VALE TOM GLEGHORN
Glenelg Football Club is in mourning after Great of Glenelg Tom Gleghorn passed away on Saturday, January 24 at the grand old age of 100.
A world-renowned artist, Gleghorn for three decades provided outstanding support to and mentoring of Glenelg players, coaches, administrators and vice-presidents and was an important club benefactor.
Tom’s wife Elsie is 99. There is a Tom and Elsie Gleghorn Dining Room at Glenelg FC named in their honour.
Gleghorn, whose magnificent paintings of Glenelg’s bloodied warrior Scott Salisbury and spectacular Sudjai Cook are well known to Tigers fans, was a valued friend of the likes of Salisbury, Michael Farquhar and other Greats of Glenelg Nick Chigwidden and Peter Carey.
Tigers 100-gamer Farquhar said Tom, who celebrated his 100th birthday on June 2 last year, had been a friend for more than 30 years. “I’m in the art industry now and I did some collaborating with Tom and he trusted me with a lot of his personal artwork and we became even closer friends,” Farquhar said. “He was an incredibly generous man with the amount of artwork he gifted to family, friends and Glenelg Football Club.”
Gleghorn became a Great of Glenelg in 2013. The title was established in the 1980s as “the highest official honour the Glenelg Football Club can bestow on its players and officials”. Greats of Glenelg are people who are deemed to have been “dedicated servants of the club who have had a profound, permanent impact on the club”.
There are just 18 members of this exclusive club including Carey, Chigwidden, Graham Cornes, Ray Curnow, Neil Kerley, Harry Kernahan, John H Ellers and Laurie Rosewarne.
The GFC Board, management, staff, players and volunteers extend their deepest condolences to the Gleghorn family.