Gordon Richard James Coventry (25 September 1901 – 7 November 1968) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Afforded 'Legend' status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Coventry was the first player in VFL history to achieve several significant milestones, including playing 300 career games, kicking 100 goals in a season, winning the leading goalkicker award in five consecutive years, and kicking 1000 career goals. Coventry's league total of 1299 career goals served as a competition record for over 60 seasons.

The eighth of the ten children of Henry Coventry (1862–1948) and Jane Henrietta Coventry (1863–1940), née Spencer, Gordon Richard James Coventry—known as "Nuts" to his family (said, by some, due to his having a disproportionately large head as a child)—was born on 25 September 1901 in Diamond Creek, Victoria.

Coventry and his siblings attended the Nillumbik State School (No.1003) at Diamond Creek. While still at school, he began working on his father's fruit orchard.

Coventry played his early football for Diamond Creek Football Club in the new Heidelberg District Football League, a competition which began after World War I, and had quickly established himself as a champion centre half-forward. In 1920, he was invited to train at Collingwood. The three significant officials involved with that invitation, who were anticipating Collingwood's need to find a suitable replacement for the at-the-time injured Dick Lee, who was nearing the end of his career, were Ernest William Copeland (1868–1947), John James "Jack" Joyce (1860–1945), and John James "Jack" Peppard (1878–1940). Although Lee had played in Collingwood's first eight matches in the 1920 season, he had only scored 17 goals; and, also, due to an injury sustained in the round 9 match against South Melbourne, he missed the next seven matches, returning in the season's last home-and-away match in round 18—in the interim, Collingwood tried various permutations of forward lines to cover for the loss of Lee, centred on the selection of Ern Utting (five matches), Tom Wraith (one match), and Tom Drummond (one match) at full-forward over that time.

Coventry played his first senior game for Collingwood at the age of 18 against St Kilda in round 15, 1920. He played on the half-forward flank, kicked one goal, and although "not particularly impressive … [he] showed that he can kick well". As one of Collingwood's four inexperienced players given a run that day (the others were Les Lobb, Len Ludbrooke, and Roy Outram), Gordon played his second match—again on the half-forward flank—in what was also Lee's return match, the last home-and-away round of the season against South Melbourne.

Then, just 18, and in his third match, Gordon played at centre half-forward in the Collingwood team (with Lee at full-forward) that beat Fitzroy 4.17 (41) to 3.5 (23), at a muddy, rain-sodden MCG, in the 1920 semi-final . And then, once more at centre half-forward (with Harry Curtis replacing the injured Lee at full-forward), in the Collingwood team that beat Carlton 12.11 (83) to 8.11 (59) in the 1920 preliminary final on 25 September 1920, his nineteenth birthday. Coventry reprised his role at centre half-forward in the team that lost to Richmond 7.10 (52) to 5.5 (35) in the 1920 grand final, kicking 3 goals in the defeat.

In 1921, his second VFL season, Coventry was selected in a representative VFL side to play against a combined Bendigo team on 6 August 1921, but did not play due to influenza.