Ian Stanley "Bluey" Shelton (24 February 1940 – 17 March 2021[1]), known throughout his career as "Bluey", due to his thatch of red hair, was an Australian rules footballer, who played with Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL) during the 1960s.
[10] In 1962, Shelton played representative football for Victoria in 1962: against Tasmania on 17 June,[14] and against South Australia on 14 July,[15] he played in Essendon's 1962 premiership team at centre half-back in a team that defeated Carlton by 32 points — 13.12 (90) to 8.19 (58) — and was runner-up, to John Birt, as Essendon's best and fairest player.
[16][17] He did not play for the entire 1964 season due to an extremely serious eye injury he suffered in November 1963,[18] "necessitating serious operations and treatment" (Maplestone, 1966, p.198): Although only able to see out of one eye, he returned to Essendon in 1965,[21][22] and was appointed the team's vice captain.
On the day of the 1965 Grand Final, with a severe shoulder injury (the severity of which had been kept secret from the public),[26] Shelton was "in two minds [before the match] as to whether to play because he didn't want to let the team down" by under-performing; however, "he was persuaded half an hour before the game by skipper Ken Fraser and the club doctor to take the field".
[29] He was coach of the Seymour (Goulburn Valley Football League) premiership team in 1982.