- Footy Great played over 200 AFL games
- The 43-year-old is now a top-rated radio star
- A beautiful telephone conversation revealed on Monday
Days after a statue in his honor was unveiled, Carlton goalkeeper Brendan Fevola has been inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame, revealing his family were in tears when he finally shared the news.
One of the AFL’s last great larrikins and a showman, Fevola scored 575 goals in his 187 games at Carlton after being taken at number 38 in the 1998 draft.
A fan favorite, he was a two-time winner of the Coleman Medal as the AFL’s leading goalkeeper in 2006 and 2009, an award he won seven consecutive times with his club from 2003 to 2009.
Brendan Fevola (pictured playing for the Blues in 2005) has been inducted into Carlton’s Hall of Fame in what he describes as the pinnacle of his football career
The 43-year-old said the phone call breaking the news left him, his wife Alex and daughters Leni, Lulu, Tobi and Mia (pictured together) in tears of joy.
Fevola scored an impressive 99 goals in 2008 but fell agonizingly short of a century as his team failed to reach the final.
Now breakfast radio presenter Fevola had kept it a secret for months on Monday morning and described it as the biggest moment of his football career, making him emotional as he told his wife and daughters Leni, Lulu, Tobi and Mia.
“This is by far the best thing that has ever happened in my football career,” he said on his Fox FM show.
‘To be accepted into a club where you walk through the corridors of the old Heatley Stand, you have all the old players and I was just a 17 year old boy with a pimply face, had no idea of Nazza Wazza (suburb of Melbourne ) Narre Warren) and now to be inducted as one of those greats, I don’t even know what I said to you.
“I think I messaged you about two hours later when it dawned on me because I don’t even know what I said.”
Last week he was recognized with a statue in Narre Warren, where he grew up, with another Hall of Fame nod to his stellar career on the field.
The forward scored 575 goals in his 187 appearances for Carlton from 1999 to 2009.
Fevola (centre, with his radio co-stars Fifi Box, right, and Nick Cody, left) is pictured with a statue unveiled in his honor in Narre Warren, the Melbourne suburb where he grew up
“I obviously told Alex and the girls and they all cried because the girls don’t think I was good because they were young.
‘They think Charlie Curnow is so much better than you and that Carlton Football Club is forty times better than you’ve ever been. Shut up, kids, watch the highlights.”
Carlton president Luke Sayers said Fevola was a ‘figurehead of the sport’.
“The way he played with such showmanship, skill and excitement was something that attracted so many people not only to the club but to follow him, even as opposition supporters,” he said.
Fevola left the Blues to join the Brisbane Lions in 2010 amid a slew of off-field problems, including gambling issues.
He lasted just one season with the Lions and finished his career with 623 goals.
He will be inducted into the Hall of Fame along with former players Jack Carney and Neil Chandler.
