Peter Motley (born 24 September 1964 in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, representing

Sturt Football Club The Sturt Football Club, nicknamed The Double Blues, is a semi-professional Australian rules football club based in the suburb of Unley, South Australia, which plays in the South Australian National Football League. Founded in 1901 by the S ...

in the

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport. Originally formed as th ...

(SANFL) and

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of ...

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). I ...

(VFL). Motley is the son of former nine-time

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...

premiership star, 1964

Magarey Medal The Magarey Medal is an Australian rules football honour awarded annually since 1898 to the fairest and most brilliant player in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), as judged by field umpires. The award was created by Will ...

winner Geof Motley and Gaynor, who represented Australia in netball and basketball and played state

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

. He made his league debut for Sturt in 1982 and played 92 games for the Double Blues until 1985. Motley's breakout season was 1983 when he played both at

centre half-forward In Australian rules football, the centre half-forward is a position on the half-forward line of a football field. The directly opposing player is a centre half-back. Royce Hart of the Richmond Football Club and Wayne Carey of the North Mel ...

and

centre half-back In the sport of Australian rules football, the half-back line refers to the positions of the 3 players on the field that occupy the centre half-back and left and right half-back flank positions. Centre half-back The role of the centre half-bac ...

for Sturt and helped them to the SANFL Grand Final against West Adelaide. Unfortunately for Motley and Sturt, the Double Blues went down to West Adelaide 16.12 (108) to 21.16 (142). At only 18 years of age Peter Motley also made the first of six state games for South Australia at half-forward against Victoria at

Football Park Football Park, known commercially as AAMI Stadium, was an Australian rules football stadium located in West Lakes, a western suburb of Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, Australia. It was built in 1973 by the South Australian Nat ...

in 1983 in what was the Croweaters first win over the Big V in Adelaide since 1965. Motley also won Sturt's Best and Fairest awards in 1984 and 1985 and was named an

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, led by ...

in 1983 and 1985. Recruited by Carlton, Motley played 19 matches for the Blues. He made his VFL debut in Round 2 of the

1986 VFL season The 1986 VFL season was the 90th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 29 March until 27 September, and comprised a ...

against

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a ...

at Princes Park and went on to play 13 games that year for the Blues, including the

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

loss to Hawthorn. Motley played in six games of the 1987 season before a serious car crash ended his football career at the age of just 22. In early May 1987, while driving along a divided road, another car careered across the median strip and collided directly with Motley's driver's door at head height. Teammate

Paul Meldrum Paul Meldrum (born 13 September 1960) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Carlton in the Victorian Football League (VFL) during the 1980s. Meldrum was a versatile footballer could play anywhere on the ground, and made his d ...

was driving directly behind and was a lesser victim of the crash. All three cars were destroyed. A medical practitioner who lived in the immediate vicinity attended to Motley's critical head injury, almost certainly saving his life before an ambulance arrived. Motley endured several days in a coma; his survival and recovery has been attributed to his mental determination, physical fitness, and encouragement from his family. In 1987, a song called "Peter Motley" by Gary Burrows was written in support of his recovery; proceeds from the single were given to a trust to help cover Motley's medical expenses. Such was Motley's impact in his 95 games for Sturt between 1982 and 1985 that he was named on the wing in Sturt's Team of the Century. In 2015,

Unley Oval Unley Oval (also known as Wigan Oval under a naming rights agreement), is a multi-use stadium in Unley, an inner southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is used for lower-grade South Australian Grade Cricket League matches, but its ma ...

, the home ground of the Sturt Football Club, was renamed Peter Motley Oval in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Motley, Peter 1964 births Australian rules footballers from Adelaide Sturt Football Club players Carlton Football Club players South Australian State of Origin players All-Australians (1953–1988) Living people Australia international rules football team players South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees