Mark Bickley

Mark Alan Bickley (born 4 August 1969) is an Australian rules football coach of the Adelaide Crows in the Australian Football League (AFL). Before becoming a coach, Bickley was a player for the Crows from 1991 until 2003, captaining the team to both the 1997 and 1998 AFL premierships and media commentator, most notably with Channel 9 in Adelaide as their sports presenter.

Recruited from South Australian National Football League club South Adelaide, Bickley made his AFL debut in 1991 as an inaugural member of the Adelaide Crows squad. In 1997 he was appointed captain of the Adelaide Football Club, and captained the 1997 and 1998 premiership sides.^[1]

After retiring from the AFL in 2004, he began presenting the weekend sports report on Nine News Adelaide alongside Georgina McGuinness, and in 2004 he became a panellist on the Nine Network's Sunday Footy Show.

In 2009, Bickley became an assistant coach at the Crows, thus ending his career on the Sunday Footy Show and Nine News.

In 2011, Bickley took over as caretaker senior coach at Adelaide after Neil Craig stepped down at the end of Round 18.^[2] His reign as Adelaide coach began with a convincing win over Port Adelaide in Showdown XXXI.^[3] It was just their fifth win of the season, and their second since the end of April. This was followed up with a narrow 5-point victory over the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba in Round 20, for the Crows' first win outside of Adelaide this season. Overall, Bickley has coached Adelaide for three wins and three losses, the last of those a 96-point loss to West Coast.

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