Bernie Quinlan (born 21 July 1951), was a former
Australian rules
footballer and coach, who enjoyed a lengthy career with
Footscray and
Fitzroy in the
VFL. He played 366 league games
in total.
Playing career
Quinlan
was recruited from Traralgon, Victoria
as a 17 year old, debuting for the Bulldogs in 1969. He played 177
games for the club, playing mostly at
centre
half-forward (also occasionally playing as a
centre
half-back). Quinlan didn't find consistency in his career until
he moved to
Fitzroy in 1978,
and wore the No. 5 guernsey. He played 189 games for the Lions,
marking himself as one of their all-time greats (and also the only
player to have played 150 games or more for two clubs), before
retiring in 1986. He won the
Brownlow
Medal in 1981, tying with his former Bulldog team mate
Barry Round (who had left the Bulldogs too by
this stage). He also twice kicked more than 100 goals in a season:
1983 and 1984. Quinlan led a formidable forward line in the
mid-1980s with the likes of Michael Conlan,
Garry Wilson, David McMahon and Gary
Sidebottom. Together with
Paul Roos and
Gary Pert in the back line, they propelled
Fitzroy to their most successful years in the post-war era.
He was a prodigious kicker of the
football
which earned him the nickname "superboot".
He regularly featured
in the World
of Sport kicking competitions (a sports program which was
popular in Melbourne
for three decades) and is reported to have once
kicked a goal from the wing at the Whitten Oval
, Footscray
(a distance approaching 100 metres). He also
once appeared in an exhibition kicking challenge against the other
football codes (including
soccer,
Rugby Union,
rugby league and
American Football, the latter
representative actually throwing in the style of a quarterback). He
won the challenge with a kick approaching 90 metres.
He is also credited with having instigated the
"Hell Ride", a cycling training ride,
with two others in 1984.
The Brisbane Lions mascot Bernie "Gabba" Vegas is partially named
as a tribute to Quinlan.
References
- History of "The Hell Ride"
External links
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