Grantley Craig Fielke (born 18 March 1962 in
Loxton, South Australia
Loxton is a town on the south bank of the River Murray in the Riverland region of South Australia. It is located on the lands of the Erawirung people who occupied the area before European colonisation.
At the 2016 census, Loxton had a populat ...
) is a former
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
er who played for
West Adelaide Football Club
West Adelaide Football Club is an Australian rules football club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Commonly known as The Bloods and Westies, the club's home base is Richmond Oval (South Australia), Richmond Oval (current ...
in the
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport.
Originally formed as the ...
(SANFL), and the
Collingwood Football Club
The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club w ...
and
Adelaide Football Club
The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since ...
in the
Victorian/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL).
League career
Fielke was recruited by the West Adelaide Football Club from their South Australian country zone of the
Riverland
The Riverland is a region of South Australia. It covers an area of along the Murray River, River Murray from where it flows into South Australia from New South Wales and Victoria (Australia), Victoria downstream to Blanchetown, South Australia ...
in 1977 at the age of 15. After taking time to adjust to life in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
(he had never been to the city before), Fielke made his league debut for West Adelaide on 7 April 1979, and keeping his place in the league team for the rest of the season. The Bloods though had a season to forget winning just 7 of 23 games and finished in last place. In his debut season for West Adelaide, Fielke won the Sam Suckling Memorial Medal as the club's best first year player.
Fielke's speed and ball handling ability saw him become a valued member of West Adelaide's senior team. From his debut in 1979 until the end of the 1986 SANFL season, Fielke played 186 games and kicked 150 goals.
The arrival of
Neil Kerley
Donald Neil Kerley (20 February 1934 – 29 June 2022) was an Australian rules footballer and coach. He is best known for taking three clubs to four South Australian National Football League (SANFL) premierships over three decades as both a p ...
as coach in 1981 saw The Bloods go from being one of the worst to one of the best teams in the SANFL, although at times their famous inconsistency showed through. Fielke's game blossomed under Kerley's hard coaching, although he suffered a setback in 1983 when he twice broke his arm. Fielke battled back and regained his place in the side shortly before the finals, for which West had easily qualified as the minor premier, winning 18 of their 22 regular season games. Fielke then became a member of West Adelaide's first premiership win since 1961 when he came off the reserves bench in their 21.16 (142) to 16.12 (108) win over
Surt in the Grand Final in front of 47,129 fans at
Football Park
Football Park, known commercially as AAMI Stadium, was an Australian rules football stadium located in West Lakes, South Australia, West Lakes, a western suburb of Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, Australia. It was built in 197 ...
.
West Adelaide obtained the services of former
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...
premiership coach
John Cahill in 1985 and Fielke continued to blossom. That season he experienced the individual highlight of his career when he won the
Magarey Medal
The Magarey Medal is an Australian rules football honour awarded annually since 1898 to the fairest and most brilliant player in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), as judged by field umpires. The award was created by Willia ...
, polling a record 54 votes to defeat pre-count favourite
Peter Motley
Peter Motley (born 24 September 1964 in Adelaide, South Australia) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, representing Sturt Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and Carlton Football Club in the ...
of Sturt who finished with 51 votes. During the 1985 season Fielke led the league in disposals (kicks and handballs), and used the ball very effectively against tough opposition in helping West Adelaide to the preliminary final and a 3rd-place finish. Despite winning the Magarey Medal, Fielke failed to win The Bloods
Best & Fairest award which was won by ruckman
Mark Mickan
Mark James Mickan (born 30 January 1961) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Brisbane Bears and Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Mickan began his senior career with South Austr ...
.
Fielke was recruited by VFL club
Collingwood for the
1987 VFL season
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...
and impressed at the club, playing 16 games as a wingman for the Magpies.
After just a single season in the
VFL, Fielke returned to Adelaide for family reasons in 1988, playing again for West Adelaide. There he would play another three more seasons, winning the club's Best & Fairest award in 1990. Amazingly, it was Fielke's only Best & Fairest win in his 16 seasons with the club.
With the forming of the
Adelaide Crows
The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) sinc ...
in late 1990 to play in the now renamed AFL, Fielke was one of the first players signed and played in all 22 games of the
1991 AFL season
The 1991 AFL season was the 95th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), which was known previously as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season ran from 22 March until 28 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away seas ...
which saw the Crows finish in ninth place with a 10–12 win–loss record. However, the 30-year-old Fielke suddenly found himself on the outer with coach
Graham Cornes
Graham Studley Cornes OAM (born 31 March 1948 in Melbourne, Victoria) is a former Australian rules footballer and coach, as well as a media personality. From 1995 until early 2013, Cornes co-hosted a weekday drivetime sports program that he ...
and he played only two games in
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
. At the end of the season Fielke was informed his services were no longer required, ending his AFL career with a record of 40 games and 21 goals.
Fielke returned to West Adelaide once more in 1993 and became club captain in 1994, a position he would hold until he announced his retirement at the end of the 1997 season. He finished his SANFL career having played a club record 364 games for West Adelaide and as of the end of the 2014 SANFL season he is the only West Adelaide player to have played over 300 senior games for the club. Always more comfortable kicking for goal on the run rather than from a set shot, Fielke kicked 255 goals in his 364 SANFL games.
Grantley Fielke also represented
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
eight times during his career. He was an inaugural inductee into the
South Australian Football Hall of Fame
The South Australian Football Hall of Fame enshrines those who have made a most significant contribution to the game of Australian Football.
The Hall of Fame was established in 2002 when 114 outstanding individuals became inaugural inductees.
S ...
in 2002.
Since Grantley's retirement in 1997, he has been involved in numerous
West End Slowdown games from the year 2000 to present, which is run by The Little Heroes Foundation.
Personal
Fielke was at one time married to former
Australian netball team
The Australia national netball team, also known as the Australian Diamonds, represent Netball Australia in international netball tournaments such as the INF Netball World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the Constellation Cup, the Netball Quad Se ...
captain
Michelle den Dekker
Michelle den Dekker , also known as Michelle Fielke, is an Australian netballer from South Australia. den Dekker represented Australia in 84 tests between 1988 and 1995, including a record 71 as captain. She received the Medal of the Order of ...
but is now married to Cheryl Fielke and has three children Callum, Bailey, and Abbey. He owned a sporting goods store between 1981 and 2003 (Grantley Fielke's Sports Locker) at the
Arndale Shopping Centre in Adelaide. Fielke currently works as a
real estate agent manager for First National Real Estate,
Gawler
Gawler is the oldest country town on the Australian mainland in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the ...
. Two of his brothers,
Craig and
Tony Fielke, also played league football for West Adelaide in the SANFL, and in 1986 all three players played several league games together. His second cousin
Aaron Fielke plays with West Adelaide and in Round 8 of the
2014 season notched up his 100th game for the Bloods. In 2015 Fielke polled 64% of votes for being the Greatest West Adelaide Player of All Time.
In September 2019, Fielke was violently attacked and severely injured when two men invaded his home in the early hours of the morning. He underwent facial reconstruction surgery, having six metal plates inserted in his face and spent four days in hospital. Two men were apprehended and charged with the crime.
References
External links
SA Football Hall of Fame – Grantley C FielkeWest Adelaide Hall of Fame profile
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fielke, Grantley
1962 births
Adelaide Football Club players
Collingwood Football Club players
Living people
West Adelaide Football Club players
Magarey Medal winners
Australian rules footballers from South Australia
South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees
South Australian State of Origin players