‘One in a generation’: Patrick Dangerfield’s journey from upstart Crow to AFL legend

Over 18 years, Patrick Dangerfield has worn many hats in footy. Superstar, captain, media member, AFLPA president. But a former coach says another is to come. AFL hall of famer and legend.

The time pressure on one of footy’s busiest men comes down to the synching of an iPhone calendar.

Few others have worn as many hats as Geelong superstar Patrick Dangerfield.

A pre-eminent voice in the game and one of its best players, Dangerfield has captained Geelong since 2023, this year he stepped down after a long stint as AFL Players Association president, he is a regular in the media and has commentated on Channel 7.

He still hosts a fishing radio show weekly, and is leading a renovation of his Moggs Creek home.

Oh and there are the three kids, George, Felicity and Winnifred.

Patrick Dangerfield with his wife Mardi and children Felicity and Winnifred. Picture: Tony Gough

And Dangerfield is not the only footballer in the family, with wife Mardi a premiership winner with Geelong Amateur’s women’s team.

Dangerfield is unusually open to the media and as Cats captain, has small fires to put out regularly.

When the missed calls pile up while he is running around at training, the 50 minute drive from GMHBA Stadium to Moggs Creek, down the Great Ocean Rd from Anglesea, becomes all important.

Some of footy’s great crises have been solved through the bluetooth on that drive, before Dangerfield is home to as close to normal family life as he can get.

The first iPhone was released about six months before Dangerfield was drafted to Adelaide, in 2007, and now he finds “everything is synchronised in calendars now”.

For Dangerfield, he can tell things are getting out of control when they start to slip out of his mind.

That’s when Mardi has to nudge him to slow down.

“I know when I’m forgetting stuff that I’ve spread myself too thin,” he said.

“Generally, I’m pretty good with that sort of thing, my wife would say. Then when I forget things, she’s like, ‘You’ve got to pull back a bit here’.

“And that’s sort of been the case with the (AFLPA) this year, obviously taking a backwards step in that sense.”

The legend has worn many hats in his time in footy. Picture: Tony Gough

Organisation and tight turnarounds were a key part of Dangerfield’s AFL journey from the start.

The Crows were jeered by some in Adelaide for picking him at No. 10 in the 2007 draft, ahead of local Brad Ebert, and Dangerfield chose to spend 2008 largely at home to finish school at Oberon High.

The youngster would fly to South Australia and train with his teammates when he could but spent most of that first year in Victoria.

He was joined in the Adelaide intake in 2007 by a rookie named Ed Curnow, who first saw Dangerfield as “the strong guy who played for Anglesea”, when Curnow played junior footy against him with Modewarre.

“Other than the fact he was clearly a super talented player, it was tough for him (in 2007) because we got drafted with a big crop of players to be their next gen,” Curnow said.

“We were pretty tight but Danger was still at school so he was flying in and out from school.

“I just reckon it made it hard for him to fit in with the group at the time, he probably didn’t sense it but I felt it would have been pretty tough for him. I had a touch of envy because he would fly in off zero training and (coach) Neil Craig would just play him in the seniors.

“It was pretty impressive he was able to pull that off while he was at school still.”

Curnow said he wasn’t sure how Dangerfield dealt with that year but “my experience of that year was he was this guy who flew-in, flew-out but wasn’t really part of it”.

The Cats skipper chalks up game 350 against Brisbane on Friday. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

From a teenager to father, a Crow to a Cat, life in and out of football has only gotten busier.

Where most footballers and sportspeople toe the line and say family comes first, Dangerfield is realistic.

Sometimes, footy comes first.

“I think at the end of the day, everyone can say family is No. 1 and that’s true to a certain extent,” he said.

“But as a professional sports person, your existence is somewhat selfish because it’s always centred around your own preparation and it’s always centred around the game.

“That’s been the case for me. That’s the case for my wife. That’s the case for the kids. Everything’s still centred around footy.

“And it’s just the way it has to be while you’re in it. And then when footy finishes, life changes, clearly. But you’re in it for a short period of time, so you’ve got to maximise it.

“Your life does have to be manipulated around it to an extent.”

Dangerfield loves having his kids involved at the football club and his biggest thrill about playing game 350 will be to run out with his children.

He reckons George will run straight to Tom Stewart on Friday to go through a banner acknowledging his 350th game because “he loves him”.

“I’m not sure how my youngest (Winnifred) is going to go, she tends to rule the roost,” he said.

Dangerfield joked during an extensive chat before his milestone that “if anyone wants to be really, truly great, don’t have kids when it comes to sport”.

It was a typically tongue-in-cheek call from the champ, but not completely without truth.

“It’s a huge challenge that you have when you do have kids,” he said.

“And then you try and mix that with professional sport. And that’s where my wife and my mum and dad have just been incredible when in terms of that support.

“But having kids and playing in front of them now, and mine being at an age where they totally understand that and get the whole thing, is incredibly special.

“That part’s not lost to me. It was such an enjoyable part of playing 300 games and having the kids run though (the banner).”

His 349 matches are of such a high quality, his second AFL coach, Brenton Sanderson, is still in awe of Dangerfield’s game.

“He is one in a generation really,” Sanderson told this masthead.

“He will go down as one of this generations’ greatest players. He is a lock for the hall of fame and he is potentially going to be in that legend discussion down the track because he has been absolutely brilliant.”

As Curnow forged a respected career at Carlton, he remembered clubs having to throw out their plans at clearances to essentially build a wall to stop a trademark Dangerfield explosion out of congestion.

“It changed the way you would set up around the stoppage, to have that sweeper position with the wingman to make sure they were accountable for Pat Dangerfield bursting through a stoppage. The way he played was pretty cool,” he said.

Yet despite all the accolades, a 2016 Brownlow Medal, a 2022 premiership, an equal-record eight All-Australian blazers and all those jobs that fill up the Dangerfield calendar, he still falls in to the pressures of the game.

Even Dangerfield can’t understand how bad the nerves can still get, despite his steely exterior on game day.

Whenever the end comes, Dangerfield will finish as one of footy’s greatest. Picture: Daniel Pockett/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

He labels it as the “debilitating anxiety of performance”.

“Some games you get more nervous than others and then there are some games where you just have the full flow,” he said.

“It’s like where the hell has this come from, I haven’t felt this (nerves) for six weeks. I shouldn’t feel like this, I have played 300 games, why the hell am I so nervous about a game at 2pm on a Sunday?

“It’s the psyche of sport sometimes, it’s really funny to digest.”

So as even one of footy’s busiest men cruises past the 350-game milestone on Friday night against the Brisbane Lions, he still loves the feel of the nerves and the bone crunching contests he is known for.

And midway through his 18th season – Lions opponent Levi Ashcroft is still 18 years old himself – the veteran still loves sticking it to the youngsters.

He is contracted next season, and would need another one beyond that, plus good fitness, to close in on 400 games.

Dangerfield himself said he didn’t know if he could go that far but he would keep going as long as he could keep making an impact.

“I just love the game and I only want to play for as long as I feel like I can be bloody good at it and impact and be better than most around me,” he said.

“I love that challenge. I love the contest in that sense, it’s just bloody fun.

“The younger the players you play against, the even more fun it becomes, because you want to stick it to them.

“And then the connection you have with all the players that you have played with or are playing against, you have a chuckle with them after games, that part is just so much fun.

“400 is a lot of games and it’s a long way away but I think that a strength of mine is just living in the moment and not worrying too much about what tomorrow brings.”

Originally published as ‘One in a generation’: Patrick Dangerfield’s journey from upstart Crow to AFL legend