Australian Football

Anthony Koutoufides was a champion junior athlete but fortunately for fans of the Carlton Football Club he opted to focus on footy. Between 1992 and 2007 he played 278 games and kicked 226 goals for the Blues, was a premiership player - and a key one - in 1995, gained AFL All Australian selection twice, won the club's 2001 and 2005 best and fairest player awards, was leading goal kicker in 1997, and captained the team between 2004 and 2006. Quick, strong, athletic, combative, superb overhead and with excellent all round skills, 'Kouta' was a crowd pleaser par excellence. 

He was also an admirable role model, displaying consummate sportsmanship and scrupulous fairness. Later in his career he was hampered to some extent by injury with some people questioning whether he was worth his sizeable salary but overall there could be little doubt that he was a boa fide champion of the first rank, an evaluation endorsed in 2014 when he was inducted into the official Australian Football of Fame. Carlton might arguably have had better players over the course of the club's long, illustrious history, but almost certainly none boasting the power, athleticism and rare majesty in action of Anthony Koutoufides.

Author - John Devaney