Stuart King
Encyclopedia
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
for Victoria
Victorian Bushrangers
The Victorian cricket team, nicknamed the Bushrangers, is an Australian cricket team based in Melbourne, that represents the state of Victoria. It is administered by Cricket Victoria and draws its players from Melbourne's Premier Cricket competition...
and Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
for Victorian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
club St Kilda.
Born in Ararat, Victoria
Ararat, Victoria
Ararat is a city in south-west Victoria, Australia, about west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera...
, King started his cricket career first, debuting for Victoria in the 1926/27 Sheffield Shield season. He was a right-handed wicket-keeper batsman and batted in the middle order. The last of his 12 first-class matches was played in 1932/33 and he finished with 417 runs at 27.80. His claim to fame as a cricketer was scoring seven of Victoria's world record 1107 runs against New South Wales
New South Wales Blues
The New South Wales cricket team are an Australian first class cricket team based in Sydney, New South Wales...
in his debut summer.
After being recruited from the University Blacks, King played his first VFL match for St Kilda in 1931 and the following year was appointed club captain. When Charlie Hardy
Charlie Hardy
Charlie Hardy was an Australian rules footballer who played for North Melbourne in the VFA during the 1910s and Essendon in the VFL during the early 1920s.-VFA:...
left the Saints seven games into the 1932 season he acted as a caretaker coach for the rest of the year. King played mostly as a defender and in his three seasons managed 43 games.
King enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
on 30 March 1942 and was posted to 20 Squadron
No. 20 Squadron RAAF
No. 20 Squadron was a Royal Australian Air Force maritime patrol squadron of World War II. It was formed in 1941 and disbanded in 1946.-History:...
, gaining the rank of Flying Officer
Flying Officer
Flying officer is a junior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence...
. He was killed in action off the coast of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
on 28 February 1943.
See also
- List of Australian rules football and cricket players
- VFL/AFL players who died in active serviceVFL/AFL players who died in active serviceSince the inception of the Victorian Football League in 1897, many of its players have served in the armed services, including the Anglo-Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War , and the Vietnam War .A number of the VFL players who served also lost their lives in active...
- List of St Kilda Football Club coaches