IT IS as though John Coleman's whole existence was destined to be meteoric.

He played only 98 games before injury ended his dazzling career at 25. He coached for only seven years, winning two premierships, before stepping away at 38. He died suddenly in 1973, leaving a wife and two teenage daughters, at 44. Had he lived, he would still not be quite 80.

That so much was nipped in the bud understandably caused deep grief for many, yet it also ensured that the Coleman name will forever be surrounded with a mystical aura. The legend of John Coleman remains one of football's greatest stories.

He has been described as the game's first superstar. He was a player of such charismatic brilliance that spectators changed ends with him to watch his every move from the best possible vantage point. It's said that he didn't just take two or three spectacular marks a season, or even a game, he took that number during the average quarter. The pity of it is that it happened just before the arrival of television and we must rely on frozen images to try to grasp Coleman's freakish brilliance.

What images they are. They depict athleticism, pace, balance, courage, and - of course - a phenomenal leap. Essendon teammate, the late Geoff Leek, once said: "I'm nearly 6 foot 5 (195 centimetres) and Coleman jumped over my head, not once, but often."

My personal favourite Coleman photo is that of the iconic mark taken at Arden Street and captured in five frames, beginning at lift-off and ending with a graceful landing.

Tellingly, the arms and hands make no contact with his North Melbourne opponent and Coleman's eyes never leave the ball.

This sequence was featured on the front cover of the Footy Record when, as a child, I first went to the football in northern Tasmania. I recall week after week gazing at it in rapt awe.

Coleman's own early childhood was in Port Fairy, where he was born in 1928. His parents moved to Melbourne when he was 11, then, at the end of World War II, to Tyabb.

The young Coleman continued his commerce studies at University High and travelled home on weekends.

He played his first game for Hastings in 1947 and kicked eight goals. Later that year, he booted 11 in the grand final against Frankston.

The following year, in a game against Sorrento, he kicked 23 on his way to a season's tally of 160.

Such feats didn't go unnoticed and, after training with Essendon during the pre-season of 1948, the following year Coleman committed to the Dons.

His record-breaking debut, 12 goals against Hawthorn at Windy Hill, still stands as one of football's most stunning achievements.

Later that year, in the dying minutes of Essendon's premiership victory, Coleman became the first man in nine years to score a hundred goals in a season. In a remarkable entry to the game's toughest competition, he also won his club's best-and-fairest award and finished fourth in the Brownlow Medal.

That Coleman would not only score three centuries of goals in his five full seasons in the VFL, but be the only man between Jack Titus in 1940 and Peter Hudson in 1968 to achieve the feat, speaks eloquently of his unique ability as a goalkicker.

In his time, he was in a league of his own.

The end came in round eight of the 1954 season. In what was shaping as perhaps his best year, Coleman had kicked 14 goals the previous week against Fitzroy and had five before half-time at Windy Hill against North Melbourne. But in trying to mark a low pass from Jack Clarke, he fell to the ground in agony and dislocated his right knee.

Although there would be an attempt to come back in 1956, Coleman's career was over. He had kicked 537 goals from only 98 games. In the years since, only Hudson has eclipsed his goal-scoring average of 5.48 a game.

For seven years, from 1961, he coached the Bombers, winning the lifelong respect and affection of those under his tutelage as well as two premierships. After ill-health caused him to relinquish the job at the end of 1967, he settled into life as a publican.

In early April 1973, Coleman took ill at his Dromana Hotel and died of coronary thrombosis.

The following Saturday at Windy Hill, a crowd of 25,000 observed a minute's silence for the man many of his era regarded as the most brilliant to have ever pulled on a boot.

COLEMAN

Born: November 28, 1928.

Died: April 5, 1973 of a heart attack.

Height: 184cm. Weight: 80.5kg

Club: Essendon

Recruited from: Hastings

VFL/AFL debut: round 1 v Hawthorn, 1949

Games: 98

Goals: 537

Honours: Leading Essendon goal kicker 1949, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54;
leading VFL goal kicker 1949, '50, '52, '53; Essendon premiership player 1949, '50.

Coached Essendon premiership sides 1961, '65.