Stefan Grun (born 12 November 1976) 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 ...

field umpire 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 ...

. He retired during the

2012 AFL season The 2012 AFL season was the 116th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eig ...

after having umpired 107 AFL matches and was elected President of the AFL Umpires Association in 2013. Grun was one of two umpires injured during Round 6, 2004, which was the round that re-sparked debate about umpire-

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

collisions. Umpires had always been protected, with harsh

suspensions In chemistry, a suspension is a heterogeneous mixture of a fluid that contains solid particles sufficiently large for sedimentation. The particles may be visible to the naked eye, usually must be larger than one micrometer, and will eventually ...

handed down to players who collide with them. This incident demonstrated a change in interpretation of the AFL rules by the judiciary. Grun has had a number of player collisions and explained his most embarrassing moment in umpiring was "Getting smashed by Charlie Gardiner at

Kardinia Park Kardinia Park is a major public park located in South Geelong, Victoria. A number of public and sporting facilities are located in the park: a major AFL stadium, a secondary football oval, a cricket field, an open air swimming pool, a number of ...

in just my third game was quite bad, especially when the newspaper ran a photo of me lying on the ground looking like a curled up dog." In 2012, Grun took on the position of General Manager at Apricot Consulting and is a graduate in Commerce from the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first pro ...

Footnotes

Australian Football League umpires 1976 births Living people {{AFL-bio-1970s-stub