Joffa Corfe

Jeffrey "Joffa" Corfe (born 7 July 1960) is an Australian rules football supporter best known for being the leader of the Collingwood Football Club cheer squad from 2001 to 2019.

In February 2023, Corfe was convicted and sentenced for engaging in child sexual abuse.

Corfe, one of four boys and three girls, came from a working-class family in Melbourne.

His mother, June Murphy, was an alcoholic and a drug addict.

His father, Robert Corfe, who also was an alcoholic and a drug addict, drove a truck, delivered mail and had various other jobs.

When he was a young child, Corfe's family moved around various suburbs in Melbourne, escaping debt and financial obligations.

By the time he was 14, in the mid-1970s, Corfe had left home and was living at the Allambie Boys Home in East Burwood, where he stayed for about five years.

During this time he recalls a "lovely couple" taking him to Victoria Park, where he saw his first game of football.

His six siblings also lived in and out of public homes and foster care throughout their early years due to their parents' chronic instability and poverty.

In his early adolescence, Corfe drifted between different jobs and different homes; his living situation alternated between public housing, his unstable family, and the streets.

He was homeless for four years in his late teenage years, until he got a job at a plastics factory in Hawthorn and was able to escape homelessness.

He has not had a drink of alcohol since 2000, saying: "I never had a problem with it, but I have major problems with people who are intoxicated. They just don't make sense."

Corfe rose to prominence in 2002 by donning a gold jacket and holding up a "Game Over" banner during games when he felt Collingwood had secured victory, usually in the fourth quarter.

The jacket came from the Channel Nine wardrobe and had been previously worn by Bernard King and Tommy Hanlon Jr..

When Corfe saw Eddie McGuire wear it on The Footy Show, he emailed McGuire to ask if he could use it to celebrate Collingwood victories.

McGuire had the jacket dry-cleaned and handed it over at a Victoria Park training session.

His daughter, Emma, was diagnosed in 2003 with epilepsy (at the age of 13), and he has since become a vocal advocate for the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria.

He likes to read books and spend time with his three grandchildren—Simon, Jeffrey, and Destiny-Pearl—who are indigenous.

He has close connections with the indigenous community at Lake Tyers.

Before the 2003 AFL Grand Final, Corfe announced that he was going to discontinue use of the jacket; however, after Collingwood's loss, he suggested that the jacket would make a comeback the next season.

New jackets were introduced in 2005 and 2010.

The last version featured the logo of the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria on the front and back.

Joffa’s Walk for Epilepsy was run in 2006.

In 2010, Corfe said that he would retire the gold jacket "if the Pies win the flag."

He had the jacket on by the sixth minute of the final quarter of the 2010 AFL Grand Final replay as Collingwood stormed to a comfortable win over St Kilda.

Corfe was a notable fundraiser for the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria for several years.

In conjunction with the release of Joffa: The Movie in 2010, Joffa bobblehead dolls were sold by the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria to raise funds for epilepsy research.

His iconic gold jacket, retired after Collingwood's 2010 premiership win, was auctioned on eBay for $3,900 with all proceeds going to the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria.

Joffa: The Movie was released nationally in cinemas on 2 September 2010.

The DVD of the movie was released in December 2010 by Madman Entertainment.

The DVD includes a full set of commentaries, bloopers and footage of Collingwood's 2010 Grand Final win celebrations.

Corfe was employed as a welfare worker at the Anchorage Hostel, a Salvation Army refuge for homeless men, as recently as 2011.

He worked as a nightshifter, working from 11 pm to 8:30 am.

From 30 July 2011 to 6 August 2011, Corfe and Joffre Pearce, father of Danyle Pearce, at the time a player with the Port Adelaide Football Club, completed a fundraising bicycle ride from Rockbank, outside of Melbourne, to Football Park in Adelaide.

Along the way they met up with local football clubs, and gave and received encouragement.

Olympic Gold Medalist Brett Aitken joined the riders on their final leg.

The ride raised over $1,300 for the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria's Parent Epilepsy Support Network.

Inspired by the classic Australian movie The Club, producer-director Chris Liontos decided to make his own film about Australian rules football "through the eyes of the most passionate supporter in the country."

Corfe's biography (Joffa: Isn't That Life?) was launched by Father Bob Maguire on 11 June 2015.

The book was reviewed by Rohan Connolly in The Age and Peter Rolfe in the Sunday Herald Sun.