Alf Goonan
Australian rules footballer
Alfred Goonan (3 April 1904 – 22 January 1942) was an Australian rules footballer who played with North Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Family
The son of William Goonan (1868–1957), and Emma Goonan (1866–1925), née Williams, Alfred Goonan was born in North Melbourne on 3 April 1904.
Football
North Melbourne (VFA)
Goonan joined the North Melbourne under 19s and, later, played the last two games of the 1924 season for the North Melbourne VFA team.
North Melbourne (VFL)
He played in North's first ever VFL game, against Geelong at Corio Oval. Playing at forward pocket, he scored North's first score in a game of VFL: a behind. He kicked 1.1 for the match.
Playing against Fitzroy at Arden Street, in North Melbourne's second VFL match, Goonan kicked 4 goals.
Military service
He joined the Australian Imperial Force in 1940 at Mildura, and was deployed to British Malaya in August 1941. After the invasion of the colony by the Japanese Empire, Goonan's battalion fought fiercely, resulting in Goonan being wounded. The battalion fought the Japanese until forced to retreat at the Simpang-kiri River.
The public source identifies “Alf Goonan” as australian rules footballer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Goonan, Australian and rules.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 29, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q4721687. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1942, 1868 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alf Goonan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.