Spurling athletes in Britain and Australia (variant spelling)
Sportsmen and sports figures with the related surname Spurling outside the United States. They include the England rugby international Aubrey Spurling (1856–1945), the Footscray footballers Bill Spurling (1907–1972) and Bob Spurling, the Australian lightweight rower Stephen Spurling and his mother, the Tasmanian rowing administrator Marj Spurling, and the English rugby hooker Scott Spurling.
Sourcing: strong 9 reference · 1 news
Spurling is a separate but closely related surname (see Spurlin spelling variants). This page collects Spurling sportsmen from Britain and Australia who do not have their own entries. The Bermudian Olympic swimmer Sir Dudley Spurling has his own article, as do the American baseball pitcher Chris Spurling and the college basketball player Greg Spurling.
Rugby union
- Aubrey Spurling (19 July 1856 – 26 March 1945) was born in Camberwell. His death was registered in Maidstone.[1] A forward for Blackheath, he won one cap for England, against Ireland at Lansdowne Road in 1882, and later became Blackheath's official club historian.[2][1]
- Scott Spurling (born June 1993 in Hendon) is an English former professional rugby union player who played hooker for Saracens. Wikipedia lists a gold medal at the 2011 Junior Commonwealth Games and a Junior World Cup (under-20) title in 2013.[3]
Australian rules football
- Bill Spurling (William David Spurling, 28 October 1907 – 13 April 1972) played 98 games and kicked 70 goals for Footscray in the Victorian Football League from 1928 to 1935.[4] Usually a centre half-forward, he had his most productive season in 1931, with 24 goals and nine Brownlow Medal votes, and played twice for Victoria that year.[5][4] In 1936 he joined Kyneton in the Bendigo Football League. He played in its premiership side, won the league's best-and-fairest award, the Fred Wood Medal, in his first season, and was reappointed coach in 1939.[5] His father, David, ran a tailoring business in Footscray that Wikipedia says is now known as Spurling Formalwear.[5]
- Bob Spurling (born 10 June 1943) played six VFL games for Footscray, two in 1963 and four in 1965, kicking two goals.[6][7]
Rowing
- Stephen Spurling is an Australian former lightweight rower from Tasmania who later rowed for Melbourne University Boat Club.[8] He first represented Australia as a lightweight sculler at the 1979 World Rowing Championships, and moved into the lightweight eight in 1982.[8] He stroked the Australian lightweight eight to second place, a silver medal, in the final at the 1983 World Rowing Championships in Duisburg, in 5:46.75. In 1984, in Montreal, the eight rowed in the B final.[9][8] He then turned to coaching, winning interstate titles with Victorian crews and taking Australian pairs and fours to the World Rowing Championships from 1993 to 1995.[8]
- Marj Spurling (1914–1995), his mother, was a rowing administrator in Devonport on Tasmania's north-west coast.[8][10] She was a foundation member of the Reece High School rowing parents' group and helped form the Reeconian Rowing Club in 1965.[10] In 1980–81 she became the first woman to manage a Tasmanian state rowing team, and she was one of the driving forces behind making Lake Barrington the state's rowing venue.[10] Rowing Tasmania made her a life member in 2017, about two decades after her death, having rejected an earlier nomination in the early 1990s.[10] Wikipedia says she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).[8]
See also
- Dudley Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
Sir Dudley Spurling (1913–1986) was a Bermudian lawyer, 1936 Olympic swimmer, 1934 Empire Games discus thrower and Speaker of the House of Assembly of Bermuda (1972–76). He was a founding partner of the law firm now called Appleby. - Chris Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
Chris Spurling (born 1977) is an American former Major League Baseball relief pitcher who played for the Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers from 2003 to 2007. - Greg Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
Greg Spurling is a former American college basketball center from Knoxville, Tennessee. The Phoenix Suns drafted him in the fifth round in 1986, and he later signed with the Suns and the Chicago Bulls, but he was waived each time and never played in an NBA game. - Spurling (surname) · The Surname strong
Spurling is the fuller spelling from which Spurlin derives. Unlike Spurlin, it is well established in England, Australia and especially Bermuda as well as the United States. - Spurlins in sports · Culture strong
An overview of people surnamed Spurlin in sports: college and minor league baseball, college football, wrestling, softball and basketball coaching, with links to each article and a note of the professional leagues and databases searched. - The Spurlin name outside the United States · Culture strong
Spurlin is an overwhelmingly American surname today, with about 98% of bearers in the United States. The spelling is older than American settlement: English archives record Spurlins in Middlesex and Bristol between 1670 and 1717, and 18th-century leases name a field called 'Spurlins' in Hertfordshire. Outside the U.S. the related form Spurling is far more common. - Spurling photographers of Tasmania (variant spelling) · People strong
Four members of the Spurling family, across three generations, worked as photographers in Tasmania from the mid-19th century until 1941. Stephen Spurling II (1847–1924) ran a leading Launceston studio. His son Stephen Spurling III (1876–1962) pioneered Tasmanian wilderness photography, and Tasmania's Mount Spurling bears the family name. - Notable Spurlins · People strong
An index of notable people surnamed Spurlin, with related Spurling-surname figures listed separately as variants.
References
- ↑ ↑ Aubrey Spurling — ESPN Scrum — Born 19 July 1856, Camberwell; died 26 March 1945 (registered in Maidstone); forward; read via Internet Archive snapshot, 2013-07-07 Reference
- ↑ Aubrey Spurling — Wikipedia — England cap 1882; Blackheath club historian Reference
- ↑ Scott Spurling — Wikipedia — Born in Hendon in June 1993 (the article text gives 6 June, the infobox 10 June); Saracens hooker; junior honours Reference
- ↑ ↑ Bill Spurling — AFL Tables — Season-by-season VFL games, goals and Brownlow votes Reference
- ↑ ↑ ↑ Bill Spurling — Wikipedia — Early life, 1931 season, Kyneton, family tailoring business Reference
- ↑ Bob Spurling — Wikipedia Reference
- ↑ Bob Spurling — AFL Tables — 1963 and 1965 seasons Reference
- ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Stephen Spurling — Wikipedia — Club, state and international rowing career; family Reference
- ↑ Stephen Spurling — World Rowing athlete profile — 1983 World Championships LM8+ final A, rank 2, 5:46.75; 1984 final B Reference
- ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Devonport's Marj Spurling made a life member of Rowing Tasmania — The Advocate (Burnie, 13 September 2017) News
Last reviewed 2026-09-24.