BIO

Albert Flight was a journeyman footballer who had brief stints with half a dozen clubs. He was playing for West Torrens against North Park in a juniors match in 1883 when he first caught the eye of Norwood captain 'Topsy' Waldron, who was umpiring.  When these teams met again in the following year, West Torrens was unlucky to lose 2.4 to 1.10 at Alberton Oval and The South Australian Register rated Flight among players "hard to beat in any team".

A week later, he made his Norwood debut with another young player, Bill Warburton, and according to 'Goalpost' in The Adelaide Observer "did what he had to do like an artist" as Norwood thumped North Adelaide 6.16 to 0.6.

On 23 August 1884, he was one of five young players given a chance to show their wares when Norwood took on the visiting Melbourne team at Adelaide Oval. None of them really stood out, but it was nevertheless a spirited encounter which Melbourne won 5.7 to 3.6  for its only success on tour after two draws and one defeat.

In 1885, Flight and a couple of other rookies from that match, George Duncan and Henry Monteith, transferred to Adelaide along with young Henry Hamilton.  Flight and Monteith were gone from Adelaide when it won its only premiership in 1886. Flight had moved to South Adelaide in 1886 and, though rated by The Express and Telegraph as one of the "tried men" of the team at the start on the 1887 season, from that point appears to have played at a lower level, first with Imperials and then, in 1888, with North Adelaide.

While working at Petersburg (later Peterborough), he was selected  for the first match between combined teams from the North and the South of the colony, played at Adelaide Oval on 25 June 1892.  He was on the losing side as South won 9.5 to 3.8 but tasted success a year later when North took the honours 16.17 to 4.3.

Albert Flight was born in Adelaide on 3 February 1866.  Outside of football, his name bobs up in newspapers over six decades. He competed as a cyclist in the Eight Hours Carnival of 1890. He was selected in an Upper North cricket team in 1896. A carriage builder with the SA Railways, he sought election to the Thebarton Council in 1910 and again in 1917, when he lost by only nine votes, 164 to 155. There was a collision between his car and that of the licensee of the Black Bull Hotel, Michael Rasheed, in Currie St, Adelaide, in August 1925.  The Advertiser in 1940 noted that among old-timers competing at the Adelaide Bowling Club was A. Flight, "a prominent footballer of former days".

Predeceased by his wife Emily, he died at Mile End on 9 December 1948, survived by his widow Helen and children Daisy (Mrs H. V. Franklin), Lillah (Mrs C. E. Battye) and Arthur.

P Robins Feb 2018