Tony Liberatore

Anthony Liberatore (born 11 February 1966) is a former Australian rules footballer who represented the Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Tony Liberatore
Personal information
Date of birth (1966-02-11) 11 February 1966
Original team(s) Brunswick City / North Melbourne
Height 163 cm (5 ft 4 in)
Weight 78 kg (172 lb)
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1986–2002 Footscray/Western Bulldogs 283 (95)
Representative team honours
Years Team Games (Goals)
Victoria ? (?)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 2002.
Career highlights
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Liberatore is the only player to have won league best-and-fairest medals in all three grades of VFL/AFL football (under 19s, reserves and seniors). Liberatore is one of the shortest players to have played in the VFL/AFL competition and the shortest player to have won a Brownlow Medal.

Playing as a rover, Liberatore was a long-time holder of the VFL/AFL record for most career tackles.[1]

Liberatore was born in Australia to Italian parents.[2]

AFL career

Liberatore played junior football for Brunswick City. He was recruited by North Melbourne, where he played both under-19s and reserve grade football. After winning the Morrish Medal in 1984, he called Hawthorn, St Kilda and Footscray in the hope of playing senior football. Mick Malthouse, who was Footscray coach at the time, invited Liberatore to train but made no guarantees that he would get a game.[3] At his first training session with the club, Liberatore was teased by full-forward Simon Beasley, who said that due to his lack of height he would have been better off training to be a jockey at the nearby Flemington Racecourse.[3] Although Liberatore made his senior level debut in 1986, he mainly played in the reserves that season, winning the VFL reserves' Gardiner Medal in both 1986 and 1988.[4] He was a member of the team that won the 1988 VFL reserves premiership.

Standing at 163 cm, Liberatore played only 18 senior games until the 1990 season, when he played 19 games and won the Brownlow Medal for the best and fairest senior AFL player.

Liberatore played a total of 283 senior games for Footscray/Western Bulldogs in a career that included 13 finals, life membership of the club, and selection on the interchange bench in the club's Team of the Century.

Liberatore was noted for his ability to read the play and his prolific tackling. Throughout his senior career, he made 1,225 tackles in his careerNote; an average of 4.39 per game. In 1992 he became the first VFL/AFL player to exceed 100 tackles in a season, and then exceeded 100 tackles each season until 1996.[5][6][7][8] His season tally of 142 tackles in 1994 stood as the VFL/AFL record until 2006, when James McDonald bettered it by one.[9]

Playing statistics

[10]
Legend
 G  Goals  B  Behinds  K  Kicks  H  Handballs  D  Disposals  M  Marks  T  Tackles
Season Team No. Games Totals Averages (per game)
G B K H D M T G B K H D M T
1986 Footscray 604111922415N/A0.30.34.85.510.31.3N/A
1987 Footscray 39127111027017210230.60.98.55.814.30.81.9
1988 Footscray 391004610110.00.04.06.010.01.01.0
1989 Footscray 3910012214130.00.012.02.014.01.03.0
1990 Footscray 391913824924549433820.70.413.112.926.01.74.3
1991 Footscray 392213930129659729620.60.413.713.527.11.32.8
1992 Footscray 3925144326286612471360.60.213.011.424.51.95.4
1993 Footscray 3920128250238488271150.60.412.511.924.41.45.8
1994 Footscray 392469280211491261420.30.411.78.820.51.15.9
1995 Footscray 392396304234538361160.40.313.210.223.41.65.0
1996 Footscray 392266250232482241110.30.311.410.521.91.15.0
1997 Western Bulldogs 39248423719643340950.30.29.98.218.01.74.0
1998 Western Bulldogs 39903495110016250.00.35.45.711.11.82.8
1999 Western Bulldogs 39212319715435128690.10.19.47.316.71.33.3
2000 Western Bulldogs 39233620423043456990.10.38.910.018.92.44.3
2001 Western Bulldogs 39171312015027026900.10.27.18.815.91.55.3
2002 Western Bulldogs 391602609015022560.00.13.85.69.41.43.5
Career 283 95 83 2964 2713 5677 427 1225 0.3 0.3 10.5 9.6 20.1 1.5 4.4

Honours and achievements

Brownlow Medal votes
Season Votes
1986
1987 4
1988
1989
1990 18
1991 2
1992 12
1993 4
1994 16
1995 14
1996 7
1997 10
1998
1999 8
2000 14
2001 3
2002
Total 112
Key:
Green / Bold = Won

Individual

Post-football and coaching career

Liberatore coached the Box Hill Hawks in the Victorian Football League in 2003, taking them to the Grand Final. Between 2003 and 2007, he held an assistant coaching position at Carlton and in 2008, he was the senior coach of the Sunbury Lions Football Club in the Ballarat Football League. In 2009, he became the senior coach of the West Footscray Roosters, a team playing in the Melbourne suburban Western Region Football League.[11] In a radio interview in the 2008 pre-season, Liberatore accused then Bulldogs CEO Campbell Rose of causing dissension at the club and being more concerned with making money than winning football matches. His comments saw him briefly banished from the club until he came to apologize to the president David Smorgon later in the year.[12]

Family

Liberatore married his wife Jane, a schoolteacher, in 1991[13] and had two sons - Tom and Oliver - and one daughter - Meg. News of an acrimonious split became public in April 2008 when Jane demanded the sale of Liberatore's medals with the proceeds to be kept in a trust fund for their children's education.[14] Liberatore was present at the 2016 AFL Grand Final with his daughter and mother to witness the Bulldogs' unlikely triumph, celebrating with Tom in the rooms after the game.

Footnotes

1.^ The true number of tackles is likely slightly higher than 1225, as tackle statistics were not recorded during 1986, in which Liberatore played the first four of his 283 games.

References

  1. "Player Totals". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  2. pg 375. Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100. By Stephen Hagan. Published by Ngalga Warralu Publishing Pty Ltd, 2006. ISBN 1-921212-00-4, 978-1-921212-00-0
  3. "The legend of Tony Liberatore". westernbulldogs.com.au. 14 June 2016.
  4. Holmesby, Russell; Main, Jim (2002). The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers: every AFL/VFL player since 1897 (4th ed.). Melbourne, Victoria: Crown Content. p. 378–379. ISBN 1-74095-001-1.
  5. "1993 Stats". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  6. "1994 Stats". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  7. "1995 Stats". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  8. "1996 Stats". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  9. "Season and Game Records". AFL Tables. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  10. Tony Liberatore's player profile at AFL Tables
  11. Mallinder, Terry (4 Nov 2008)Liberatore a West Footscray Rooster Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  12. Wilson, Caroline (28 April 2009). "Son of a gun may help heal Libba's rift with Dogs". The Age.
  13. Warner, Michael; Collier, Karen (24 April 2008). "Tony Liberatore's Brownlow caught in marriage split". Herald Sun.
  14. Warner, Michael (24 April 2008). "Tony Liberatore may have to sell medals". Daily Telegraph.
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