George Coates was officially laid to rest last Friday with a funeral service that highlighted the profound impact he’d made throughout his extraordinary life.

In fact, only standing room remained at the Box Hill RSL such was the crowd of people who had turned out to pay their respects to the long-time Club stalwart.

Among those in attendance was George’s great friend and partner-in-crime, Arthur Wilson, who delivered a heart-felt eulogy which lions.com.au later requested to share with fans.

The following is a wonderful tribute from one great Lions man to another:

Firstly, my thanks to Judy and George who some time age invited me to speak at this service about his football career, and it is indeed a great pleasure to talk about George Coates – a wonderful man, a wonderful friend and a special mate for the past 45 years.

He was a great mentor for me in giving me his support and football knowledge during those years when I first joined him on the Fitzroy Football Club Committee, and in particular when I became Secretary/Manager and Football Manager at the club.

As a young boy, George lived in Newry Street – a street away from the Brunswick Street Oval – and spent his younger days watching Fitzroy play at every opportunity.

When World War 2 started, George joined the Air Force at just 18 years of age, and missed four years of competitive football. He came out of the Air Force at 22 years and six months, and then joined the Fitzroy Sub District team. As George stated, it was an open age team equivalent to under 19 football, but it was not long before he was invited to join the Fitzroy Football Club.

George played his first senior game for Fitzroy in Round 5 of 1947 against St Kilda and kicked 3 goals on debut. He had an excellent year, emerging as a top class rover, playing 15 games – including two Finals. He actually booted five goals in Fitzroy’s losing Preliminary Final side against Essendon that year.

In the next year, in a game against Footscray at the Western Oval, George was chasing the football to the boundary line just before half-time with Bulldogs strongman Charlie Sutton in hot pursuit. The bell rang and George suddenly stopped, but not before Charlie put his shoulder into George and crashed him into the fence.

George was carried off and came back on after half-time with no memory of playing the second half.

At home that night, George informed his mother that he would be going out that night and went to his bedroom. Sometime later, his mother went to the bedroom and found George in bed, no pyjamas, but he had pulled out his old Air Force kit bag, took out his flying gear and put it all on – including fur-lined boots and flying goggles – and got into bed. George said later, “that’s how concussion works”.

George told the story that despite his age and now playing at Fitzroy, his mother was still ultra-protective of him, and when standing in the kitchen one Saturday morning before the big game at Fitzroy with the rain pouring down, his mother gave his shorts an extra iron to ensure that he wouldn’t be wearing cold or damp shorts. This is all despite the fact that as soon as George ran down the race and onto the ground, they were soaking wet.

In 1949 George was selected to play for Victoria against South Australia in Adelaide, and he went on to play another final series in 1952, beating Carlton in the first Semi Final and losing to Collingwood in the Preliminary. After another good season, he was defeated by one vote to Don Furness in the Best and Fairest award.

George was very quick, had good evasive skills, and was very dangerous around the goals and during his career – forming an excellent rover combination with Fitzroy Brownlow Medallist Allan Ruthven.

In 1954, after playing eight games, George ruptured his quadriceps and every time he attempted to run, they would split open again. The doctor advised him not to play again, so he retired after playing 128 games and kicking 126 goals.

After retiring, George coached both the State Savings Bank and Ajax in the Victorian Amateur Competition. George would tell us of the story of when the Bank team lost a few games in a row, a supporter informed him that two of his star players were visiting a certain hotel every Friday night till all hours in the morning. So George told his Football Manager, Rick Molloson, to visit this hotel late on Friday night and report to him early Saturday morning. If the two players were in attendance they would be dropped from the team.

Rick contacted George that Saturday morning and said “George, the two players were there, but I would not drop them because if we drop all of the players that were there, we won’t have a team.”

After coaching, George was back at Fitzroy and in 1965, Ern Joseph was Chairman of a reform group that came into power and George was appointed one of the Vice Presidents of the club. He retained that position until he retired in 1986 a total of 21 years of service. For all of this period, he was also a member of the match committee, and for several years Chairman of the match committee.

I remember a Committee meeting at the Junction Oval in the mid-80s when George was in the chair and our marketing team had announced that we had the opportunity to obtain a $100,000 sponsorship from the Daily Planet.

George became very excited and animated with the chance of such a sponsorship, until someone pointed out to George that the Daily Planet was not a newspaper but rather a local brothel.

Suffice to say, the sponsorship was not approved.

In 1987 George was awarded the VFL/AFL Jack Titus Medal in recognition of his service to football. The only other Fitzroy person to receive this award was Bill Stephen in 1996.

At the time of the merger in 1996, the Brisbane Lions formed a committee of Fitzroy administrators under the Chairmanship of George to assist with some details of the merger. George met with the Brisbane Board and worked very hard in making sure that Fitzroy’s heritage was retained. He was a key driver to the jumper colours, the Lion emblem, and our club song, was retained.

The Brisbane Lions Board also formed the Fitzroy-Brisbane Lions Historical Society to be set up in Melbourne and invited George and I to be responsible for the formation of a Committee to look after the safe-keeping, repairing and displaying of the Fitzroy memorabilia, which is now housed at Etihad Stadium.

We sincerely thank George for his excellent contribution to our Society over the past 17 years.

In 2000, George was awarded the Government’s National Sports Award for his service to Sport.

In 2001, George was appointed Chairman of Selectors of the Fitzroy Team of our Century, and in that same year was inducted into the Fitzroy-Brisbane Lions Past Players and Officials Hall of Fame.

In 2013, George was also appointed a Life Patron of the Fitzroy-Brisbane Lions Historical Society.

Georgie Coates was a special person, always there to assist his family, teammates and friends, and I’m sure there are many of you here today who can verify that comment.

Barbara and I are forever grateful for our close friendship of George and will always remember the wonderful times we shared with George and Judy over the past 30 years.

I would like to pay a special tribute to Judy for the love, dedication and special care that she has given to George during his long time in care. She would arrive before lunch, making sure that he had his lunch, sat with him for the rest of the day, fed him his dinner, and made sure that he was comfortable before going to sleep. This was the program every day.

Georgie, you are a true Lion who loved and served Fitzroy and the Brisbane Lions over many years. We thank you for your friendship, loyalty and most all for your excellent performance both on and off the field.

God bless you my friend. Always remembered. Rest in Peace.

- Arthur Wilson