One of the heroes of Footscray’s 1954 VFL premiership team, Doug Reynolds, has died aged 92.
Reynolds, who kicked a goal and was named among the Bulldog’s best in their grand final victory over Melbourne, died on Saturday 31 January at an aged care home in Yarraville, the suburb where he lived for almost his entire life.
His son Scott Reynolds said it was a life defined by football.
“He had no other hobbies other than football. In his retirement he’d sit there and watch all the old games and grand finals and reminisce.”
Born in Yarraville in 1933, Reynolds interest in the game began early through kicking a makeshift football made up of old newspapers in the street with friends.
The sudden death of his father in a workplace accident when he was in his early teens, forced Reynolds into the workforce as an apprentice fitter and turner at the Spotswood glassworks.
Joining the nearby Spotswood Football Club, the speedy wingman was soon on his way to VFL stardom.
“He played at Spotswood and won the best and fairest at Spotty and then the football manager at the Dogs cottoned on to him and he was recruited then,” Scott Reynolds said of how his father went from suburban football to his brief but spectacular career with the Footscray.
“He started at the Dogs at 18, he played in a premiership at 19 and he left the Dogs at 21.”
Reynolds left Footscray for two years at Richmond, but his brief spell with the Bulldogs would have a lasting impact.
It was where he met his wife Shirley, with whom he would have three children, while he would spend nearly 50 years working for his father in law’s hydraulics company.
And for decades he was member of the Bulldogs one and only premiership team, until that changed with the club’s second flag in 2016.
“He was extremely happy to see another win for the Dogs and as dad explained, it was good for Footscray,” Scott Reynolds recalled of his father’s reaction.
Doug Reynolds is survived by his wife Shirley, children Tracey, Scott and Louise and their children and grandchildren.
