Career : 1971 - 1974
Debut : Round 12, 1971 vs North Melbourne, aged 19 years 22 days
Carlton Player No. 829
Games : 36
Goals : 13
Last Game : Round 20, 1974 vs Fitzroy, aged 22 years, 81 days
Guernsey No. 31
Height : 182 cm (5 ft. 11 in.)
Weight : 80 kg (12 stone, 8 lbs.)
DOB : May 27, 1952
Peter Hall was a classy utility who won Castlemaine Football Club’s Under 19 Best and Fairest award in 1969. That fine season by the 17 year-old impressed Carlton’s scouts, including our Chairman of Selectors Jack Wrout, who was very keen to get the youngster into the Old Dark Navy Blue.
Hall told Wrout that his main aim in life was to obtain a University degree or two, but while he was studying, he would be happy to pull on his boots for Carlton. He enrolled in an Arts Degree course at Monash University in 1971, and played his first match for the Blues in June of that year against North Melbourne at Princes Park. Carlton dominated all day to thrash the ‘Roos by 91 points, with rugged full-forward Ricky McLean kicking seven goals.
While Hall was a stylish player with good pace and balance, he was more at home in the spaces of a half-forward flank than taking on the ruck-roving role he was expected to compete for. Carlton’s brilliant midfield division of that time boasted the names Jesaulenko, Gallagher, Keogh, Robertson, Quirk, Chandler and three or four others, so places in the side were hard earned.
For all of these reasons, plus the pressures of his studies, Hall managed only five senior appearances in his first two seasons. But coming off a brilliant, record-breaking Grand Final win over Richmond the previous September, some of Carlton’s big guns went off the boil in 1973, to give Peter and some of the other lesser lights their chance to shine.
In 1973, Hall had his best season for the Blues, holding his place at half-forward for 20 matches. Carlton finished third on the ladder, only to fall to a rampaging Richmond in the Grand Final. Hall missed out on a place in all three finals – squeezed out each time by the return of proven big match performers.
Peter rounded off his career at Carlton in 1974, playing another 11 games before he and fellow fringe dweller Lance Styles were cleared to West Australian club Subiaco, as part of the wheeling and dealing to get champion ruckman Mike Fitzpatrick to Princes Park. But after only a brief stay in the west, Hall returned to Victoria and graduated from Monash with majors in Mathematics and Psychology. He then accepted an offer to captain-coach prominent LaTrobe Valley club Traralgon for the 1976 season, while also beginning a new working life in the provincial centre as a secondary school teacher. His new adventure in the bush was to prove spectacularly successful.
At Traralgon, he twice won the League’s Best and Fairest player award, while coaching his team to the 1978 and 1980 Premierships. He then switched clubs to Morwell, and took the Latrobe Valley Tigers to another flag in 1985.
In 1988 – on the back of his high profile and sporting success – he stood for election to Parliament as a National Party candidate and won his seat with a comfortable majority. Since then, he has risen to hold a number of senior positions with the Nationals – in particular, as Party Leader in the Legislative Council, holding the shadow portfolios of Education and Resources and Environment. On election to Government in November 2010, Peter was appointed Minister for Higher Education and Skills, and Minister responsible for the Teaching Profession.
Career Highlights
1972 - 2nd Reserves Best & FairestVideo
Links
External: Peter Hall BiographyBlueseum: Summary of playing statistics for Peter Hall | Hall's Blueseum Image Gallery