AUGUST 17 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of the legendary Ted Whitten. Memories of the great 'EJ' will never fade; he was larger than life and one of the great figures in the history of the game. Here's a primer about the great man known to all as 'Mr Football'.

National figure at age 17
Just 15 games into his debut season in 1951, Ted Whitten was already making the front page of the papers.

Called up for national service and sent off to camp at Puckapunyal that August, the Bulldogs apparently exhausted all avenues for him to be given a leave pass for a first semi-final against Essendon.

Late on the afternoon before the game, Whitten was summoned to camp headquarters, where he received this telegram: "Leave to be granted to Corporal Whitten from Friday night." It was signed by the Prime Minister, Bob (later Sir Robert) Menzies.

Swingman
Decades before the term came into vogue, Whitten was a 'swingman' extraordinaire. He made his name as a centre half-back and that's where he was named in the AFL Team of the Century.

But he could also comfortably play at centre half-forward and kicked 360 goals over his 321-game career. He kicked 42 in the Grand Final year of 1961 and 38 the next.

As a player he had it all – great hands, a prodigious kick and wonderful skills – and in reality could have been a superstar in any position.

Premiership hero 1954
Sadly for the club formerly known as Footscray, there is just one premiership to show for its 90 years in the AFL/VFL. So the 20 players from the team that beat Melbourne that year by 51 points are genuine heroes of the football club.

Whitten played centre half-back that year and after the Grand Final was praised by Hawthorn coach Jack Hale, writing in The Sporting Globe, for his performance on Melbourne's Geoff McGivern and for playing the ball down the middle. Most media outlets had Whitten in the best players.

Captain-coach
Less than three years after the premiership win, Whitten was installed as captain-coach of the Bulldogs. It was midway through 1957 and, as Whitten recalled many years later, the club wanted "young and vibrant" leadership.

He coached the Bulldogs to the end of 1966, was replaced by Charlie Sutton for two years before returning in 1969 for three more years. He retired as a player midway through 1970.

Loyal son of the West
Only once while playing for Footscray did he contemplate playing elsewhere. Four clubs approached him after he was dumped as coach of the Bulldogs in 1966 and the most intriguing offer came from Richmond, which was quickly rebuilding under Tom Hafey.

Whitten was already 33 but interested enough to declare in The Sun that, if the Bulldogs didn't clear him, he would retire.

In the end, incoming president and former teammate Jack Collins convinced him to remain at the Western Oval, a move that cemented his standing as a one-club player, but which may have cost him another premiership, given that the Tigers won the flag in 1967.

In 1972, after finishing with the Bulldogs a second time, he briefly contemplated a comeback with North Melbourne, but shelved those plans when told by coach Brian Dixon he would have to initially play in the reserves.

"I had never played in the reserves, not even for one minute," he later wrote. "And I was not about to kick off the grass with the Roos' reserves."

Victorian to the core
The Dogs weren't much good while Whitten played. In 20 seasons, he played in just 10 finals, the last of those in 1961. But he was a staple of the Victorian side through his career and represented the state on 29 occasions.

More than once he earned the ire of his club by playing for Victoria rather the resting up for the next Footscray match.

Post his playing career, he became more synonymous with the big white 'V' than he was with the Bulldogs. His farewell lap of honour at the MCG in 1995 gave the football community the opportunity to thank him for his passion for the Victorian jumper.

EJ Whitten and his son Ted Whitten Jnr on their emotional lap of honour in 1995. Picture: AFL Media

Media superstar
Whitten oozed charisma and didn't lack for self-confidence and was a natural behind the microphone and in front of the camera.

He was a regular guest on Football Inquest and World of Sport back in the day and would join the Channel Seven team for the finals once his Footscray commitments were done. It was Whitten who famously urged St Kilda to "hit the boundary!" in the dying moments of the 1966 Grand Final.

He later crossed to Channel Nine when that station became more serious about football coverage in the early 1970s and he was part of the stable right through until the early days of The Footy Show.

But he wasn't just a footy commentator for Nine. Whitten was so talented and flamboyant that he soon became the face of World Championship Wrestling, the Sunday TV afternoon staple. A quick search on YouTube and you'll find him calling a bout between Ron Miller and Harley Race, with all the earnestness, colour and theatrics demanded by that 'sport'.

King of Kardinia Park
As synonymous as Whitten was with Footscray, many will remember Whitten as the voice of Geelong. After many years as an 'around the grounds' expert for 3KZ, Whitten joined 3GL (which later became K-Rock) and called every Cats game for the next 15 years.

Whitten would hold court from the best seat in the house at the Cattery – the K-Rock commentary box in the Brownlow Stand – and his calls were passionate, incisive and often hilarious as he set up his co-commentators with all manner of jokes and asides.

There was also the occasional swear word live on the air if word came through from another ground that his beloved Bulldogs were getting thrashed.

Chairman of selectors
Whitten's main football involvement for the last 15 years of his career was as chairman of selectors for the Victorian State of Origin team.

Chief spokesman and spruiker might have been more accurate, but at a time when the game was starting to question the worth of representative football, Whitten was the go-to man for any media inquiry about the Victorian squad and the images and sound-bytes of him while wearing the navy blue blazer will endure forever.

There was the crushed and forlorn figure sitting in the front row of the SCG Members' Stand when the Vics somehow lost to New South Wales in 1990, and the beaming figure a few weeks later when they beat Western Australia in Perth. What followed was the first utterance of the "We stuck it right up 'em!" line that became his trademark until he died.

And he adapted the North Melbourne theme song ("Victorian boys are hard to beat when they come out to play") for the Vics. Perhaps we should add songwriter, too, to his CV.

The man from adidas
Whitten was almost as well known for his association with adidas as he was with Footscray and the Victorian team.

Whitten worked for adidas for nearly 30 years.

His title was 'national sports liaison manager', but it was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was he did for the global sports apparel firm except to say that if someone needed something, a quick word to Whitten and they got it.

It wasn't just footballers, either. Whitten's brief was to look after anyone from the adidas stable whenever they were in Australia and in that capacity he struck up a friendship with plenty of world-class stars. And they liked him. A highlight before every Australian Open was when Whitten would host a merchandise launch with German tennis star Steffi Graf. There was genuine affection between them and Graf contacted Whitten's family to express her condolences when he passed away.

The visionary
Whitten's Bulldogs were regular proponents of the flick pass, a sort of reverse hand-pass that, while in the rules of the game at the time, was perhaps not in the spirit. Whitten never forgot about the flick pass and when Doug Hawkins broke his Footscray games record in 1994, Whitten welcomed him on to the ground and flicked him the ball before joining him for the first few paces of his lap of honour.

He was also an early supporter of indigenous football. Long before large tracts of the football community were paying attention, Whitten would travel north each year to present the medal for the best afield in the Tiwi Island Football League.

"They are God's people, truly wonderful and it is a pity more people do not go north to see for themselves," he once said when asked what had piqued his interest.

The handshake
Whitten was famous for his firm handshake. The first experience was jarring for those not knowing to expect it and it was always entertaining to watch the reaction of those introduced to Whitten for the first time.

*EJ, written by Ted Whitten with Jim Main in 1995, was used as background for this story.

This an edited version of an article originally published in the round 20 edition of the AFL Record.