[1] A small, nuggety man with broad shoulders, pink complexion and intense brown eyes, Worrall was one of Australia's great all-round sports people of the nineteenth century, and was involved in Australian football and cricket at the elite level for many decades.

Born on the Victorian Goldfields at Chinaman's Flat, between Timor and Maryborough, Worrall was the seventh child of Irish-born parents, Joseph and Ann.

He played his first Ashes test match in the 1884–1885 season, when he was called into the team at the last minute to replace a player who was in financial dispute over his proposed fee for the game.

This culminated in the wooden spoon in 1894, and the club perennially finished second last from 1895 to 1901, being a chopping block alongside St Kilda in the early years of competition in the VFL (which began in 1897).

Hitherto, Australian footballers were prepared in an ad hoc way commensurate with the organisation of the game as a semi-professional sport where official payments were outlawed, but made surreptitiously.

Worrall immediately set about leading training sessions, instructing players, formulating tactics and recruiting talent in a manner that created the role of club coach that is recognised today.

Carlton's rapid improvement and subsequent rise to power encouraged other VFL clubs to appoint a coach, and these men used Worrall as their role model.

Eventually, he developed a big, strong team that favoured long kicking and liked to close up the game, forming packs and using their physical strength in the crushes.

Adding to the players' dissatisfaction was the increased money coming into the game, as Carlton's revenue had doubled since the time of Worrall's appointment.

The matter continued on for a number of weeks, with a small group of players holding out and threatening to leave unless Worrall gave his resignation, which he did on July 29.

In 1909, the Victorian Cricket Association (VCA) made Worrall coach of the state's colts team, which played at district level and was designed to develop young talent.

Beginning his journalism career with the Sydney Referee after his retirement from playing cricket, Worrall expanded his involvement in the press during Essendon's hiatus from the VFL in 1916.

John Ritchie, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, described his writing thus:For over twenty years his columns were characterized by poised sentences and rich vocabulary; for all its partisanship, his direct prose was spiced with comparison, reminiscence and prediction, and conveyed a sense of drama.

[1] In the 1930s, he was the senior man in the press box, and many attribute the coining of the phrase "Bodyline" (describing the English bowling tactics on their 1932–1933 Australian tour) to Worrall.

In honour of Worrall, the flags at the MCG, the scene of so many of his sporting triumphs, flew at half mast during a Sheffield Shield match.