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Heritage Guide to The Geelong College






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GREEVES, Edward Goderich ‘Carji’ (1903-1963)

GREEVES, Edward Goderich ‘Carji’ (1903-1963)


E G 'Carji' Greeves.

E G 'Carji' Greeves.

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E G 'Carji' Greeves (Prefect, 1923).


'Carji' Greeves.

'Carji' Greeves.

Victorian League footballer, 'Carji' Greeves was born at Warragul, Victoria, the son of Edward Goderich Greeves, and his wife Frances Adaline, née Nasmith. He was said to have been a dark-skinned child and was nicknamed 'Carji', from 'Carjillo, the Rajah of Bhong', a character in a popular play at the time.

After the family moved to the property ‘Coraki’ near Lismore, ‘Carji’ attended Struan State School, before entering Geelong College as a boarder from 1916. At College he demonstrated outstanding all-round sporting abilities. He was a member of the 1st Cricket Team for four years from 1920 to 1923 and the 1st Football Team from 1920 to 1922 and rowed as stroke in the 1st VIII in 1923. In 1922 and 1923 he was a School Prefect. An all-round sportsman, he also won the Geelong College Senior Singles Tennis Championship in 1922. He was presented with the trophy by T S Hawkes.

‘Carji’ left School in 1923 and started playing for Geelong Football Club in Round eight of that year. The following year, 1924, in honour of the memory of Charles Brownlow, an early player for Geelong and a much esteemed club administrator, the Victorian Football League (VFL) instituted the Brownlow Medal to be awarded to the best and fairest player in the league. ‘Carji’ won the inaugural award, and was runner-up in 1925, 1926 and 1929.

During his VFL career he always played as an amateur but was unable to resist the attractions of a seven month tour of the United States in 1928. For four months in 1928 he was invited, as kicking coach of the ‘Trojans’ the University of Southern California’s gridiron team to educate them in the skills of marking and kicking, and is alleged to have introduced kicking with the in-step rather than the toe. In 1929 he returned to play VFL, once again, with Geelong. In all, he played 124 VFL games and 17 interstate games from 1923 to 1931 and 1933 and played in the Geelong premiership sides of 1925 and 1931. The Geelong Football Club’s annual fairest and best award is named in honour of ‘Carji’ Greeves as is the Parents’ Football Support Club of the Geelong College.

At St David's Presbyterian Manse, Newtown, in 1934, across the road from his old school, he married Alma Catherine nee Condie, later settling in Ararat where he ran a vehicle spare parts business and coached the local football team. He died at Ararat in 1963. His younger brother Colin Goderich Greeves (1906-1975), a similarly talented sportsman attended the School from 1917 to 1923. His father, also Edward Goderich GREEVES (1878-1935), and a well known footballer, was a student at the College from 1890.

Edward Goderich 'Carji' Greeves was inducted into the Old Geelong Collegians' Association Notables Gallery at Geelong College in 2011.






Sources: Obituary Pegasus June, 1963 Page 55; A. G. Austin, 'Greeves, Edward Goderich (Carji) (1903 - 1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp 97-98;
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