Vale Bruce Alexander

The South Adelaide Football Club mourns the passing of premiership forward Bruce Alexander.

Named at centre-half forward in the 1964 South Adelaide premiership team, Bruce passed away on Thursday 27th September aged 80 years after a battle with cancer.

As a student at Sacred Heart College, Bruce was College Head Prefect, Captain of the First 18, Captain of the First Eleven, Captain of the Athletics team and played in the Firsts Baseball and Tennis teams.

After three seasons and 25 games with Glenelg up to 1961, Bruce was persuaded by Tony Shaw and Bill Sutherland to come to South in 1963, where he believed he was made very welcome and would go on to play 26 games, including that 1964 grand final.

Bruce always believed that the time he spent playing at centre-half back for Glenelg enabled him to work out what a centre-half forward should be doing in a game.

'I made up my mind to always tackle hard, shepherd hard and keep the ball in our area so we will have more chance to score,' he said in an interview when he flew back from his home in Tweed Heads for a reunion a few years ago.

Apart from the invaluable contribution he made to our club in his short but significant time here, Bruce served in the navy, in government administration in Papua New Guinea and Australia (where he acted as secretary to federal ministers including Lionel Murphy and Don Chipp for 13 years), travelled widely and held a commercial pilot's licence.

South Adelaide send their condolences to Bruce's extended family, friends and former club mates.