Dan Collins (footballer)

Daniel Charles Collins (22 August 1872 – 6 July 1925) was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL),[1] and who served in South Africa during the Second Boer War.

Dan Collins
Personal information
Full name Daniel Charles Collins
Date of birth (1872-08-22)22 August 1872
Place of birth Penshurst, Victoria
Date of death 6 July 1925(1925-07-06) (aged 52)
Place of death Kensington, New South Wales
Original team(s) Richmond (VFA)
Height 182 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight 90 kg (198 lb)
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1897–98 St Kilda 7 (0)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1898.
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Football (pre-Boer War)

Victorian Artillery

Collins joined the Victorian Artillery stationed at Fort Queenscliff, Victoria, and was captain of their football team in 1891,[2] and 1892.[3]

Richmond (VFA)

He also played three matches for Richmond in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1891[4]

St Kilda (VFA & VFL)

He also played for St Kilda in the VFA from 1892 to 1896; and in the first two years of the Victorian Football League (VFL) competition (1897 and 1898).

Police Force

Collins served in the Victorian police force; and, later, in the New South Wales police force.[5]

Military Service

Collins served in South Africa with the First Battalion Australian Commonwealth Horse in the Second Boer War. A policeman, Collins, enlisted on 25 January 1902 as a trooper,[6] and was promoted to Lance-Corporal on 8 July 1902.[7]

Murray (1911, p. 166) notes that, "only single men were taken", and that "the men selected were required to be good shots and good horsemen; men of previous service having preference, if medically fit". The contingent left Sydney on 18 February 1902, on the troopship Custodian, disembarking at Durban on 19 March 1902, and returned to Australia on the controversially disease-ridden and seriously overcrowded troopship Drayton Grange,[8][9] leaving Durban on 11 July 1902, and arriving at Sydney on 11 August 1902.[10]

Football (post-Boer War)

East Sydney (NSWAFA)

Following his military service in South Africa, he played with the East Sydney Australian Football Club in the New South Wales Australian Football Association (NSWAFA); and was its first captain in 1903.[11]

In 1903 he played in a representative "Metropolitan" combined team, against a combined "Northern District League" team.[12] He kicked two goals for the East Sydney team that defeated North Shore 6.8 (44) to 4.2. (26) to win the competition's inaugural premiership in 1903.[13]

He continued to play for East Sydney until, at least, 1908.[14]

Pony Trainer

Having left the police force, and having spent eighteen months conducting the Temple Bar Hotel at 312 George Street, Sydney, he sold his interest in the hotel, and turned his attention to pony training, at which he was highly respected and, ultimately, very successful.[15][16]

Death

Having had an operation two years earlier that had required the amputation of his leg, he died at his residence, "Sellbrook" — at 221 Anzac Parade, named after his favourite horse, Sellbrook[16] — in the Sydney suburb of Kensington on 6 July 1925.[17][18][19]

Footnotes
  1. Holmesby & Main (2014), p.167.
  2. "FOOTBALL NOTES". Queenscliff Sentinel. Victoria, Australia. 25 July 1891. p. 4.
  3. "SPORTING NOTES". The Colac Herald. XXIII (2294). Victoria, Australia. 16 September 1892. p. 2.
  4. "VFA Players". Tigerland Archive.: listed as "Daniel Charles 'Artillery' Collins".
  5. "MISCELLANEOUS NOTES". The Australasian. CXIX (3, 093). Victoria, Australia. 11 July 1925. p. 25.
  6. Boer War Dossier.
  7. PLM.
  8. The Drayton Grange: Royal Commission's Report, The Argus, (Friday, 10 October 1902), p.6.
  9. Farrer, Vashti, "Illness and Death Aboard Last Boer War Troopship", The Canberra Times, (Saturday, 13 June 1981), p.13.
  10. Murray (1911), p.167.
  11. East Sydney's Men, The (Sydney) Sunday Sun, (Sunday, 10 May 1903), p.7.
  12. The (Sydney) Sunday Sun, (Sunday, 6 September 1903), p.7.
  13. Australian Game, The (Sydney) Sunday Sun, (Sunday, 13 September 1903), p.6; Notes, The (Sydney) Sunday Sun, (Sunday, 13 September 1903), p.6.
  14. Notes, The Australian Star, (Monday, 23 May 1904), p.2; Australian Football: East Sydney v. Paddington, The Australian Star, (Monday, 8 June 1908), p.3.
  15. Extremely popular in Sydney, unregistered proprietary horse racing, or pony racing, as it was more widely known, was an extremely popular form of racing — that involved full-grown thoroughbred horses, rather than the miniature horses its name, "pony", might suggest — and, between 1888 and 1942, meetings were held at least once a week in one or more of the four pony racecourses between the city and Botany Bay (Peake, 2016, passim.).
  16. Dan Collins Dead: Noted A.R.C. Trainer: An Eventful Career, The (Sydney) Sun, (Tuesday, 7 July 1925) p.4.
  17. Deaths: Collins, The Sydney Morning Herald, (Wednesday, 8 July 1925), p.12.
  18. Dan Collins Passes, The Referee, (Wednesday, 8 July 1925), p.5; Vale Dan Collins: Popular Pony Trainer Passes: A Familiar Figure, The (Sydney) Labor Daily, (Wednesday, 8 July 1925), p.2; Obituary: Daniel C. Collins, The Daily Telegraph, (Thursday, 9 July 1925), p.5.
  19. "Australian Rules". Sporting Globe (308). Victoria, Australia. 15 July 1925. p. 6.

References
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