Nicky Winmar

Nicky Winmar

Neil Elvis "Nicky" Winmar (born 25 September 1965) is a former Australian rules footballer who played over 300 games of senior football in two Australian states between 1983 and 1999. Growing up in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, he began his career with the South Fremantle Football Club in the West Australian Football League, playing 58 games at the club before being recruited prior to the 1987 season by the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL), later rebranded as the Australian Football League (AFL). In a twelve-season career with St Kilda, Winmar won the club's best and fairest award, the Trevor Barker Award, twice, in 1989 and 1995, and was also twice named in the All-Australian team, in 1991 and 1995. He left St Kilda at the end of the 1998 season, and was drafted by the Western Bulldogs, playing one further season in the AFL before retiring at the end of the 1999 season. Following the end of his senior career, Winmar played in a number of country and regional football leagues, including the Northern Territory Football League, the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League, and the Tallangatta & District Football League.

Having represented Western Australia in eight interstate matches, Winmar was named in St Kilda's Team of the Century in 2003, and is also a member of the St Kilda Football Club Hall of Fame (inducted 2003) and the West Australian Football Hall of Fame (inducted 2009). Of Indigenous Australian descent, Winmar was the first Aboriginal person to play 200 games in the AFL, and was named in the Indigenous Team of the Century in 2005. Involved in several incidents of racial vilification during his career, a photograph of Winmar responding to one such incident during the 1993 season has been described as one of the most influential images in Australian rules football history.

Read more about Nicky Winmar:  Career, Racial Vilification and Photograph