Shinboner number: 284
Guernsey numbers: 19, 30, 18, 17, 1
Born: August 20, 1924
Died: April 11, 2006
North Melbourne games: 134 (1941-51)
Goals: 105
Captain: 1948-51
North Melbourne Hall of Fame inductee: 2002
Elevated to Legend status: 2011

There was an artistry to Les Foote the footballer. A beautifully balanced player, both graceful and elusive, Foote excited North Melbourne supporters with his cheeky ability to run towards an opponent, hold the ball in his face, and then sidestep him and race away.

Foote’s teammate Kevin Dynon recalled, “He did a lot of things that others didn’t even try because they just weren’t as talented, as brilliant as he was. He’d have the ball, and an opponent would come at him, and he’d put the ball up in front of the opponent’s face and stop him on the spot. Then, whilst the opponent was stopped, bedazzled as he was, Les would walk around him and off he’d go.”

Famously, Foote honed his fancy footwork by running through the centre of Melbourne during busy peak times, all the while dodging his way around the city’s shoppers and businessmen. There, he developed his ability to evade opponents, a technique that required good peripheral vision. As a consequence, finding his way around 18 opposing footballers each Saturday didn’t seem too daunting.

Plucked from the local North Melbourne Colts as a 16-year-old, Foote made his debut with the senior side in 1941, played sporadically during the war years, then, from 1945, became a mainstay in the North midfield during its first golden era (1945–50). Playing predominantly as a ruck-rover, Foote became the first man to win the Syd Barker Memorial Trophy (later renamed the Syd Barker Medal) three times (1945, 1949, 1950). In 1945, he played all 21 matches, including the club’s first VFL final, a losing semi-final to the eventual premier, Carlton.

Though the club dropped away the following season, Foote represented Victoria in both 1946 and 1947 as he emerged as one of the VFL’s finest players. In 1950, he would be elected vice-captain for the Big V.

During that period, Foote formed an on-field relationship at North with Dynon, which became so effective that the two were spoken of as the one entity, Foote-Dynon. “There was a lot of reporting that went on about Foote and Dynon, Dynon and Foote,” Dynon said. “We seemed to work together closely and seemed to understand one another’s ways of playing. We would often be picked in the centre position together, or we would team together ruck-roving. We didn’t practise it at training, we just did our own thing. But on game days, we had this unspoken understanding between each other.”

In 1948, Wally Carter replaced Bob McCaskill as coach of the Shinboners and, immediately, the new leader elevated Foote to the captaincy. He replaced Dynon, for reasons which remain unclear to this day. “I just don’t know,” Dynon said. “Possibly, I was from the Kensington side of the area, and Les was more in North Melbourne central, so Wally possibly knew more about Les than he did about me. I believe they lived close together. I’ve often been asked the question why, but I’ve always come up with the same blank response."

Foote blossomed with the added responsibility, winning his second Barker Memorial Trophy in 1949 (Dynon was third), the team finishing the home and away rounds in top position for the first time in their history. The Sporting Globe’s chief football writer, Hec de Lacy, wrote that Foote was “the League’s best all-round footballer” in 1949, and that he was “as near perfect as they come.” 

It was high praise indeed, for Foote was competing with the likes of Dick Reynolds and Bill Hutchison at Essendon, Ron Clegg at South Melbourne, Bill Morris at Richmond, and Geelong’s Bernie Smith - all present or future Brownlow medallists - as well as a number of other stars of the day.

In his prime, Foote could do everything. Much like Reynolds before him, and Darrel Baldock and Alex Jesaulenko after, Foote had the ability to control the ball along the ground while stooped over. He would tap the ball along the turf to himself, as he devised a path out of the clinches. When that gap emerged, like lightning Foote could gather the ball and create separation from his opponents, before passing by either hand or foot to a teammate. He could also play tall, and North supporters would cry out from the grandstand whenever he plucked one of his spectacular marks. It was this ability to play both low and high which made him such a difficult match-up for opposing players. 

