LEGEND – Player Inductee
Cananore/Launceston/Longford/City, Wingman/Rover, 1919-34
> Cananore, 1919-23 (including two premierships)
> Launceston, 1923-25
> Longford, 1926-28 and 1931
> City, 1932-34, including NTFA and state premiers in 1932
> Australian carnivals, 1924, 1927, 1930 and 1933
> Represented the NTFA in 39 games versus South and North-West
> Youngest player to represent Tasmania in 1924
> Served the NTFA in administrative roles from the 1920s until his death in 1965
A good schoolboy footballer who grew into a great adult player, Hec Smith represented his state in three national carnivals. Smith was one of several top class Tasmanian-born rovers to emerge during the 1920s. He commenced playing with Cananore when the Tasmanian Football League (TFL) resumed operations after World War One.
Along with the likes of Horrie Gorringe, Jack Charlesworth, Jack Gardiner and Fred Pringle, Smith contributed to an extremely powerful Canaries team that landed the ‘double’ of local and state flags in 1921 and 1922. Smith himself won the club’s best and fairest award in 1921. Two years later he was on the move to Launceston, where he spent three seasons before being appointed captain-coach of Longford, which was making its NTFA debut. Hec Smith’s final move took place in 1932, when he assumed the captain-coach’s mantle at City, to immediate and telling effect. In his debut season with the club it carried all before it in securing the local flag and the state title, the latter by virtue of a thrilling six-point win over North Hobart.
Maintaining the consistently exemplary form he had demonstrated throughout his career, Smith was selected in Tasmania’s 1933 Sydney carnival team, having earlier played at both Melbourne (1927) and Adelaide (1930).
After retiring as a player, Smith became an administrator with the Northern Tasmanian Football Association (NTFA). Following his death he was duly recognised by the NTFA with the ‘Hec Smith Memorial Medal’, awarded to the fairest and best player each year from 1966 to 1986.
