Brendan Fevola

Brendan Fevola (born 20 January 1981) is a former professional Australian rules footballer and radio presenter.

He played with the Carlton and Brisbane Lions football clubs in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Brendan was born to Italian Australian Angelo Fevola, a Victorian state representative in lacrosse, and Karen Ralph on January 20, 1981.

His parents split when he was eight years old.

For a short time, he attended a Catholic school.

Fevola began playing football with the Beaconsfield Junior Football Club in the Dandenong & District Junior Football League before playing senior football in the Victorian Country Football League.

His ability to kick goals for the Dandenong Stingrays earned him selection in the TAC Cup Team of the Year in 1998 and attracted the eye of recruiters; he was one of three talented AFL prospects featured in the 2000 television documentary The Draft, with the other draft prospects being Des Headland and Adam Ramanauskas.

Fevola was recruited to Carlton Football Club with selection No. 38 overall in the 1998 AFL Draft and made his debut in the 1999 AFL season.

Early in his career he showed signs of being a brilliant kick of the ball and a prospective key-position player at full-forward, and he led the AFL reserves for the 1999 season with 42 goals despite Carlton finishing last for the year.

During a pre-season game on 31 December 1999 against Collingwood (promoted as the "Millennium Match"), he kicked 12 goals.

The promising talent was given the No. 25 guernsey made famous by Carlton legend Alex Jesaulenko.

Fevola is regarded as one of the most effective full-forwards to have played AFL in the 2000s, having won the Coleman Medal for league-leading goalkicker in 2006 and 2009 (kicking 84 and 86 goals, respectively) as well as All-Australian selection as a forward three times since 2006.

However, Fevola struggled to maintain form over the next few years, playing in 39 games and kicking 66 goals between 2000 and 2002, with noticeably poor body language on-field as well as causing bad publicity through incidents off-field.

Carlton Football club senior coach Wayne Brittain had intended to trade or delist Fevola at the end of the 2002 season; however, after Carlton's poor season (in which it won the wooden spoon) Brittain was himself sacked, and incoming senior coach Denis Pagan reversed Brittain's decision.

Pagan's arrival had an immediate impact on Fevola's discipline and form.

During his career at Carlton, he was the club's leading goalkicker and key forward from 2003 until 2009.

However, throughout his career, he has been a controversial figure off the field, which ultimately led to him parting company with both of his AFL clubs.

In Round 5, 2003, Fevola kicked 8 goals against the Kangaroos, helping win the game for Carlton and launching himself into the eyes of AFL viewers.

Fevola's unkempt dreadlocks and extroverted personality in the media earned him the nickname "The Shag" by fans.

Fevola's early goalkicking inconsistency saw him experiment with unorthodox styles of handling the ball in approach to taking set shots.

In 2004, Fevola developed a ritualistic set-shot routine of taking three quick steps to shoot on goal, and this resulted in a significant increase in goal-kicking accuracy, particularly from long distance.

The duration of his ritual, at times taking longer than a minute, became a point of contention, and was partially responsible for the introduction of a new rule in 2006 (commonly referred to as "the Lloyd Rule" after Essendon's Matthew Lloyd, who had a similarly lengthy set-shot ritual), limiting the duration permitted to take a set shot to 30 seconds, before play-on would be called.

Fevola's ritual was duly shortened to accommodate the new rule.

In 2006, Fevola capped off a stunning year and his best to that point by kicking 84 goals and winning the Coleman Medal and All-Australian selection.

He scored 59 goals in 2007, then followed this up in 2008 with his career-best total of 99 goals for the season, seeing him finish second behind Lance Franklin in the race for the Coleman Medal.

His representative honours include playing for Victoria, where he was a leading goalkicker and was awarded the Allen Aylett Medal for being the state team's best player during the 2008 AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match.

He was selected for Victoria in the once-off AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match in 2008, kicking six goals and winning the Allen Aylett Medal as best on ground.

In 2009, Fevola won his second Coleman Medal, kicking 86 goals for the season, eight goals clear of the runner-up Jonathan Brown.

He is the only Carlton player ever to win the league's goalkicking award twice, and it was his seventh consecutive season as the club's leading goalkicker; only Stephen Kernahan (11) had won the award more times consecutively.

He later sold the medal "to fund a gambling addiction."

Carlton announced on 30 September 2009 that it would seek a trade for Fevola during the 2009 trade week due to his off-field behaviour, most specifically due to antics at the 2009 Brownlow Medal Count.

On 9 October, he was officially traded to the Brisbane Lions along with a second-round draft pick (#27 overall) in exchange for Brisbane's Lachlan Henderson and a first-round draft pick (#12 overall).

Additionally, Carlton agreed to pay $100,000 of Fevola's salary for each of the two years remaining on his existing contract.

Fevola left Carlton as a life member of the club after playing 187 senior games for 575 goals—the third-most goals by any player in Carlton Football Club history.

Despite the circumstances of his departure, Carlton has stated that Fevola's life membership was not affected and that he remained welcome at the club.

At Brisbane, Fevola was given the Number 5 guernsey.

He made his debut for the Lions in the first round of the 2010 season at the Gabba against the West Coast Eagles.

He finished the 2010 season with 48 goals in 17 games.

After further off-field controversy over the 2010/11 offseason, Fevola was sacked by the Lions on 20 February 2011.

Due to his brief stint at Brisbane, he has sardonically referred to himself as a "Brisbane Legend" on numerous occasions, including at the Fox Footy Longest Kick competition, which he would incidentally win the 2017 edition post-retirement with a kick of 66.1 metres (217 ft), winning $10,000 in the process.