By Peter Blucher
Charlie Dixon, forever in the Gold Coast SUNS history books as the player who kicked the club’s first AFL goal, will bid farewell to his former club in Sunday’s crucial Round 18 clash at People First Stadium.
The big key forward, fighting a losing battle against a battle-scared 33-year-old body and almost certainly in his last AFL season, has been recalled to the Port side for a game crucial to the finals hopes of both sides.
Having served a three-match suspension incurred in the SANFL, Dixon will replace a suspended Mitch Georgiadis in the Port side, and will be fresh after a month of training without any match play.
It will be an emotional home-coming and farewell for the former Cairns basketballer, who was a member of the Suns development side that played in the TAC Cup and VFL in 2009-10 ahead of their entry to the AFL.
He played 65 games for the club from 2011-15 and was a key member in the club’s first AFL win in Round 5 2011 – and their only win in 15 games against Port.
Nine years after leaving the Gold Coast to link up with ex-Suns assistant-coach Ken Hinkley at Port, Dixon is still ninth on the Suns all-time goal-kicking list at 94. And he’s 9th on the all-time goals list at PFS, with a career-best seven for Gold Coast against North in 2015.
Yet, surprisingly, he has only played only once for Port against Gold Coast at PFS – in Round 14 2021 when he kicked two goals in a 50-point Port win. He missed Port’s visit to the coast in 2016 and 2021, and twice played Suns ‘home’ games against Port in China in 2017-18.
Only five Suns players from Dixon’s time at the club are still there – Andrew Swallow and Alex Sexton, who will play against him on Sunday, the injured Touk Miller and Sam Day, and Sean Lemmens, who hasn’t broken into the AFL side this year.
Oddly, the other nine players from the Dixon era at the Gold Coast still playing in the AFL are elsewhere. He has Trent McKenzie with him at Port, while Tom Lynch and Dion Prestia are at Richmond, Steven May is at Melbourne, Jaeger O’Meara is at Fremantle, Jack Martin and Adam Saad are at Carlton and Peter Wright is at Essendon.
Gold Coast, 12th on the AFL ladder at 8-8, must win to keep in touch with the fight for the top eight, while Port, 6th at 10-6, aren’t in quite the same dire predicament but need to bank a win ahead of a tough late draw.
It will be an unusual weekend for Queensland AFL fans, with the Lions and the Suns both playing on Sunday. After Gold Coast against Port at 1.10pm Queensland time it will be Brisbane against West Coast in Perth at 4.40pm Queensland time.
It is a danger game for the improving and 7th-placed Lions against the 16th-placed Eagles following the sacking of Eagles premiership coach Adam Simpson, with the Brisbane coaching staff certain to be mindful of the lift that inevitably comes after a mid-season coaching change.
