After you enter the sliding doors of the Costa Brothers Football Centre at GMHBA Stadium, you turn into a long hallway adorned with oversized montage of the club’s greatest moments going back 162 years.
At the end kaleidoscope of greatness is a space reserved for the immortals: a line of portraits capturing the official club Legends, from Polly Farmer to Matthew Scarlett with a space ready and waiting for Corey Enright’s picture, the newest Legend.
Second on that row is black and white photo of Teddy Rankin. A distinguished looking gentleman in a lace-up Geelong guernsey and looking every bit the early 20th century Australian Rules Footballer.
Described as a ‘nippy’ and ‘elusive’ rover, Rankin was the first Geelong player to play 100 games, and three of his sons, Doug, Bert and Cliff also went on to represent the Cats with distinction.
The Rankin family story is one deeply rooted in the Geelong region, dating back to the mid-1800s, and if their impact on their adopted hometown and its football team ended there, it would still be significant, however, the Rankin legacy took a wild turn when Georgie, Teddy’s great granddaughter, pulled on a Geelong jumper for the first time during the 2019 AFLW season.
This weekend, Georgie will play her 25th game for the club against the Fremantle Dockers.
In a lot of ways it’s a shame the milestone can’t be marked at the old Kardinia Park, where the family name continues to echo down through the years, but Georgie is now writing her own football story.
Rankin joined the Cats in 2019 as an other sport rookie, after a distinguished career in basketball with the Gold Coast Rollers in the Queensland Basketball League. But football was in her blood, and the pull of Australian Rules, even up in Queensland was too much, and when she made the switch to the Surfers Paradise Demons in 2018, she topped the goal kicking in her debut campaign.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the girl could play.
Speaking to the Catterboxes podcast this week, Rankin says there is a love for the game of football that basketball couldn’t match, and to hear her talk about it, her affection for the sport is contagious.
“I thought I loved basketball, but since playing footy I just know I didn't,” she said.
“I never loved it the way that I love footy in terms of watching the games, being involved and playing, learning, vision, the physical element of it.
“I think it's just the fact it's got a unique skill set, whether it's the shape of the ball, the external factors, what ground you're on, weather conditions, opponents, there's so much to consider which is so unique to females, so a big part of it is just the uniqueness of the game and the brutality of it.”
Rankin’s shift from the wing into defence has neatly followed her development as a player – a hard-running former basketballer finding the harder edge of her game at the urging of coach Dan Lowther, to a key cog in the Geelong back six.
And while there is a noticeable aggression that has crept into her game over her career, you can’t miss the joy she plays with and her deep pride in the jumper that clearly comes from a deeper place.
“I'm representing myself, but I'm also representing my family and their dream as well, and that is the part that really gets me going is thinking about what it means to my Dad, my brother, my Mum, and my grandparents.”
But if there is any pressure coming from such a famous Geelong family, you’d never know. The message from the Rankin clan is the same each week, and she’s carried it with her for all 24 games so far.
“The line they always roll out with me is they say I love to watch you play,” Rankin said barely suppressing a smile.
“So regardless, we might do feedback and we'll go back and forth with the pros and cons of the game and how I've played and where I need to improve etc but at the end of the conversation I’ll always get, whether it's a text or last line of the conversation, but I love to watch you play.”
