Brendan Fevola

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Brendan Fevola
Fevola at training
Fevola at training
Personal information
Full name Brendan Fevola
Date of Birth January 20, 1981 (1981-01-20) (age 27)
Place of Birth
Recruited from Beaconsfield, Victoria/Dandenong Stingrays (TAC Cup)
Draft 38th overall, 1998
Carlton
Height/Weight 191cm / 100kg
Position Full-forward
Club information
Current club Carlton
Number 25
Playing Career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1999- Carlton 153 (429)
State Team Honours2
Years Team Games (Goals)
2008 Flag of Victoria (Australia) Victoria 1 (6)
¹ Club statistics to end of Rnd 11, 2008 season
² Representative statistics to end of {{{repstatsend}}}

Brendan 'Fev' Fevola (born January 20, 1981) is an Australian rules footballer of Italian descent, currently playing with the Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League.

He is a noted full-forward, having won the Coleman Medal in 2006, despite Carlton finishing last that season. He is also notable for his appearances on the Channel Nine's The Footy Show on Thursday nights during the season. He wears No. 25, the same number former Carlton legend Alex Jesaulenko wore.

Contents

[edit] Football career

[edit] Early career

Fevola was recruited to Carlton with selection No. 38 overall in the 1998 AFL Draft. He made his AFL debut in Round 17, 1999 against Collingwood, receiving limited game time in his two matches late in the year.

With only 66 goals from his first 41 games, Fevola was told at the end of 2002 by coach Wayne Brittain that he was to be delisted. That same night, Brittain was sacked and replaced with ex-Kangaroos coach Denis Pagan. Pagan reversed Brittain's decision, and kept Fevola on the list. Over the 2003 season, Denis succeeded in turning Fevola into a good leading forward. "Fev", as a number two forward, took many set shots through the year, but his accuracy was poor. This improved through the 2003 season, during which he scored 63 goals.

[edit] 2004 season

For the 2004 season, Fevola developed a ritualistic set-shot routine of thirteen steps, often taking over a minute to complete (thus attracting the ire of many media personnel). However, his accuracy and distance were enhanced, and at one point during the year, Fev's set shot record from outside fifty metres was 16.4, by far the best accuracy of any player from this range.

The most well-remembered moment of Fevola's career so far came in the dying moments of Carlton's round 11 match against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium. Carlton had recovered from a dreadful start, with only inaccurate kicking from Adelaide keeping them in the contest. With three minutes to go and Adelaide ahead by 2 points, Fevola strongly held a mark just inside the boundary line, 55m out from goal on the northwest side of the ground. Despite the distance, angle, and limited run-up space, Fev kicked an amazing goal, which turned out to be the final score of the game.

[edit] 2005 season

Now firmly entrenched as the #1 forward at Carlton, and the team's fastest sprinter over 20m, Fevola always attracted the fastest defenders who could often match him for speed and spoil his leading marks. This reduced his effectiveness in the Carlton forward-line. Also becoming a problem was a niggling groin injury he sustained in Round 12, preventing him from sprinting comfortably for the rest of the season. In this limited capacity, he still proved a useful decoy, freeing up the emerging talents Carlton had in its forward line. He had surgery over the 2005/06 off-season, and reports that the groin is fine.

[edit] 2006 season

Carlton Football Club's Brendan Fevola contests a spectacular high mark in an AFL match
Carlton Football Club's Brendan Fevola contests a spectacular high mark in an AFL match

After giving up drinking and with a new outlook on his career, "Fev" dominated the Carlton forward line, kicking roughly 35% the team's goals. He finished the season at the top of the goalkicking table with 84 goals, winning the Coleman Medal by a significant margin, with betting agencies eventually suspending Coleman Medal betting after round 20 when his lead was 18 goals. He is one of the few players to have won the Coleman medal from a team that had won the wooden spoon during the same year. In a similarly dubious honour, Fevola became the first player since Mark Arceri in 1991 to finish a game as his team's only goal-scorer, when he scored all four of Carlton's goals against St Kilda in Round 8. He was selected as full-forward in the All-Australian football side at the end of the season, and was selected in the Australian International Rules team when St Kilda's Nick Riewoldt pulled out. During halftime at the 2006 AFL Grand Final between West Coast and Sydney, Fevola outran the 7 finalists for the Grand Final Sprint with an 8-metre handicap to be labelled the fastest man in the AFL.

[edit] 2007 season

After a slow start to the season, Fevola clicked into gear and finished near the top of the leaderboard for the Coleman Medal. This includes an eight-goal haul against Essendon, where his team was 48 points down going into halftime.

After a match against Fremantle, he was stood down after giving away two 50-metre penalties and managing only one goal. Carlton had no choice but to tell him to leave the club and not come back until he sorted out his role within the club.

