AFL Tasmania: Queenstown 500-game veteran Brett Schulze reveals the tricks and traps of playing on gravel

It takes a lot of grit to play footy on Queenstown’s famous gravel oval on Tasmania’s West Coast, just as 500-game veteran Brett Schulze.

Queenstown Football Club oval. Picture: Jasper Da Seymour

As he describes himself, Brett Schulze is a Queenstown lad “born and bred” and few people know better than the almost 500-game West Coast legend the grit it takes to play on gravel.

Brett, 60, played his first game there as a 16-year-old onballer in 1978.

He was so nervous about making his debut for Lyell-Gormanston against Queenstown he forgot about the gravel deck, but reality soon clicked in.

“You were always nervous to play your first game but I wasn’t so nervous about the gravel because we grew up with it and running around on it when we were kids,” he said.

Few players know how to thrive on gravel better than Queenstown footy legend Brett Schulze. Picture James Bresnehan

“My dad Max was a ruckman for Gormanston so we’d all come along to the footy on a Sunday _ that’s when footy was played back then and it was a big day out.”

Brett then played for the Queenstown Crows before heading to Penguin to be part of a now Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame-winning dynasty and then returned to Queenstown to coach the Crows from 2004 to 2009, which included premiership glory.

Of all the grounds he played at, Queenstown is the hardest taskmaster.

“You’d lose skin, you could never doubt that you’ll always lose skin playing out here in every single game,” he said.

The trick is to avoid “the slide”.

“You have got to learn to roll more than slide,” he said.

Jack Riewoldt at Queenstown's famous gravel ground. Picture James Bresnehan

“If you slide then the bark comes off.

“After a while you don’t think anything of it.

“It stings for a few days, every time you get in the shower, and then it starts to come right.”

The gravel has shaved the skin off some prominent Tasmanian football names like former Carlton great Arthur Hodgson, whose first game was for Queenstown before he made his mark in the VFL.

The “lost bark” list includes triple Brownlow Medal winner Ian Stewart, Sydney Swan Daryn Cresswell, triple premiership Hawk Grant Birchall and Brett’s first cousin Chris Fagan, now Brisbane Lions grand final coach.

It wasn’t just the gravel that made West Coast players hard as nails.

“I remember when I was growing up footy was tough,” Schulze said.

“As soon as you ran on the ground, and nowhere near the ball, someone would give you a bit of a tap just to test you out.

“These days that’s all been scrubbed out.

“I don’t think you’ve got to be tough [to play on gravel], you’ve just got to play the game as it should be played.”