Keith Truscott

DOB: 17 May, 1916
Died: 28 March, 1943

Debut: Round 7, 1937 against North Melbourne at MCG
Last Game: Round 2, 1942 against Richmond at Punt Road

Games: 50
Goals: 31
Career Statistics (external link)

Wins	Draws	Losses	Winning %
37	0	13	74.00

From: Melbourne High School

Number: 5 1937-1940, 1 1942

Having captain Melbourne High School in both football and cricket, Truscott was invited to train with the Demons by Checker Hughes and instantly impressed. He was from a fine football lineage as his father Bill had played for Prahran in the VFA and won a gold medal in 1902 for his service.

He debuted in 1937 with six games, played 11 the next year and 17 in 1939 including the first premiership victory of the Melbourne title hat-trick.

When he left the country to serve with the RAAF in 1940, Truscott was considered a good player but when he returned his last game - a one off - in 1942 he was treated like a king. He temporarily received the captaincy and three young girls threw rose petals on the ground as he ran onto Punt Road Oval.

Richmond's Jack Dyer raised his arm to the crowd before the first bounce, and an opponent even conceded a soft free kick to allow him to kick a goal. Melbourne lost by 79 points but the crowd still charged the ground at the end of the match to get a closer look at one of the country's best fighter pilots and a hero of the Battle of Britain.

By January that year he'd been involved in 65 missions for 15 confirmed enemy kills. He had nearly met tragedy after having been forced to bail out at 400m over the English Channel. His parachute opened just in time. Another time when his squadron led an attack on the city of Brest his spitfire had the hood of the cockpit torn off and shrapnel hit his wings. Nevertheless he was as close to a rock star as a fighter pilot could be. The people of Britain raised the equivalent of $100k to buy him a new plane.

He returned to Australia to help combat the Japanese threat and distinguished himself in this new threate before tragically being killed in a training exercise off Exmouth in Western Australia

The Best and Fairest award is now named after him, as are an RAAF Base in Western Australia and streets in Sydney and the ACT.