Mr Michael Voss

In addition to being without doubt one of the finest footballers of his generation, Voss arguably made a greater contribution than anyone else to the remarkable transformation of the Brisbane Football Club from perennial chopping block to AFL heavyweight. Originally from Victoria, he moved to Brisbane at the age of eleven and had a noteworthy junior career that saw him represent his adopted state at both schoolboy and under seventeen level, and win the 1992 Hunter Harrison Medal as the best and fairest player in division two of that year's Teal Cup.

In 1992, just after his seventeenth birthday, he made his AFL debut for the Bears they were attempting to avoid their third successive wooden spoon - a feat they ultimately achieved, but only just. When he retired 289 AFL games later at the end of the 2006 season it was with three premiership medallions, a Brownlow Medal and five club best and fairest awards to his credit. He was selected in the AFL All Australian team on five occasions, including twice as captain. The three premierships, which came in consecutive years between 2001 and 2003, were all achieved under Voss's captaincy, and indeed he was either co-captain or sole captain of the club in no fewer than nine of his fourteen complete senior seasons.

One of the most telling and fitting endorsements of Michael Voss's importance in the history of the game was his selection in 2003 as captain of AFL Queensland's official 'Team of the Century'.