Horrie Gorringe

Horace Charles "Horrie" Gorringe (4 July 1895 — 17 July 1994) was an Australian rules football player in Tasmania, who is considered to have been one of the greatest rovers in the game's history.[3][4][5]

Horrie Gorringe
Gorringe with the Cananore FC
Personal information
Full name Horace Charles Gorringe
Date of birth (1895-07-04)4 July 1895
Place of birth Sandford, Tasmania
Date of death 17 July 1994(1994-07-17) (aged 99)
Place of death Cygnet, Tasmania
Original team(s) Brighton Rovers
Debut 25 April 1914 [1], Cananore
vs. North Hobart, at TCA Ground
Height 172 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Weight 73 kg (161 lb) [2]
Playing career
Years Club Games (Goals)
1914–1930 Cananore
Career highlights

Family

The son of Lowther Gorringe (1864-1927),[6][7][8] and Evelyn Sophia Gorringe (1868-1954), née Watson,[9][10] Horace Charles Gorringe was born on 4 July 1895 at Sandford, Tasmania.[11]

He married Myra Muriel Newnham (1899-1992) on 7 February 1929.

Football
HORRIE GORRINGE
                                An Acrostic

Great little player in a class of his own,
Our little rover he stands out alone.
Right wonderful judgment in midst of the mill;
Rarely they catch him to send him a spill.
In a close finish he is just grand;
Now they are roaring from the grandstand;
Gorringe, they yell, look out, you backs,
Even now there's a chance for the Yellow and Blacks.

              "One of the Canaries" (1922)[12]

Brighton Rovers

In 1912 and 1913 he was playing along with his brother, Eric Lowther John Gorringe (1893–1970), for the Brighton Rovers.[13][14]

Cananore (TFL)

Gorringe played for the Cananore club in the Tasmanian Football League between the years 1914 and 1930.

He was Club Champion in 1928, winning the Most Consistent award.[15]

He played numerous matches at representative level for both the league and the state -- in a war interrupted career (no TFL competition in 1916, 1917, and 1918), he played in 157 club games for Cananore, and in 35 combined games, and represented Tasmania in the 1924 and 1927 carnivals[11] -- including the match in Adelaide, when the TFL representative team beat South Australia, in Adelaide, on 21 July 1923.[16][17]

    "In his playing days Gorringe used to practise his celebrated stab kick by aiming at the open top half of a stable door at his farm at Tea Tree, a few miles from Hobart. He could do it nine times out of ten with either foot from 30 yards.[18]
    "On Saturday [6 June 1925, when I was the central field umpire in the match in the match between Cananore and New Town] I saw [Gorringe] do what I've I've never seen another footballer do in my life, and that is to change his direction left and right practically in one stride. I've seen rovers who could swerve to the right, run a few strides, and then swerve to the left again, but very very few, yet Gorringe can left and then right turn with only one stride in between each action. It makes him extremely elusive. Ia addition to handling and kicking the ball like a champion, lie impressed me as being an ideal opponent." — eminent South Australia umpire, Charles Robert O'Connor (1873-1961).[19]
    "Frank Maher, Essendon's skipper and first-class rover, considers that Horrie Gorringe, the Tasmanian, is the best rover seen in Melbourne for many a long day. "He is a beauty all right", said Maher. "Why. he is as slippery as an eel, a beautiful pass, and uncanny in his Judgment. On a running shot he is phenomenally accurate, while elsewhere his play stamps him as Australia's best rover. An amazing thing about Gorringe, however, is that on a deliberate shot he is not at all accurate." — The Sporting Globe, 7 September 1927.[20]
    "Running Backward There Is another rather rare method of obtaining a clean breakaway It is to step backward. It is the last thing opponents expect you to do, and it is a very difficult feat to accomplish. But many of the finer points of football are difficult until you learn them. Alan la Fontaine, of Melbourne, is able to run backward comfortably and I once knew a player in Tasmania, named Horrie Gorringe, who could run backward out of a pack just as fast as he ran into it." — Ivor Warne-Smith, 1937.[21]

Death

He died on 17 July 1994, aged 99.[22]

Recognition

Horrie Gorringe Medal

The "Horrie Gorringe Medal" was between 2002 and 2005 a brief replacement of the William Leitch Medal for the best and fairest footballer in Tasmania.[23]

Tasmanian Football Team of the Century

In 2004, he was selected as forward-pocket/rover in the Tasmanian Football Team of the Century.

Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame

In 2005, he was inducted, as one of the three inaugural "icons",[24] into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame.[25]

Australian Football Hall of Fame

Gorringe was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2011.[26][27] He was the first and (as of 2014) only player who played his entire career in Tasmania to have been so inducted.[28]

See also

Footnotes
  1. The Mercury (Tasmania), 27 April 1914
  2. Monotone Sporting Record, 4 August 1928
  3. Alomes, 2008.
  4. Coventry, 1938.
  5. O'Neil, 1938a; 1938b.
  6. "Mr. Lowther Gorringe, a well-known land-owner in Tasmania, died suddenly in Hobart on Saturday afternoon during the football match between Cananore (Hobart) and North Launceston for the premiership of Tasmania. Mr. Gorringe, whose son Horace is the well-known Cananore player, had with his wife motored from Tea Tree to Hobart to watch his son play, and a minute before half-time interval collapsed and died immediately. At the express wish of H. Gorringe Cananore resumed the game with one player short." (Personal, The Argus, (Monday, 10 October 1927), p.14).
  7. Obituary: Mr. Lowther Gorringe: Collapse at Football Match, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Monday, 10 October 1927), p.6.
  8. Deaths: Gorringe, The (Hobart) Mercury), (Monday, 10 October 1927), p.1.
  9. Marriages: Gorringe—Watson, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Wednesday, 18 March 1891), p.1.
  10. Deaths: Gorringe, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Saturday, 3 July 1954), p.21.
  11. 'Onlooker', "H. Gorringe's Career: Tasmania's Champion", The (Hobart) Mercury, (Friday, 1 September 1939), p.12.
  12. Horrie Gorringe: An Acrostic, The (Hobart) Critic, (Friday, 18 August 1922), p.4: The editor notes "The initial letters read downwards spell the name of the most brilliant footballer Tasmania has seen since the days of the peerless McGinis. As a rover he has probably had no superior."
  13. Patmore Trophy: Brighton Rovers v. Richmond, The (Hobart) Daily Post, (Monday, 16 September 1912), pp.7-8: "For Brighton Rovers H. Gorringe was the pick of the eighteen. Gorringe is only a mere boy, but showed some of his elders how the game should be played." (p.8).
  14. The Patmore Trophy: Brighton Rovers v. Richmond: Victory for Brighton, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Monday, 14 July 1913), p,7.
  15. Football: The Cananore Club: Presentation of Medals, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Monday, 22 October 1928), p14.
  16. Devaney, John, "Southern Tasmanians toss the Croweaters", australian football.com.
  17. Football Match in Adelaide (Photograph, 21 July 1923), collection of the State Library of South Australia.
  18. Whittington, 1957.
  19. G.S., ""Truly a Champion": "Horrie" Gorringe, of Cananore: "Best I've Ever Seen", Says O'Connor", The (Hobart) News, (Monday, 8 July 1925), p.2.
  20. Maher Praises Gorringe, The Sporting Globe, (Wednesday, 7 September 1927), p.8.
  21. Warne-Smith, I., "Swerving and Dodging: Champion's Hints for Footballers", The Junior Argus, (Friday, 4 June 1937), p.7.
  22. "Headstone of Horace Charles (Horrie) GORRINGE". State Library of Tasmania. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
  23. "GLOSSARY". www.fullpointsfooty.net. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
  24. The other two were Darrel Baldock and Peter Hudson.
  25. Horrie Gorringe, at afltashalloffame.com.au.
  26. Seewang, Niall (9 June 2011). "Profile of Horrie Gorringe". Australian Football League. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
  27. Anderson, Jon, "Tasmanian Horrie Gorringe inducted into AFL Hall of Fame", HerldSun, Friday, 10 June 2011.
  28. "The Australian Football Hall of Fame Players Inducted". Australian Football League. Retrieved 9 October 2014.

References
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