AFL Queensland wishes to express its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Terry Weller, following his passing, aged 73. Queensland representative, dual Duncanson Medallist, and inductee into the Queensland Football Hall of Fame, Weller passed away on…

LEGENDS AKERMANIS, Jason BACKWELL, Owen CLARKE, Barry DARE, Norm HUGHSON, Ray PITTARD, Doug SMITH, Don TAYLOR, Zane   INDUCTEES ALLEWAY, Clinton BACKWELL, Brett BAIN, David BIRD, Murray  BLACK, Simon BLUCHER, Peter BRACK, Marlo BROCK, Breeanna BROCKWELL, Cherie BROWN, Jonathan BROWNING,…

Garry Toye had a fantastic three-month ‘honeymoon’ at Windy Hill over the summer of 1977. Accommodation, meals and a part-time job were included, and he even took his wife Heather. But sadly, it didn’t end well. It was a football…

North Adelaide coach Andrew Jarman would look out across the ground just before the first bounce hoping to see one thing. Dean Howard rolling his shoulders. If he was, he knew his ‘wrecking bull’ midfielder was on and that the…

It is often said that football is the panacea to all evils. While it will never be quite that for Gavan McGuane, something as simple as a bunch of weekly phone calls from old teammates is a very special ‘football’…

Thursday Island, with a total area of 3 sq km and a population of 2,805, located 39km north of Cape York Peninsula, is a tiny ‘home’ to some really big personalities. Like NFL Super Bowl champion Jesse Williams, dual Olympic…

The 1970 QAFL grand final is remembered for the intervention of police and trainers to quell a series of wild brawls, a withering Sandgate comeback that delivered a drought-ending premiership, and Warren Lloyd. The then 19-year-old ruck/forward starred at full…

Known to everyone at Sandgate as ‘Bear’, Will Forbes was a 231-game star of the 1970s who epitomised what the tag ‘clubman’ is all about. He was one of the very best – on and off the field. A junior…

If you were going to write a football fairytale you’d start with Robert Copeland. Born in Redcliffe, a long-time resident of Kilcoy and a product of the Strathpine Swans, he lived exactly that in an extraordinary debut season with the…

Listen closely to Andrew Martyn say New Zealand. It’s ‘New Zuland’. Just like the multitude of people from across the Tasman Sea and for very good reason. The former Windsor-Zillmere/Aspley and CCC star and Joe Grant Medallist is a Kiwi.…

There are a lot of great football stories that begin in an unlikely fashion, and then there is the Darrel Dunnett story. It belies belief. Invited to a local game, he arrived thinking he was a going to watch rugby…

Bernie Gottke was a rugby league man. He knew nothing of Australian football until he went to watch his son Phillip play a school’s grand final at the old cricket ground in Rockhampton in 1979. They were six goals down…

It’s 7am Tuesday. Rick Hanlon has assembled his ‘crew’ at the offices of AFL Cape York and they set out on a three-day 2,300km round trip to Bamaga. Driving in 11-seat troop-carriers, they’ll go all day, camp out overnight at…

This story contains names deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Only two players in senior football across the country have won a major league best and fairest medal four times. Port Adelaide’s Russell Ebert, elevated to Legend status in the…

It’s one of the great football trivia questions. Which Queenslander captained the superstar Hawthorn quartet of Luke Hodge, Lance Franklin, Sam Mitchell and Jarryd Roughead? If that’s too hard, who was the Queensland footballer who played under Michael Voss, Dean…

It’s a rare football specimen who plays on the big opposition key forwards as a teenager in the QAFL, heads across the country to become a key forward himself in the WAFL and captain of one of the most successful…

Australian Football ran into a problem in Brisbane in the late 1960s. Having fought so hard to establish a strong place in the local sporting scene and the cross-code battle for talent, it suddenly found itself besieged by rugby league…

It’s a curious misnomer in football that Che Cockatoo-Collins is not a Queenslander. Just ask him. Born in Brisbane, he moved to Cairns at three and played his early football with the Cairns United, now Cairns City Cobras, at what…

Martin Hopp was born to be a rugby league man. His grandfather Frank Hopp was a life member of Easts Rugby League Club and the Easts Juniors clubhouse is named in honour of his father Keith. But at age six…

Aspiring young AFL players will do pretty much anything to get a chance at the elite level. But Leigh Ryswyk inadvertently went over and above in his quest for a second crack after his first was cruelled by injury. He…

If you look up the football dictionary under ‘horrific, sickening, unthinkable and how did this happen?’ you might possibly find reference to Brett Backwell’s AFL debut because it was that and more.  That was even before he stepped foot onto…

Derek Humphery-Smith was an accidental umpire who reached the elite level in extra quick time before an unceremonious and even cruel exit which underlines the brutality of the environment that confronts the game’s on-field officials. He endured it all, and…

AFL fans across the country will remember the David Zaharakis moment. When a 19-year-old in just his fourth game kicked himself into football immortality. A last-second goal to win the 15th AFL Anzac Day game for Essendon by four points…

Ben Ryan will never forget his second game as a senior field umpire. It was an extra special father/son moment he shared with his father Steve at the home ground of the one-time infamous Gladstone Mudcrabs in 1998. He was…

Paul Sherwood has carried a little bit of Morningside with him for 30 years. His nickname ‘Forest’ was a ‘gift’ from Panthers great Daryl Bourke and has stuck with him through five years in the QAFL, 10 years with Glenelg…

As a youngster Gary Shaw would wait out on the ground at Chelmer whenever Western Districts played at home through the 1970s. As the team ran out and came towards him he’d kick his footy to Owen Backwell, and the…

You’ve heard the old saying ‘first impressions are everything!’ It’s never been more true than in the case of the Southport Sharks. Because if things had worked out a little differently 35 years ago the Sharks most likely would not…

Can you name the five Queenslanders who can lay claim to 300 AFL games? Nick Riewoldt played 336, Jason Akermanis 325 and Marcus Ashcroft 318. Michael Voss played 289 and by the end of the 2023 home-and-away season he’ll have…

Meet Kim Stahl, Queensland Football Hall of Famer, and his wife Kim. Confusing? Yes. Think about it. Even opening the mail would be a challenge. But what is not confusing is the legacy of a quarter of a century spent…

One of the great features of AFL football is the father/son rule, whereby family tradition is passed from generation to generation. Like the Abletts, Watsons, Clokes, Kennedys and Murphys. The Hawkins, Liberatores, Mitchells, Vineys and Danihers. And while it wasn’t…