It is a rare footballer who, at 25, is offered and signs a 10-year playing contract, and an even more rare footballer who has to extend his 10-year contract because he’s out-lived it. That’s Alastair Lynch. A born-and-bred Tasmanian, he…

Twelve thousand fans packed the Gabba on 17 September 1967 for one of the classic games of Queensland Australian Football. The Western Districts Bulldogs were described by the AFLQ Hall of Fame journalist and Test Cricket umpire Col Hoy as…

Everyone in football has their own memories and stories. Steve Russ, a one-time South Melbourne player turned Morningside and Queensland stalwart, is no different. Except he has one story that captivated the football world in 1989 that only a handful…

In 1983-84-85 the ‘Mighty Maroons’ played nine games that changed the face of Queensland football forever. Three years in a row they won a round-robin series against NSW, ACT and Tasmania to clinch the ultimate reward – an AFL side…

Todd Featherstone is a jockey-sized one-time junior rugby league player from Sydney turned Labrador great and adopted favourite son of Queensland football who did it with a style and grace that underlines everything good about the game. Featherstone in a…

Ask Andrew Raines about the biggest crowd he ever played in front of, and he’ll tell you 86,468 for his 50th game for Richmond against Essendon at the MCG in 2007, just ahead of 87,043 against Carlton at the MCG…

It’s often said in football that it’s not about the destination but about the journey. Michael Osborne’s 168-game AFL career at Hawthorn was exactly that. It was about persistence. If at first you don’t succeed, then try and try again.…

David Hale walked off the MCG on 3 October 2015 a triple premiership player. A flag in each of his last three years. After 13 years and 237 games in the AFL with North Melbourne and Hawthorn it was the…

Geoff Pemberton is a typical true-blue Cairns boy. Born-and-bred in the North Queensland ‘capital’, he loves fishing and camping, and the easy-going lifestyle of the north but loves Australian football more. This is why he’s a super-stalwart of the code…

Danny Craven watched it rain eight weeks in a row through the winter of 1992 in Melbourne and decided there had to be a better way. A pocket-sized rover from Chiltern via Wangaratta and St.Kilda, he tossed up the sunshine…

Howard Kennedy was a key figure in the growth of Australian football across North Queensland as a player, coach, and administrator for more than 60 years. He began a lifetime love affair with the game in the 1920s at a…

Saturday 27 November 2022. A capacity crowd of 8,000-plus packed the new Brisbane Lions headquarters at Springfield for the AFLW grand final against Melbourne. If Bree Brock had a moment to spare, she might have thought to herself “how good…

Josh Drummond is a triumph for perseverance. Overlooked in no less than eight drafts before finally getting his chance, he forged an excellent 94-game career with the Brisbane Lions that was more impactful than it was long and catapulted him…

Daniel Merrett is a triumph for AFL Queensland’s Talent Identification Program. He grew up playing rugby league, cricket, volleyball, and touch football and finished a 200-game AFL player with the Brisbane Lions. It all changed one Saturday afternoon in mid-2001…

Ben Hudson was an almost an accidental footballer. First and foremost, he was a basketballer studying physiotherapy while living on campus at the University of Queensland in 2000. For a bit of fun and exercise, and a little pocket money,…

David James was a Southport great through the early 2000’s. He played 211 games in 11 years and was as good as anyone at the club through that era. And more than a decade on his legacy lives long and…

Paul Shelton was a Morningside man through and through, starting his football career in the red, white and black as a four-year-old and finishing it 26 years later when he was chaired from the ground a senior premiership captain in…

Darren O’Brien was a Mildura boy who travelled far and wide living the football dream and headed to Queensland in 2003 for one year. Twenty years on he is not only still here but is one of Queensland football’s greats.…

Southport was a long-time powerhouse club of Gold Coast football before stepping up to the QAFL in 1983. The Magpies turned Sharks became a QAFL powerhouse before climbing to the NEAFL in 2011 and the VFL in 2021. They have…

David Bain is the only person in football history to win the Sandover Medal, the Gardiner Medal and the Grogan Medal for the best player in the WAFL, the VFL and the QAFL, winning the Grogan Medal not once but…

Collingwood’s Victoria Park was of one the most intimidating AFL venues in its day.  Full of character, it was more than a home ground – it was a fortress. So when Steve McLuckie, 45 days beyond his 19th birthday, played…

Michael McCormick moved to Queensland for a change of lifestyle. A footballing great from the tiny Murray River town of Mathoura, he was looking for some sun when he relocated to the Gold Coast in 1981. So began a commitment…

Brad Edwards is an adopted favourite of Queensland football, a country boy from Western Australia who played with Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears in the VFL before stamping himself as one of the all-time greats at Morningside. Having grown up…

Aasta O’Connor doesn’t like words like pioneer and trailblazer, but it’s an escapable fact that she was both. A monumental figure in the growth of women’s football in Queensland, and a great in the women’s game across the country. Born…

On 24 July 2007, the Tweed Heads Daily Telegraph published a story under the heading ‘Last Siren for Wally’. It was a tribute to local football stalwart Wally McKenzie, who had died three days earlier and it said it all.…

Warren Ledger was an outstanding player and coach in Queensland for more than 30 years, beginning inthe 1970’s after a knee injury as a teenager nearly stopped a wonderful career before it began. Born and bred in Brisbane and a…

What would you do if you were a life-time servant of the Redland Sharks and at age 73 you got a phone call from your old club asking for help? If you’re Col Tobiasen there’s only one answer. Of course,…

Ian Polglase fell in love with the Morningside Football Club as a nine-year-old in 1956 and for more than 60 years has remained wonderfully loyal and totally dedicated. A player, coach, committeeman, President and QAFL delegate turned innovator and visionary…

AFL Queensland is pleased to announce the Queensland Football Hall of Fame is back, with a new group of inductees to be honoured at a Hall of Fame event for the first time in 15 years. In 2008, AFL Queensland…

Ahead of this Saturday’s QAFL Grand Final between Broadbeach Cats and Maroochydore Roos, we take a trip down memory lane to look into the history of the Joe Grant Medal – awarded to the Best on Ground player in the…