From the Pocket: Jason Dunstall was the most unlikely champion but became more than a legend

Jason Dunstall, at left with Gary Ayres, won four premierships and kicked 1,254 goals in 269 VFL/AFL matches with Hawthorn to be a Legend in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Photograph: Getty Images

Some superstars had the most inauspicious start to their football careers. Tony Lockett was a stick-thin asthmatic who used callipers to walk. Gary Ablett turned up to Geelong in an unregistered HT Holden with a lot of baggage. Jason Dunstall, who turns 60 today, was perhaps the most unlikely champion of them all.

Dunstall wasn’t particularly tall and came last in all the running drills. At first, they played him in a back pocket in the reserves. “We were thinking – this bloke can’t play at all,” Peter Schwab told Tony Wilson in his book, 1989 – The Great Grand Final.