Brett Ratten

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Brett "Ratts" Ratten (born July 11, 1971) is a former Australian rules footballer and the current coach of the Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League.

Ratten made his debut for Carlton in the fifteenth round of the 1990 season.

In a career lasting 14 years, he amassed many awards of recognition to his name. He played mainly as an in-and-under midfielder, often escaping the attention of media and umpires. Somewhat infamously, he amassed 44 disposals in Round 17, 1995, against Fitzroy, but failed to poll a Brownlow vote from the umpires.

He was awarded the Robert Reynolds Trophy (Carlton Best and Fairest) in the club's premiership year of 1995 (despite not polling a single Brownlow vote all year), and then again in 1997 and with Scott Camporeale in 2000. Ratten played for Victoria in the State of Origin in 1996 and 1997. He was awarded All-Australian selection in 1997, 2000 and 2001, firmly cementing his skill in the centre. Ratten was inducted into the Carlton Hall of Fame in 1999.

After the retirement of Craig Bradley, Ratten was awarded the club's captaincy in 2002, a position he held until his own retirement.

Ratten's career was seriously plagued by injury. During his time in football, he had 8 arthroscopes on his right knee, 3 arthroscopes on his left knee and a medial ligament. His shoulder was also badly damaged in 2003, which ultimately led to his retirement.

After Ratten's retirement the captaincy was passed on to Anthony Koutoufides. Carlton youngster Justin Davies was personally chosen by Ratten to immediately take his number 7 guernsey, waiving the usual one-year retirement for premiership players' guernseys, an offer happily accepted by Davies.

After retirement from playing, Ratten spent one year as an assistant coach at the Melbourne Demons, before leaving to take a head coaching role at the Norwood Football Club in the Eastern Football League's 2nd Division. He remained there until 2006, and then returned to Carlton as an assistant coach for 2007.

On July 24, 2007, Ratten was named as Carlton's interim senior coach for the remainder of the 2007 season, following the sacking of Denis Pagan. On August 20, 2007 he signed a contract as senior coach until the end of 2009.

[edit] External links

• Brett Ratten profile on the Official AFL Website of the Carlton Football Club
• Tearful Ratten calls it quits
• Brett Ratten page at Blueseum