Bob Merrick

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Bob Merrick (23 July 1893 – 24 October 1981) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Fitzroy in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Born in Darlinghurst, New South Wales, he worked as a printer. He started with Port Melbourne in the VFA, where he was the league’s leading goalkicker in 1915, and later played for East Sydney in the NSWAFL.

Merrick joined Fitzroy in 1919, playing as a full-forward and finishing as Fitzroy’s top goalkicker in each season through 1922. He kicked 42, 53, 32 and 47 goals in those years and shares Fitzroy’s record for most goals in a match with 12 against Melbourne in 1919. A knee injury kept him out of Fitzroy’s 1922 premiership side.

In 1925 he coached Benalla in the Ovens & Murray Football League. He briefly returned to Fitzroy in 1926 for five games before an injured shoulder ended his VFL career; he finished 1926 with Port Melbourne. He later played in the Yellow Cabs Wednesday league in the early 1930s, helping win premierships in 1930 and 1934 (and playing in 1931).

Merrick also had an intermittent umpiring career. He was appointed by the North West Football Union in 1923, and later umpired five VCFL matches in 1929.

Off the field, Merrick married Minnie Ruth Duncan in 1917; they had two children, John Robert and Kathleen Helen. He died in 1981 in Kew, Victoria, aged 88.