Recently I was thinking about how the opposing coaches for the 2007 Grand Final had the same Christian or given name. These two men are actually both legally Marks, yet both of them are 95% of the time referred to as “Choco” and “Bomber”
Mark is not usually the first thought for either- they are just Choco and Bomber. This is so different from Tommy Hafey- he is always Tommy. No one calls him ‘Haffers’ or ‘Hafe’- he is always Tommy.
I pondered then in how many other Grand Final years, had the competing coaches sported the same given name? Naturally 1954 was the first Grand Final that came to mind for FNWB and it was even closer to home for me as two men that I have known since the beginning- I refer to as Uncle Charlie and Uncle Norm. Both of these men are Footscray supporters.
So the next step was to list all the other names, to discover the number of Grand Finals from 1925 that saw coaches with the same Christian name. I initially decided to start from 1954 onwards then extended the search back to the war, then to 1931 and the introduction of the Page- McIntyre System, before settling on 1925 when Footscray moved into the VFL from the VFA.
