Dick Lee (Australian footballer)

Dick Lee
Personal information
Full name	Walter Henry Lee
Date of birth	(1889-03-19)19 March 1889
Place of birth	Collingwood, Victoria
Date of death	11 September 1968(1968-09-11) (aged 79)
Place of death	Northcote, Victoria
Original team(s)	Rose of Northcote
Debut	Round 7, 1906, Collingwood vs. Melbourne, at Victoria Park
Height	175 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	76 kg (168 lb)
Playing career1
Years	Club	Games (Goals)
1906–1922	Collingwood	230 (707)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1922.
Career highlights
11× Collingwood leading goalkicker: 1906–10, 1914–17, 1919, 1921 7× Leading goalkicker Medal: 1907–09, 1914, 1916–17, 1919 Collingwood Captain: 1920–21 Collingwood Premiership side: 1910, 1917, 1919 Collingwood team of the Century Victorian representative: 19 games, 60 goals
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Walter Henry "Dick" Lee (19 March 1889 – 11 September 1968) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Collingwood Football Club in the (then) Victorian Football League (VFL).

The son of long-term Collingwood trainer Walter Henry Lee (1863–1952),^[1][2][3] and Isabella Lee (1867–1929), née Turnbull,^[4] Walter Henry Lee was born in Collingwood on 19 March 1889.^[5]

He married Zella Dixon (1888-1972) in 1927.^[6]

Lee was one of the first great forwards in Australian Football with an ability to win the ball on the ground or in the air. He was considered one of the finest practitioners of the place kick in the game, a reputation which followed long after the skill disappeared from the game.^[8]

In 1912, Lee had a cartilage removed from his knee;^[9] and, according to his (then) team captain, Dan Minogue, writing in 1937, Lee was the first senior VFL footballer to have that operation.^[10]

His last kick in his last match for Collingwood scored Collingwood's final goal in its 11-point loss to Fitzroy in the 1922 VFL Grand Final.

He died at Northcote, Victoria, on 11 September 1968.^[11][12][13]

He was made a life member of the Collingwood Football Club in 1918.

In 1996, Lee was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.^[14]

In 1998, he was selected on the half-forward flank in the Collingwood team of the Century.

• 1908 Melbourne Carnival
• 1911 Adelaide Carnival
• 1914 Sydney Carnival
• 1921 Perth Carnival

• Brown, Alf, "Dick Lee hits our football: Too little training: Too little stamina: Too many rules", The Herald, (Saturday, 8 May 1954), p.17.
• de Lacy, H.A., "'Dick! Dick!—Dick-e-e-e!'", The Sporting Globe, (Saturday, 21 June 1941), p.6.
• de Lacy, H.A. "Football's Greatest Mark: Dick Lee Has My Vote, The Sporting Globe, (Saturday, 16 July 1949), p.2.
• de Lacy, H.A., "Dicky Lee 'gamest man to pull on a football boot' ", The Sporting Globe, (Wednesday, 6 May 1953), p.3.
• Hobbs, Greg, "Famous High Flying Forward Dies", The Age, (Thursday, 12 September 1968), p.28.
• Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN 0-670-86814-0: especially "Dick Lee the first high flying Magpie – a new kind of full forward", p. 111.
• Thorp, Vic (as told to H.A. de Lacy), "Full Forwards He Has Met: Dick Lee Greatest of the Great, The Sporting Globe, (Saturday, 21 June 1938), p.5.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dick Lee (footballer).

• Australian Dictionary of Biography: Lee, Walter Henry (Dick) (1889–1968)
• Dick Lee's playing statistics from AFL Tables
• Dick Lee at AustralianFootball.com
• Dick Lee 1906–1922: Collingwood Forever.
• AFL Hall of Fame
• Boyles Football Photos: Dick Lee.