The upcoming 2023 AFL season has seen the appointment of 11 new club captains, 3 of which have an AFL Vic country background.  North Melbourne’s Jy Simpkin (Mooroopna FNC/Goulburn Valley FNL), Geelong’s Patrick Dangerfield (Anglesea FNC/Bellarine FNL) and Essendon’s Zach Merrett (Cobden FNC/Hampden FNL) all take on their clubs captaincy for the first time, joining ongoing Swans captain Luke Parker (Langwarrin FNC/MPNFNL) who also started his career at a Victorian country aligned club.  So this then formed the easiest of questions to start looking at. 

So, how many former Victorian country footballers have actually captained a VFL/AFL club.  The answer is 156. 

So let’s have a little deep dive into the history of VFL/AFL Captains from the bush.

Since the inception of the VFL in 1897, there have been 635 VFL/AFL players bestowed with the honour of captaining  their clubs.  Of this 156 or if we round it up, about a quarter of all VFL/AFL captains have had their footballing origins in Victorian country football.  

Interestingly enough, the inaugural year of the VFL saw one of the founding clubs, Fitzroy, captained by William ‘Bill’ Cleary who was born in Ballarat and plied his early footballing talents with the South Ballarat FC in the Ballarat FNL. He was only captain for the 1898 season, but did play in the forward pocket in Fitzroy’s second premiership a year later in 1899, against South Melbourne finishing his career at the end of that year with a total of 22 games and 6 goals. 

In that 1899 grand final, the opposing South Melbourne captain was David ‘Bud’ Adamson who had joined the ‘Bloods’ in 1897 after working for the Bank of Australasia and playing for Traralgon FNC who were in the Traralgon Football Association at that time. Adamson played a total of 90 games forSouth Melbourne and due to his work for the bank ended up in Albury where he played in the Ovens & Murray Football Association for the Albury FNC, ultimately captaining their very first premiership team in 1908. 

Staying on the premiership theme, when it comes to VFL/AFL premiership captains there have been many who have emerged from country clubs as the table below shows.  Michael Tuck who was recruited from the Berwick FNC, that played in the South-West Gippsland Football League in 1971, heads the list being a 4 time premiership captain, while John Nichols and Luke Hodege share the next place with 3 premiership medals a piece while having the captains ‘C’ after their name on the team sheet.

Whilst being a premiership captain is a remarkable achievement, being selected by your club to lead them is an outstanding moment of recognition within a player's career. While some players are just beginning their journey in this role for the 2023 season, namely Simpkin, Merrett and Dangerfield, it's the latter’s former captain who holds the mantle for the longest serving ex-country footballer as a VFL/AFL captain. Former Geelong captain Joel Selwood (Sandhurst FNC) led the Cats for a remarkable 11 seasons, closely followed by Danny Frawley (Bungaree FNC), Reg Hickey (Cressy FC) and Scott Pendlebury ( Sale FNC) who were captains for 9 years at their respective clubs.

Like Pendlebury, several current players (highlighted in the table below) who have relinquished their captaincy, still make the list of the longest serving VFL/AFL captains with a Victorian country football background.

* Kaniva FC was a Victorian based club playing in a South Australia league at the time. ** Finley FNC is a NSW based club, but plays in a Victorian based league.

Like anything when it comes to country footy, it’s ultimately all about league and club bragging rights.  So the tables below list the leagues and clubs who have produced the most VFL/AFL captains to date.  It’s no surprise that the larger and historically older leagues such as the Geelong FNL, Bendigo FNL, Gippsland FNL and Mornington Peninsula Nepean FNL head up this list from a league perspective, but it is nice to see some of the leagues that are no longer active represented as well.

Through a club lens, there have been a total of 101 different clubs that started the development of young footballers that ended up with them moving on to becoming the leaders of a VFL/AFL club.  Long standing and large clubs dominate this list, but if you look closely enough, you’ll see the names of some quite small clubs and some clubs that have disappeared over time. This should be a timely reminder and reflection that all country footy clubs have the capacity to develop and nurture not only good footballers, but those who are held in high esteem by their peers, clubs and supporters as great leaders.

Click the link to see the complete list of all former Victorian country footballers who have become VFL/AFL club captains: Every VFL/AFL captain from the bush