Brendan Fevola’s daughter reveals the former AFL star is playing park footy AGAIN despite retiring in 2023
- Footy legend returns to 35’s park footy
- Fevola’s daughter says his father refuses to retire
- Fevola made his debut for Carlton in 1999
Brendan Fevola’s daughter Lulu has revealed her great AFL dad is still lacing up his boots to play parkfooty at the weekend after vowing he was finally retired last year.
The former Carlton and Brisbane forward will play his last game for Diamond Valley Super Rules Football Club in Melbourne’s north-east in 2023, he said at the time.
“It was my fourth senior grand final and I’m done with it,” he said.
“I was going for a premiership. After 37 years, I have loved the game so much and it has given me so much more.
Fevola smiles with the trophy together with his daughters Leni and Lulu after winning a grand final in 2023
‘It’s time to say goodbye. What a way to end with a flag. I’m done.’
But now his daughter Lulu has posted a video clip of her beloved 43-year-old father still playing competitive park footy with the over-35s.
The clip posted to TikTok shows the burly striker beating a defender and kicking it towards goal.
“We are (because) this man refuses to retire,” she captioned the video.
Fevola had an eventful AFL career, making his debut for Carlton in 1999 and playing 204 first-class games, scoring 623 goals.
While he dominated in the Reserve Grade in 1999 (with 42 goals) before making his AFL debut in the No. 25 Guernsey, made famous by Carlton legend Alex Jesaulenko, Fevola struggled to translate that form to the top flight.
A series of poor games, poor on-field body language and a number of off-field incidents meant that Carlton had senior coach Wayne Brittain ready to trade or ax Fevola at the end of the 2002 season.
It was fortunate for the Blues that he did not, as Fevola suddenly found rich form that led to him becoming a seven-time leading goalkeeper for the club from 2003 to 2009, a two-time Coleman Medalist in 2006 and 2009, and a three-time All Australian.
Fevola (pictured with his family) had a colorful AFL career debuting in 1999
A fresh-faced Fevola smiles for his team portrait ahead of the 2001 season at Carlton
However, off-field problems continued to plague the key forward, culminating in him infamously selling his second Coleman Medal to fund his gambling addiction.
It prompted Carlton to pull off the shock trade of him to the Brisbane Lions in 2009.
Fevola played just 17 games for his new team in 2010, spending time in a Brisbane psychiatric clinic and struggling to address his demons.
Fevola was booted out of the AFL system at the end of the 2010 season and would continue to play in lower divisions across the country, including Victoria and Tasmania.