A son from his second marriage, Doug Rankin (1915–1987), also had a brief but successful career with the club, playing just nine senior games in two seasons (1938–1939).

[13] He played his first match for Geelong's senior team was against South Melbourne on 27 June 1891,[14] when he replaced injured wingman Charlie Wheatland in the selected side.

[16] After 88 games in the VFA, Rankin was a member of the inaugural Geelong VFL side that played Essendon on Saturday, 8 May 1897.

[17] His career spanned 20 seasons of football for Geelong, and during the VFL part of it (1897, 1899–1910), he played 180 games, being captain for 15.

[18] Rankin retired during the 1910 season at the age of 38, with his career total of 268 games remaining a club record until it was broken by John "Sam" Newman in Round 4 of 1979.

[23] Although many modern accounts situate the event in the 1890s, it seems certain that, on the (1925) account of Gerald Brosnan, a former Geelong (VFA) team-mate or Rankin, it happened during the time that Brosnan was playing for Fitzroy (viz., 1900–1909), that it happened at the Brunswick Street Oval, that it took place on an extremely wet day (the playing conditions on the Brunswick Street Oval were notoriously bad on wet days due to the slush and mud that ran from one end of the ground to the other), and that Jim D'Helin was the umpire: After football, Rankin was caretaker at the Corio Oval for about eight years, until he was replaced by Arthur Rayson c.1924.