title: Neil Pearson (footballer)
text: # Neil Pearson (footballer)
  
  Neil Alan Pearson (9 September 1925 – 27 April 2011) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
  
  ## Family
  
  The son of Leslie John Ramsay Pearson, and May Eleanor Pearson, née Brown, Neil Alan Pearson was born at Ballarat, on 9 September 1925.
  
  His younger brother Ian played at St Kilda and Hawthorn.
  
  ## Military service
  
  Pearson enlisted three weeks after his eighteenth birthday, serving in Townsville and New Guinea with the Royal Australian Air Force.
  
  ## Football
  
  Pearson made his debut in the opening round of the 1945 VFL season against Essendon and kicked four goals.
  
  A wingman, he was a solid performer for Hawthorn and brought up his 100th league game in 1952. He represented Victoria at the 1953 Adelaide Carnival, where they went undefeated.
  
  Despite only playing 13 games in the 1953 season, Pearson was Hawthorn's equal leading vote-getter at the Brownlow Medal count that year.
  
  He won a Gardiner Medal in 1954 as playing coach of the reserves but also participated in seven VFL games during the year.
  
  ## Honours and achievements
  
  Individual
  
  * Gardiner Medal: 1954
  * Hawthorn life member
  