As a leader, Foote preferred to let his actions do the talking, many times inspiring his teammates with his unique ability to turn a game North’s way by his own fine play. “Les was a very good player, but I wouldn’t say he was a good captain,” said teammate Jim Malone. “It was just his ability that stood out. I played alongside him a lot as a rover. What he used to do was, he would play his own ball. That was the way he led the team.” Dynon said that Foote was “not a really good mixer, in the sense of being with the guys. He was often a bit of a loner in that sense. But he could bloody well play football, I can tell you. He was outstanding. He had all these side-steps and things like that, which a few of us picked up just by watching him.”

In 1950 Foote became the first man to lead the Shinboners into a VFL Grand Final. After falling 38 points short of Essendon, Foote’s opposite number, Dick Reynolds, wrote in The Argus: “Les Foote, North Melbourne’s skipper, must be congratulated for his inspiring leadership, tireless play and many almost single-handed efforts to lift his side. I regarded Foote as North Melbourne’s best player on Saturday, and that display, together with his two performances in the other finals, stamps him as the outstanding player of the final series."

According to Dynon, one of the finest examples of Foote’s determination to lead through his actions during the club’s charge towards the Grand Final came in the preliminary final against Geelong: “Les was in the forward pocket and he was up against a tall resting ruckman,” Dynon recalled. “And he was responsible for us beating Geelong on that occasion by just misleading this ruckman. He’d be charging out, then doubling back, and suddenly he’d be all on his own. He was solely responsible for North winning that game (by 17 points).”

Three years earlier, in Round 6, 1947, the Shinboners trailed Essendon by 44 points. At the start of the final quarter, Foote switched himself into the ruck, where he proceeded to orchestrate one of the greatest comebacks of all time. North won by eight points, having held the Bombers scoreless in the last half hour. As one of the League’s glamour players, the handsome, well-built Foote was popular with North supporters, particularly the fairer sex.

"Les had quite a reputation with the ladies," Dynon joked. The club had found Foote a job in local hamburger shop, just down from the North Melbourne Town Hall, and young boys and girls would become regular visitors in the hope of meeting their hero. One such local fan, Bernadette Walker, recalled that:

‘There was a big cult following for North Melbourne’s captain, Les Foote. We all thought he was the greatest footballer ever seen. He had a keen football brain and he was before his time … I remember the year I went to the North Melbourne Ball … we sat at Les Foote’s table. It was a momentous moment in my young life.’

However, despite Foote’s popularity, the relationship between club and captain was not always harmonious. North missed the finals in 1951, and during the year his dedication to the club was questioned by the committee. According to The Age’s Percy Beames, Foote was particularly hostile about remarks attributed to the selectors about his whereabouts, after he had taken a week off training in June.

He had missed the Round 10 clash with Carlton, but returned to play the final eight matches. At just 27 years old, the Round 18 victory over Fitzroy was to be Foote’s 134th and last game in a North Melbourne jumper. “I am becoming tired of football in Melbourne,” he said at the time. At the end of the season, he signed on as playing-coach for NSW club, Berrigan, which had enticed him across the border with an offer of a three-year contract at £25 per week, as well as a half-share in a café business. Compared to his miserly VFL pay packet, this was an offer too great to refuse.

The following year, Foote made a surprise appearance at North Melbourne’s annual meeting, where he was wildly cheered by the 1800-strong crowd. Those cheers turned to boos, however, when Foote accused the committee of not doing “a damn thing for anybody.” He claimed that he would have stayed on at Arden Street as playing coach in 1952, had the administration offered him as little as £5 per week. But no such offer had been forthcoming. He would eventually return to the VFL, however, as playing-coach with St Kilda in 1954, playing another 36 games over two seasons, including winning the club’s best and fairest—his fourth—in 1954.

Despite having left North Melbourne on a sour note, Foote returned to the club at which he had played such a key role in the late 1940s and early 1950s, coaching the reserves to a premiership in 1967.

In 2001, Foote was named in the centre in North’s Team of the Century. Then, in 2005, he was selected the finest “Shinboner” from the club’s 1925–50 VFL era. He is also a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame and, in 2011, was elevated to legend status in the North Melbourne Hall of Fame. 

On his death on 11 April 2006, former North captain and president, Allen Aylett, said:

“Les Foote was one of those players that people came to watch play. I can remember the kids would wait in droves at the players’ entrance to Arden Street in the hope that they would get to carry Les Foote’s bag into the ground.”