[edit] 2008 season

Fevola began the 2008 season slowly, before scoring 22 goals in three matches between Rounds 3 and 5. The hauls ensured that he received selection at full-forward for Victoria in the AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match, in which he scored six goals and won the Allen Aylett Medal for best afield.

[edit] Criticism

Fevola has been often criticised for his on-field body language, including his outward displays of annoyances when the ball is not correctly delivered to him, and the fact that he takes much longer to get up from a bump or tackle than other players. Annually, there is media-fuelled speculation regarding whether or not the club would become fed up with this behaviour and trade Fevola, but every year so far he has been retained. However, in 2006 the coach Denis Pagan labelled him "a perfect role model" after the turnaround of his form.[citation needed] His "perfect role model" status is somewhat tainted by an incident in March 2008 that involves the Fev being caught on CCTV urinating on a window outside a Melbourne nightclub. Fevola was subsequently fined $10,000 by the Club and stood down from the leadership group; he was neither suspended nor delisted by Carlton who argued that such action would not assist Brendan in addressing his issues.

[edit] Career bests

12 Goals: During the special New Years' Eve Millennium Match against Collingwood on December 31, 1999.
8 Goals:
8.5 in Round 13, 2004 against Richmond
8.4 in Round 3, 2008 (including 3 posters) against Essendon
8.3 in round 19, 2006 against Hawthorn
8.2 in round 3, 2007 against Essendon in a thrilling comeback for the Blues.
7 Goals:
7.2 in Round 11, 2004 against Adelaide
7.2 in Round 4, 2008 against Collingwood
7.0 in Round 5, 2008 against Melbourne

He has also kicked two bags of eight in pre-season games, in the 2005 Wizard Cup grand final against West Coast, earning him the Michael Tuck Medal, and in the semi-final of the 2007 NAB Cup against the Kangaroos.

[edit] Media persona/outside football

Fevola is a regular panellist on The Footy Show on the Nine Network, and is noted for his larrikin-like persona.[citation needed]) Memorable appearances on the show include his appearance late in 2005 where he shaved off his trademark dreadlocks (for which he has attracted the secondary nickname "the Shaggin Wagon") for charity and performed with teammates on the annual Player's Revue singing Achy Breaky Heart in 2005, and U Can't Touch This in 2006.

On the 7th October 2005 Fevola married Alex Cheatham at St John's Church in Toorak. However, on the 12th December 2006 it was announced that they were separated after only 14 months of marriage, amid allegations of Fevola's infidelity with an Australian model, rumoured to be Lara Bingle[1]. Alex sold her side of the story to Woman's Day and claimed in the interview that Fevola had become "disconnected" from her following the birth of Leni. Bingle later confessed to the five week affair, that being a Sydney girl, she did not know that Fevola was married until she heard his baby in the background during a phone conversation.[2]

Fevola has two daughters. An adopted daughter Mia, who is Alex's child from a previous relationship and a biological daughter with Alex, Leni Jay, born 21 July 2006,

In May 2006 Fevola began his career as a special comments commentator on Triple M.

Fevola has also been noted as studying criminology via correspondence at Griffith University and says that becoming a police officer is a possible career after football.[citation needed] He has also considered the option of pursuing a punting career in the United States with the NFL, following in the footsteps of Australians Ben Graham, Darren Bennett, and more recently Saverio Rocca.

  1. ^ Bingle blamed for Fevola marriage break-up
  2. ^ Bingle 'clears the decks' on Fevola affair from brisbanetimes.com.au

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

Preceded by
Robert Harvey		 Michael Tuck Medallist
2005		 Succeeded by
Simon Goodwin
Preceded by
Fraser Gehrig		 Coleman Medallist
2006		 Succeeded by
Jonathan Brown


Carlton Football Club – current squad

1 Walker • 2 Russell • 3 Murphy • 4 Gibbs • 5 Judd • 6 Simpson • 7 Bentick • 8 Kreuzer • 9 Saddington • 10 Hadley • 11 Ackland • 13 Blackwell • 14 Fisher • 15 Browne • 16 Grigg • 17 S. o'hAilpin • 18 Bower • 19 Betts • 20 Benjamin • 21 Austin • 22 Hampson • 23 Hartlett • 24 Stevens • 25 Fevola • 26 Anderson • 27 Armfield • 28 Cloke • 29 Scotland • 30 Waite • 31 Bannister • 32 Thornton • 33 Houlihan • 34 Wiggins • 35 A. o'hAilpin • 36 Pfeiffer • 37 Edwards • 38 Jackson • 39 Jacobs* • 40 Jamison • 41 Hill* • 42 Shields* • 44 Carrazzo • 46 Ellard* • 47 Joseph* • Coach: Ratten

* denotes Rookie Listed players
v • d • e
Victorian Team - 2008 Hall of Fame Tribute Match