Retired Leon Baker

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Remember Sheeds saying in a 40 metre sprint Bomber Thompson would be 10 metres in front of Baker at the finish line, however he was very quick upstairs with great anticipation. Also ultra clean by hand and foot and tough as nails. My neighbour a Swan Districts and avid WCE fan said Baker was his favorite player ever. Sheeds rated him up there with Madden, Watson and Daniher despite playing 80 odd games. Baker played a couple of seasons with Swans and was in their team of the century. He didn't need to stay long to make an impression. Would be nice to see this bumped every once in a while.
 
his game in the '84 prelim was phenomenal. loved watching him as a youngster. he'll always be the rightful owner of number #4
 

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Legend...


use BF search to find other Baker threads from years gone by..there's been a few good ones.
 
Coldacre said:
love our current captain..... but even Wanganeen has dibs before Jobe :p
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I agree, all I'm saying is that Jobe will probably play close to 300 games, will have been club captain and won a Brownlow medal. In 50 years, Jobe Watson will be the first player most think of with reference to the #4. But Baker and Wanganeen were definite champs, and they have premierships to their name also.
 
red+black said:
I agree, all I'm saying is that Jobe will probably play close to 300 games, will have been club captain and won a Brownlow medal. In 50 years, Jobe Watson will be the first player most think of with reference to the #4. But Baker and Wanganeen were definite champs, and they have premierships to their name also.
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28 y/o. Has at best 6 more years left. Probably closer to 4 years. Will push 250, but unlikely 300. Brent Stanton and BJ Goddard would be better chances
 
Meet him a few years ago in Port Douglas, was working with some of my mates who moved up there. Spent the arvo talking footy and the Essendon premierships, he stayed and spent the night with us, still talk to him once or twice a year top bloke!
 
I'd love to get from the horses mouth whether my Swans theory is correct, that he chose to play for three Swans clubs after having grown up playing for the Avenel-Longwood Swans.
 
The only thing stopping Leon Baker being one of Essendon's top 10 players of all time is his late start to VFL footy.

If he played 200 games, he would be an absolute legend.

True - he didn't have pace, but read the play like few others. I heard he was a very (very) good junior tennis player as a youngster - his reflexes suggest that would be the case.
 

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I have pictures in the family photo albums of Leon Baker, who came over East in the early 80s with my cousin via car. Both were playing for Swan Districts at the time. They came over in summer/spring with Michael Richardson, and actually drove over the Nullabor. Not sure if how true, but apparently they drank a lot of warm beer in the car on the journey over. The Swans team of that time was super-strong, pretty sure they won some Australian teams pre-season thing beating North Melbourne I think at Waverly.
 
Happy Daze said:
I have pictures in the family photo albums of Leon Baker, who came over East in the early 80s with my cousin via car. Both were playing for Swan Districts at the time. They came over in summer/spring with Michael Richardson, and actually drove over the Nullabor. Not sure if how true, but apparently they drank a lot of warm beer in the car on the journey over. The Swans team of that time was super-strong, pretty sure they won some Australian teams pre-season thing beating North Melbourne I think at Waverly.
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Too right it was strong. This was pre Eagles and Dockers and both the Swans and Claremont sides of the time would beat the current WAFLs by 20 goals. Swans coach John Todd (always a great judge of a fooballer - picked a lot of the Eagles players who were then given to Malthouse to coach) basically offered Leon a contract off the street. Legend has it he told Toddy up front he wasn't interested in running laps or anything, just wanted to show what he could do with a footy!
 
Saw every game he played for us,one of many memories was the day The Fish did his knee out at Vic park, Leon dominated after the shock of seeing Salmon stretchered off,pure ball player, pure, but with a hard edge , not one to muck around. His wife's name was Spider which added to the unusual aura of The Great Man
 
windyhill said:
Saw every game he played for us,one of many memories was the day The Fish did his knee out at Vic park, Leon dominated after the shock of seeing Salmon stretchered off,pure ball player, pure, but with a hard edge , not one to muck around. His wife's name was Spider which added to the unusual aura of The Great Man
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Remember that day. 3 or 4 goal wind to the Yarra Falls End. Collingwood dominated and were about 4 goals up at half time. Essendon had the wind in the third quarter and were still down by 3 goals deep in the third quarter. Three late goals and it was even at three quarter time, with Collingwood coming home with the wind. 5 goals in the first 12 minutes against the wind, put the result away. It was one of those eras when you need the club could overcome deficits
 
I remember Sheedy's speech at the 86 B&F. When asked about where Leon was, he replied 'probably on top of Everest on a motorbike'.

One other thing... he was allowed to please himself before January, because the club knew he would come back in as good a shape as anyone else who had been training since November.
 
From 'Nut' quote :
Was lucky enough to meet Leon Bakers father. I didn't realise he was a Victorian until today. Grew up in Avenal Victoria. Was zoned to Melbourne and went down for a week when he was 16-17 and dominated in trials... decided he wasn't ready for the big league and ended up playing footy all over the country. Played at Bunbury then Swan districts in WA hence why he had to play for WA in the SOO.

If you check Wikipedia, Leon is a Western Australian ,born in WA.. He is not a Victorian.
 
What an enigma.

In the following clip, as the case in the old days in GF's in this case Claremonts intent at the opening bounce was to knock him out no doubt because he was an out and out gun. He had this problem in the VFL as well. Tough as nails though.



In 1983 and against Claremont at the 1.20 mark he kicks a nice goal on his right foot after a nice piece of evasion, just a very clean compact player.

 
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