Warwick Capper
Encyclopedia
Warwick Capper is a retired high profile professional Australian rules football
full-forward who played with the Sydney Swans
with a short stint at the Brisbane Bears
in the VFL
(now AFL).
Capper kicked 388 goals in 124 games from 1983–1991, his best season being 1987 when he kicked 103 goals. He was known for his ability to take high flying marks and he won the Mark of the Year
at the peak of his career in 1987.
For a long time Capper was one of the few well-known Australian Rules players in Brisbane and Sydney and is known for his flamboyant on and off field personality.
.
He began playing football for the Oakleigh Dragons Football Club, winning the under-11 best and fairest in 1974, playing in the same team as David Rhys Jones.
It was not long before Capper began to attract the attention of talent scouts, and he was recruited by the Sydney Swans
during the club's first years in Sydney
.
on several occasions and won in 1987, with a mark that is captured in Jamie Cooper's painting the Game That Made Australia, commissioned by the AFL in 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sport.
Although Capper was more famous for his marking, in 1987 he managed 103 goals at an average of 4.48 per game. He finished runner up in the Coleman Medal
in both 1986 (to Brian Taylor) and 1987 (to Tony Lockett
).
He was also well known for his looks, his long blonde locks of hair, deeply tanned skin and was famous for his white boots and extremely tight shorts. This formed part of the flamboyant image of the Swans club during the years in which it was owned by Geoffrey Edelsten
.
When Capper moved to the Brisbane Bears at the end of the 1987 season with a $350,000 three year contract, he became the highest paid player in the VFL. Capper did not do well in Queensland
and returned to Sydney after having kicked only 71 goals in 34 games.
At the end of his VFL career, he returned to Queensland in 1992 to play semi-professionally with the Southport Sharks.
and has also starred in a pornographic movie.
Since retiring from football, Capper has juggled media appearances and various jobs including council roadworker. In 1993, Capper posed in an explicit pictorial with his then-wife, Joanne Capper, for the August issue of Australian Penthouse magazine
. He also announced that he was to become a male stripper.
He has had continued participation in football only through charity AFL Legends Match. In 2002, he had a brief stint as skills coach for former club Southport.
Capper makes regular appearances on television as a guest on shows such as The AFL Footy Show
. He appeared briefly on the reality television
show Celebrity Big Brother, but he was ejected from the series by the show's producer for exposing his penis to fellow housemate Kimberley Cooper
during an argument.
In 2005, Capper released an autobiography called Fool Forward in which he openly admitted to using illegal drugs (amphetamine
s) during his VFL/AFL career. This caused controversy since such use would not be sanctioned under the current AFL anti-doping policy.
Shortly after the Sydney Swans won the 2005 AFL Grand Final
, Capper again made tabloid news due to his split with long time wife Joanne.
In 2006, Capper again made the news after an incident with film director Kayran Noskca, leading to a broken nose.
In 2008, Capper again made news headlines when he had cosmetic surgery involving botox and liposuction
. He also challenged former professional boxer Jeff Fenech
to a fight. In 2009, he did box in a promotional charity match, losing a match against Wendell Sailor
, who Capper had previously criticised.
In late 2010 he once again put himself back in the spotlight by becoming the face of a major promotional campaign for Quickbeds.com a discount accommodation website. He appears in online and off-line promotional material and across the accommodation website promoting the website as 'cheap and easy – just like me'.
In 2011 Capper made a cameo appearance in the premiere episode of the television program The Joy of Sets
, recommencing his short-lived alliance with the former hosts of Get This. Capper continued to make unlikely cameo appearances during re-enactments
in subsequent episodes, dressed in nothing but gold hotpants.
He was then a participant on The Celebrity Apprentice Australia
, where he was the first contestant to be fired.
in the electoral district of Beaudesert
as an independent. Capper announced he would run after Pauline Hanson
announced officially that she is to be a candidate in the seat. Capper's political endeavour collapsed a few days later when he was advised that he had missed the midday deadline on 3 March to register with the Electoral Commission Queensland. When asked if Capper's running in the election was a joke, his campaign manager, Mark Jackson, replied that politics was a joke.
