Mark Bradly (born 24 January 1977) 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 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, ...
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) and for
North Ballarat
North Ballarat Football & Netball Club, nicknamed ''The Roosters'', is an Australian rules football and netball club based at Mars Stadium in Ballarat.
The club currently fields senior, reserve and Under 19 sides in the Ballarat Football Lea ...
in the
Victorian Football League
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
(VFL).
Early career
Bradly played three senior matches for
East Fremantle
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
in the
Western Australian Football League
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...
(WAFL) in 1995 and also represented Western Australia at the 1995
AFL Under 18 Championships
The AFL Under-19 Championships (for sponsorship reasons, the NAB AFL Under-19 Championships) is an annual Australian national underage representative championship in Australian rules football tournament. It is seen as one of the main pathways ...
(at the time called the Commonwealth Bank Cup).
He was subsequently drafted with the 55th selection in the
1995 AFL draft by Melbourne as a long-term ruck prospect.
AFL career
Bradly spent his first two seasons as an AFL-listed player, 1996 and 1997, playing for Melbourne's reserves. In his first season, Bradly was named as an emergency for one game, however he did not play a senior match. He was named in Melbourne's team for a match against North Melbourne in 1997, but he failed to actually make his debut. He finally made his debut in round 10 of the 1998 season, against 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 ...
. Bradly had only four disposals in his first game and he was dropped back to the reserves for the next week. Bradly was called back up to the seniors for round 13 and, although he had a poor game playing on
St Kilda veteran
Stewart Loewe
Stewart Loewe (born 23 May 1968) is a former Australian rules football player for the St Kilda Football Club.
Nicknamed "Buckets" for his big hands and the way he was able to mark the ball with ease, Loewe debuted in 1986 for the St Kilda F ...
, he managed to string three senior games together before again being dropped, even though he kicked two goals in his final match. Bradly finished the season sixth in Melbourne's reserves
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 ...
. Melbourne's premier ruckman for over a decade,
Jim Stynes
James Stynes OAM (23 April 196620 March 2012) was an Irish-born footballer who converted from Gaelic football to Australian rules football. Playing for the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL), he went on to become o ...
, retired at the end of 1998 and it was expected that Bradly would have more opportunities in 1999.
However, Bradly failed to play a senior match for the Demons in 1999 after injuring his knee, which sidelined him for the season.
Bradly was delisted at the end of the 1999 season, but Melbourne redrafted him shortly after as a rookie list player in the
2000 Rookie draft. Bradly suffered a second consecutive season-ending knee injury and he was unable to play a game for Melbourne in 2000. After playing only four senior matches in five years at the club, Bradly was delisted permanently at the end of the 2000 season.
VFL career
After being delisted by Melbourne, Bradly signed with VFL club, North Ballarat, in 2001, where he suffered from injury problems in his first year. Bradly played as a ruckman and as a forward for the Rosters and he was North Ballarat's leading goalkicker in 2002.
He kicked 28 goals for the season,
including a haul of six against
Werribee
Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham local government area. Werribee recorded a population of 50,027 at the 2021 census.
Werribee i ...
. Bradly continued playing for the Roosters in 2003 and, in a game against
Frankston, he kicked three goals.
Personal life
Bradly was a groomsman at Melbourne team-mate,
Russell Robertson
Russell "Robbo" Robertson (born 24 November 1978) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, who last played for the Melbourne Football Club.
Robertson is one of the Melbourne's great goalkickers, being one of just four players in ...
's wedding.
References
External links
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Demonwiki profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradly, Mark
1977 births
Australian rules footballers from Western Australia
East Fremantle Football Club players
Living people
Melbourne Football Club players
North Ballarat Football Club players