Alan Wickes

Recruited from Frankston on the Mornington Peninsula, Alan Wickes was an undersized ruckman and forward whose phenomenal vertical leap allowed him to compete against much taller opponents. His brief senior career at Collingwood is ironically overshadowed by a single moment in the 1959 Reserves semi-final, where a photographer captured him soaring over a St Kilda opponent in a spectacular grab that became the internationally award-winning "Second Storey Man" image. Despite performing well in the lower grades, Wickes was delisted following the 1961 season and turned down an opportunity with North Melbourne to return home as the captain-coach of Frankston at just 22 years of age. While his on-field tenure was short, Wickes became a titan of football administration, eventually serving as President of the Frankston Football Club and later ousting long-serving VFA President Alex Gillon to lead the Association through a turbulent era of restructuring in the early 1980s.