Allan Crabb

Who was Allan Crabb?

Allan "Buster" Crabb was an Australian rules footballer best known for his playing career with South Australian National Football League club Glenelg in the 1940s and 1950s.

Crabb was a left-foot ruckman who debuted with the war-time combined West Adelaide-Glenelg side in 1942, and played out his career from 1945-1956 with Glenelg. In the process he became one of the most popular and respected footballers in the State.

Jeff Pash, a contemporary and later a sports writer, noted Crabb's outwardly placid nature, yet he was well able to look after himself in the roughhouse world of the ruck. Pash described Crabb's rucking as "both the deft plamer and the solid knocker" and felt that he had "some adventurous quality about him, too - whimsical almost - that leads him to mark one-handed or otherwise do the dangerouse thing, but not at all in any spirit of ostentation".

Crabb represented South Australia against interstate teams for many years; usually in ruck partnership with Norwood's John Marriott. Crabb was runner-up in the Magarey Medal - the highest individual award in the League for the "fairest and most brilliant" player - in both 1949 and 1950. The SANFL in 1998 retrospectively awarded Medals to all players who had lost on countbacks, thus giving Crabb his reward fifty years later. Crabb also won Glenelg's 1949 best and fairest award, and captained the club for three seasons.