A spectacular high-flying full forward who ranks with very best key forwards in Queensland football history, and is recognised annually via the presentation of the Ray Hughson Medal to the leading goal-kicker in the QAFL.
It is a recognition befitting a man who, more than 50 years after his last game, still ranks third on the all-time QAFL goal-kicking list behind Morningside’s Kent Abey and Wests’ Owen Backwell.
A Morningside junior, he was a rare sporting talent, representing Queensland at schoolboy level in Australian football, cricket and rugby league. And after leaving the game for five years as a 16-year-old he returned to Wests in 1957.
A ‘disciple’ of legendary coach Doug Pittard, he was the League’s leading goal-kicker in 1958-59-62-63-64-65, kicking 100 goals four times. But for a stint with West Torrens in the SANFL in 1960-61 may have topped the list eight times in a row.
His kicking prowess was so well known in Queensland that a manufacturer named a style of boot after him.
Synonymous with Queensland football via a famous Ron Lockens photograph of one of his trademark aerial feats, he represented Queensland from 1958 to ’65, and in 2003 was named in the forward pocket next to Jason Dunstall and Backwell in the Queensland Team of the Century.
Ray Hughson was inducted into the Queensland Football Hall of Fame in 2008 and elevated to Legend status in 2023.
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