Lads' magazine Zoo Weekly
bankrolled his short-lived campaign, but denied it was responsible for not lodging his registration, blaming Capper's campaign manager.
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
full-forward who played with the Sydney Swans
Sydney Swans
The Sydney Swans Football Club is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club, founded in 1874, was known as the South Melbourne Football Club until it relocated to Sydney in 1982 to become the Sydney...
with a short stint at the Brisbane Bears
Brisbane Bears
The Brisbane Football Club, formerly nicknamed The Bears was an Australian rules football club and the first Queensland-based club in the Victorian Football League . The club played its first match in 1987, but struggled on and off the field until it made the finals for the first time in 1995...
in the VFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
(now AFL).
Capper kicked 388 goals in 124 games from 1983–1991, his best season being 1987 when he kicked 103 goals. He was known for his ability to take high flying marks and he won the Mark of the Year
Mark of the Year
The annual Mark of the Year competition is a sporting award that celebrates each season's best mark...
at the peak of his career in 1987.
For a long time Capper was one of the few well-known Australian Rules players in Brisbane and Sydney and is known for his flamboyant on and off field personality.
Early life
Warwick Capper was born in VictoriaVictoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
.
He began playing football for the Oakleigh Dragons Football Club, winning the under-11 best and fairest in 1974, playing in the same team as David Rhys Jones.
It was not long before Capper began to attract the attention of talent scouts, and he was recruited by the Sydney Swans
Sydney Swans
The Sydney Swans Football Club is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club, founded in 1874, was known as the South Melbourne Football Club until it relocated to Sydney in 1982 to become the Sydney...
during the club's first years in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
.
Football career
Capper was noted for his marking ability rather than his kicking accuracy. With several spectacular high marks in his career, he was nominated for Mark of the YearMark of the Year
The annual Mark of the Year competition is a sporting award that celebrates each season's best mark...
on several occasions and won in 1987, with a mark that is captured in Jamie Cooper's painting the Game That Made Australia, commissioned by the AFL in 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sport.
Although Capper was more famous for his marking, in 1987 he managed 103 goals at an average of 4.48 per game. He finished runner up in the Coleman Medal
Coleman Medal
The Coleman Medal is awarded yearly to the Australian Football League player who kicks the most goals in regular-season matches in that year...
in both 1986 (to Brian Taylor) and 1987 (to Tony Lockett
Tony Lockett
Anthony Howard "Tony" Lockett is a former Australian rules football player. Lockett is the highest goal scorer in the history of the VFL/AFL with 1,360 goals in a career of 281 games, that commenced in 1983 with the St Kilda Football Club, and finished in 2002 with the Sydney Swans...
).
He was also well known for his looks, his long blonde locks of hair, deeply tanned skin and was famous for his white boots and extremely tight shorts. This formed part of the flamboyant image of the Swans club during the years in which it was owned by Geoffrey Edelsten
Geoffrey Edelsten
Geoffrey Walter Edelsten is an Australian medical entrepreneur. He was the first private owner of a major Australian football team when he bought the Sydney Swans Football Club in 1985. Edelsten was formerly a general practitioner, but was deregistered in New South Wales in 1988 and also in...
.
When Capper moved to the Brisbane Bears at the end of the 1987 season with a $350,000 three year contract, he became the highest paid player in the VFL. Capper did not do well in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
and returned to Sydney after having kicked only 71 goals in 34 games.
At the end of his VFL career, he returned to Queensland in 1992 to play semi-professionally with the Southport Sharks.
Off-field notoriety
In 1985 Capper released a single "I Only Take What's Mine", referred to as "wonderfully woeful". In 1986 made a guest appearance on Australian soap opera NeighboursNeighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
and has also starred in a pornographic movie.
Since retiring from football, Capper has juggled media appearances and various jobs including council roadworker. In 1993, Capper posed in an explicit pictorial with his then-wife, Joanne Capper, for the August issue of Australian Penthouse magazine
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
. He also announced that he was to become a male stripper.
He has had continued participation in football only through charity AFL Legends Match. In 2002, he had a brief stint as skills coach for former club Southport.
