George Ned GRLJUSICH

Player/Media: 12 games for South Fremantle in 1960 before commencing a stellar career extending over 47 years in sports broadcasting and telecasting with the Australian Broadcasting Commission at the age of 21, and later with radio station 6PR.

Always controversial and highly knowledgable he was regarded as one of the greatest sporting broadcasters of all time.

A GENUINE doyen of the sporting world, Grljusich abandoned a league football career to be a radio commentator. That was in 1960, when he debuted with South Fremantle the same day his brother Tom did. But while Tom went on to notch more than 300 games in Western Australia and South Australia, George played just 12 matches before the temptation of a career in broadcasting with the ABC proved irresistable. By that time he had also graduated from the Universiy of Western Australia with a law degree, but even that opportunity didn’t match up to his passionate love for commentating on sport.

In his years with the national broadcaster and later in commercial radio with 6PR, Grljusich called 39 individual sports, covered 15 Interdominion pacing championships, 10 Commonwealth Games and six Olympic Games, starting with the ill-fated Munich Olympics.

Grljusich also served on the South Fremantle committee for one year (1960) and has been prominent in many organizations within the sporting world, including the Football, Cricket and Trotting Guilds.