Gary Pert (born 28 May 1965) 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 represented and in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). Tall, well-built and strong in the air, Pert played over 200 league games, despite suffering two serious knee injuries in the prime years of his career. Early in one season, Pert suffered a bizarre injury when he went to his girlfriend's house for dinner and got a biscuit stuck in his

oesophagus The esophagus (American English) or oesophagus (British English; both ), non-technically known also as the food pipe or gullet, is an organ in vertebrates through which food passes, aided by peristaltic contractions, from the pharynx to the ...

. The blockage remained overnight and so the following day he underwent an oesophagoscopy under general anaesthetic. He recovered in time for the Round 5 game against . He returned in 1989, winning Fitzroy's

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

Fitzroy career

The son of

Brian Pert Brian Thomas Pert (born 28 January 1936) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Fitzroy in the VFL. Family The son of Thomas Arthur Pert (1905-1961), and Grace Dorothy Pert (1905-1994), née Condick, Brian Thomas Pert was born ...

, a former Fitzroy utility player, Pert was educated at Templestowe High School. Besides representing

Bulleen Bulleen ( ) is an eastern suburb in Melbourne, Australia, 13 km north-east of the Melbourne central business district, located within the City of Manningham local government area. Bulleen recorded a population of 11,219 at the 2021 census ...

in junior football, Pert also played for the Victorian Football League (VFL) schoolboys team in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1981. He was recruited to , as Bulleen was in Fitzroy's recruiting zone, and made his senior debut in Round 4 of the 1982 season at only 16 years of age. Also making his debut was Paul Roos, with whom Pert formed a great partnership for Fitzroy through the 1980s. He played

State of Origin A State of Origin competition is a type of sporting event between players representing their state or territory. State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Ov ...

for Victoria in 1984 at the age of just 18, and was a champion full-back for the Lions (who could be switched to the

forward line In the sport of Australian rules football, each of the eighteen players in a team is assigned to a particular named position on the field of play. These positions describe both the player's main role and by implication their location on the gro ...

). In 1985 he won

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perf ...

selection. Pert missed much of the first half of 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, ...

due to a knee injury, but was playing again by the end of the season. Prior to the start of the

1988 VFL season The 1988 VFL season was the 92nd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition and administrative body in Victoria, and by reason of it featuring clubs from New South Wales, Queensl ...

, Paul Roos was named captain of Fitzroy, and Pert was chosen as his deputy. On the strong bond between Roos and Pert,

David Parkin David Alex Parkin, OAM (born 12 September 1942) is a former Australian rules footballer and coach who played for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and for the Subiaco Football Club in the Western Australian Nati ...

, who was coach of Fitzroy at the time, said:

''They're inseparable in everything they do... On the field, from the time the ball leaves Pert and goes to Roos, there is an understanding there. I don't think I've seen such an understanding relationship between two players... It is remarkable''

At the end of the

1990 AFL season The 1990 AFL season was the 94th season of the Australian Football League (AFL) and the first under this name, having been known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. It was the highest level senior Australian rules football competition ...

, Pert suffered another knee injury that would rule him out of play for the whole year. The Lions let Pert go, having played 163 games with 42 goals between 1982 and 1990. 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 ...

subsequently picked him up in the

1990 AFL Draft The 1990 AFL draft was the 5th annual draft of Australian rules footballers to the 14 clubs in the Australian Football League. It consisted of the national draft held at the end of the 1990 season, the pre-season draft held before the 1991 AFL ...

Collingwood career

After missing the entire

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 ...

with a knee injury that he carried over from Fitzroy, Pert gave loyal service over 70 games in four seasons, continuing to take on and match the best full forwards in the League. Soon after his retirement, his surname became

rhyming slang Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...

, as evidenced in the popular Australian phrase, "How dare you! You've only gone and bloody well Gary Pert my feelings again!"

Post-AFL career

After retiring, Pert worked as a

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

(CEO) for various high-profile organizations in Melbourne. He was head of

Austereo Austereo was an Australian mass media company based in Melbourne. It was founded in 1980 by Paul Thompson, and operated 16 radio stations in metropolitan and regional Australia under the Today Network and Triple M brands. In 2011, the company' ...

before taking up a position at the

Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...

TV station in December 2006. But that job did not last long. In May 2007, he replaced

Greg Swann Greg Swann (born 1962) is an Australian Football League (AFL) chief executive officer of the Brisbane Lions, an Australian rules football club based in Brisbane competing in the Australian Football League. He has been in the role since July 20 ...

as CEO of . On 24 July 2017, Pert resigned from his position as CEO of the club. In June 2018, Pert returned to the AFL industry after being appointed as CEO of the

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pert, Gary Australian businesspeople 1965 births Living people Fitzroy Football Club players Collingwood Football Club players Victorian State of Origin players Mitchell Medal winners All-Australians (1953–1988) Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Collingwood Football Club administrators Australia international rules football team players