BIO

Wartime Competition 1942 - 1944

Norwood-North games : 7

Norwood-North goals : 0

Don Henderson was a budding Footscray follower who, while on RAAF duty in South Australia, led the first ruck in Norwood-North’s grand final victory over Port-Torrens in the wartime patriotic competition in 1943.

Norwood-North finished a lowly third in the four-team competition but was gathering strength in the latter half of the season.  Henderson, 183 cm and 83 kg, added stability as a follower and defender.  He made the best players as Norwood-North eliminated Sturt-South 21.20 to 19.14 in the first semi-final and was joined by Jack Oatey, playing his first game of the season, in the 18.17 to 12.11 defeat of West-Glenelg in the preliminary final.

In a stirring grand final, Norwood-North trailed early but finished strongly before 36,400 spectators at Adelaide Oval.  Port-Torrens partisans vented their fury at umpire Ken Aplin as Norwood-North piled on 5.1 to three points for a 21-point victory, 12.10 to 8.13.  Bill Isaac kicked six goals for Norwood-North and Henderson also was high in the best players.

Born at Prahran on 8 August 1918, Don Henderson kicked two goals in his 11 senior games with Footscray in the Victorian Football League in 1944. 

He enlisted in the RAAF on 27 May 1943 and was a Leading Aircraftman when discharged on 1 April 1946. 

He died at 92 on 13 September 2010.

P Robins, January 2025