Capper makes regular appearances on television as a guest on shows such as The AFL Footy Show
The AFL Footy Show
The Footy Show is a Logie Award winning Australian sports television program, shown on the Nine Network and its affiliates.This show, which is dedicated to the AFL and Australian rules football, made its debut on 24 March 1994 at the same time as the other version which relates to the NRL and rugby...
. He appeared briefly on the reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
show Celebrity Big Brother, but he was ejected from the series by the show's producer for exposing his penis to fellow housemate Kimberley Cooper
Kimberley Cooper
Kimberley Cooper, in Sydney New South Wales, is an Australian actress who played Gypsy Smith in Home and Away . Cooper won the Logie Award for Most Popular New Talent on Australian television in 1999 and the Best Aussie Actress for The Inside Soap Awards, UK, 2000...
during an argument.
In 2005, Capper released an autobiography called Fool Forward in which he openly admitted to using illegal drugs (amphetamine
Amphetamine
Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...
s) during his VFL/AFL career. This caused controversy since such use would not be sanctioned under the current AFL anti-doping policy.
Shortly after the Sydney Swans won the 2005 AFL Grand Final
2005 AFL Grand Final
The 2005 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 24 September 2005. It was the 109th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League/Australian Football League, staged to...
, Capper again made tabloid news due to his split with long time wife Joanne.
In 2006, Capper again made the news after an incident with film director Kayran Noskca, leading to a broken nose.
In 2008, Capper again made news headlines when he had cosmetic surgery involving botox and liposuction
Liposuction
Liposuction, also known as lipoplasty , liposculpture suction lipectomy or simply lipo is a cosmetic surgery operation that removes fat from many different sites on the human body...
. He also challenged former professional boxer Jeff Fenech
Jeff Fenech
Jeff Fenech is a retired Australian boxer and a three-time world champion who is now a boxing trainer.-Boxing career:...
to a fight. In 2009, he did box in a promotional charity match, losing a match against Wendell Sailor
Wendell Sailor
Wendell Jermaine Sailor is an Australian former professional rugby football player who represented his country in both rugby league and rugby union – a dual code international. He is an Australian Torres Strait Islander.Sailor's large frame and bullocking style changed the way wingers played rugby...
, who Capper had previously criticised.
In late 2010 he once again put himself back in the spotlight by becoming the face of a major promotional campaign for Quickbeds.com a discount accommodation website. He appears in online and off-line promotional material and across the accommodation website promoting the website as 'cheap and easy – just like me'.
In 2011 Capper made a cameo appearance in the premiere episode of the television program The Joy of Sets
The Joy of Sets
The Joy of Sets is an Australian comedy television series looking at the elements used to construct television shows. The show was originally broadcast weekly by the Nine Network, premiering on 20 September 2011....
, recommencing his short-lived alliance with the former hosts of Get This. Capper continued to make unlikely cameo appearances during re-enactments
Historical reenactment
Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...
in subsequent episodes, dressed in nothing but gold hotpants.
He was then a participant on The Celebrity Apprentice Australia
The Celebrity Apprentice Australia
The Celebrity Apprentice Australia is a celebrity version of The Apprentice Australia series. It began to air on the Nine Network on 24 October 2011...
, where he was the first contestant to be fired.
2009 Queensland state election
Capper intended to contest the 2009 Queensland state electionQueensland state election, 2009
The Queensland state election was held to elect members to the unicameral Parliament of Queensland on 21 March 2009. The election saw the incumbent Labor government led by Premier Anna Bligh defeat the Liberal National Party of Queensland led by Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, and gain a...
in the electoral district of Beaudesert
Electoral district of Beaudesert
-External links:*...
as an independent. Capper announced he would run after Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson
Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...
announced officially that she is to be a candidate in the seat. Capper's political endeavour collapsed a few days later when he was advised that he had missed the midday deadline on 3 March to register with the Electoral Commission Queensland. When asked if Capper's running in the election was a joke, his campaign manager, Mark Jackson, replied that politics was a joke.
Lads' magazine Zoo Weekly
Zoo Weekly
Zoo is a weekly lads' magazine published in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 29 January 2004, as the second weekly men's magazine in the UK after the similar and rival magazine Nuts)...
bankrolled his short-lived campaign, but denied it was responsible for not lodging his registration, blaming Capper's campaign manager.