpiring: 135 games, including 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941 Grand Finals