BIO

Wartime Competition 1942 - 1944
Norwood-North games : 1
Norwood-North goals : 0

Alf Stone was a Footscray seconds follower who played one game for Norwood-North while on RAAF service in South Australia during World War II.  He joined another Victorian airman, the Fitzroy utility player Albert (Les) Hill, for the mid-season joust against Port-Torrens at Norwood Oval.

Alf was named at full back in the team published in The Advertiser.  If he did play in that position, he was not a success.  Port-Torrens led comfortably almost all day and was able to brush off a late challenge.  Its 16.21 to 15.8 victory was due, in no small way, to the six-goal bag of its full forward, Merv Shaw.

Norwood-North, however, turned the tables in the grand final, taking the premiership by six points, 9.7 to 7.13.  LAC Stone and LAC Hill were on air force duty elsewhere.

Alf Stone was born at Footscray on 29 August 1922 to Alfred Henry Stone and his wife Millie, née Collins, and had siblings Frank and Hilda.

Alf broke into the Footscray seconds team in 1943 and was an emergency at the start of the 1944 season.  He enlisted in the RAAF on 3 August 1943 and was a leading aircraftman on discharge on 19 February 1946.  He married Margaret Alice Jones on 23 January 1947 and they had four children.  A publican, Alf lived at Newport, Victoria, and died at Elphinstone on 31 July 1984.

P Robins, D Cox March 2021