GAMBLE, Jeff

A fine centre half-back, Jeff Gamble joined Essendon from Aberfeldie where he had played in 1951 and 1952.

He won the Most Improved Player award in 1956 and was runner-up in Essendon's Best and Fairest award in 1958. He also polled the equal most Brownlow Medal votes at Essendon in that year with 15 votes.

Gamble was also centre half-back in the losing Grand Final team in 1957.

He wrenched his knee early in 1959 and missed the rest of the season. He never really recovered from this injury and retired during the following year at only 25 years of age. The silver lining was that his absence gave an opportunity to the young Ian "Bluey" Shelton.

Perhaps his greatest contribution was providing the inspiration for the Club's theme song. The story goes that, in 1959, a young aspiring player, Kevin Andrews, was boarding with Jeff's parents and one day heard Jeff singing a popular tune called "Sunnyside Side Up". One of the lines is "Keep your sunnyside up" but Jeff sang "See the Bombers fly up". Within an hour, Kevin had written a new set of words and an iconic Club song was born.

Jeff Gamble was later president of Coralynn F.C. for many years.

He died on 20th June, 1996.