Anthony Koutoufides stunned the footy world 30 years ago – but his legend will live on forever

Lance Franklin. Dustin Martin. Nic Naitanui. Chris Judd. Dean Cox. During my career, these were the players who could do things other players could not. No matter how hard us mortals worked, we could never reach the heights of these guys. They were simply unreachable.

For those who watched footy in the 1990s, the man who stood head and shoulders above the pack was Anthony Koutoufides. Back, forward, wing, midfield – even ruck – Koutoufides had it all. He broke tackles with ease, jumped higher than the rest and had a booming leg that could break the lines.

Next week marks 15 years since Kouta drew the curtain on his 278 game career.

And it’s been 30 years since his debut season which, in just his fifth senior game, included a moment of freakish skill that stunned the footy world.

Carlton v Collingwood, Round 23, VFL Park.

A few months after the centennial match between the two famous old clubs, a sell-out crowd gathered for the rematch. Koutoufides was eager to impress against the club he supported in his youth.

Then it happened.

“Jamie Turner was next to me and I sort of just held him off and I grabbed the ball with one hand,” Koutoufides remembers. “[I] got it on my foot, kicked it down to Tom Alvin who marked it, he went on to Jon Dorotich and we may have kicked the goal. Everyone in the stands started to speak about it.

“Stephen Gough, who was our CEO, he often talks about it. He says, ‘Kouta, we were all sitting there. You‘ve ran past, you just grabbed the ball with one hand and you’ve kicked it.’ And everyone in the crowd just looked at each other and went, ‘Did he just pick up the ball one handed then?’

“That’s when it became a little bit of a cult thing.”

Not many knew the Koutoufides story back then but, over time, it would become part of footy folklore. A national champion high jumper and national record holder in the 110m hurdles as a junior, football came a little later to him than most.

Drafted in 1991, Kouta was an unorthodox prospect. Raised in Lalor in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, he initially found it difficult to adapt to the rigors of AFL football and the work rate required at the elite level. But, as with all the greats, he found a way. His way.

So, how did he master the one-handed pick-up that vaulted him to the public’s attention?

Did he have massive hands?

“No, I don‘t really. I’ve seen bigger.”

Did he pick it up from one of his boyhood heroes?

“We were never really allowed to watch the highlights at home, Mum was always against it. It was that one hour block on a Saturday night, where we were like, ‘Mum, can we watch it?’ And she was like, ‘No, no,’ and we‘re like, ‘Come on, please!’”

Perhaps it was in the bloodlines?

“We never could afford a [proper] footy. We had this small footy we used to kick around the backyard, I‘m not sure if that was the reason. My father used to play basketball. He was good back in the days he lived in Egypt [his country of birth]. But he’d always say, ‘Just, you know, grab the ball, one handed and play’.

And so they did.

“My brother Paul in grade six got a letter from his schoolteacher,” Koutoufides says. “And it said, ‘To Kouta, the only kid that could pick up the football with one hand’.”

He continues: “I think my brother and I must have played like that our entire career, without realising. In the under 19s at Carlton, my brother did it once at training and our coach was Ross Henshaw. He was a premiership player for North Melbourne back in the 70s. He was a madman, like, a real scary dude. Oh my God, was I scared of him.

“My brother picked up the ball one-handed and [Henshaw] brought everyone in. He said, ‘If I see you pick up the ball with one hand again Kouta, or anyone else here, you won‘t be at this football club.’ He was totally against it.”

Over the next 273 games for Carlton, played across 16 seasons, Koutoufides proved to be a generational player; the kind the rest of us could only dream of emulating.

With that came pressure and scrutiny, fame and fortune, all interwoven and disseminated by a ravenous media serving an adoring public. He dominated the 6pm news bulletins, carried countless back pages and was a favourite of talkback callers more than most of his generation. He was trending before the term was even coined.

In the years that followed, Koutoufides was reported to have become footy’s first ever million dollar player. It was an unheard of sum back then and brought with it another level of notoriety and expectation.

The only problem was that it wasn’t true.

“It was said to be [a million] but I never did get that,” he says.

Money was never Koutoufides’ north star. A one-club man, he didn’t test the market the way many of his contemporaries did. Not that there weren’t suitors. Talent like his was coveted by clubs across the league.

But Carlton was home.

“When I started in 1991 on $7,800, no one was going to say, ‘Let’s give him a pay increase’,” he says. “And then when you play off in a grand final, and you know, you sell a lot of merch in the shop and you‘re only on maybe $80,000 or $70,000 for the year, no one says anything about that.

“Another club came in and offered me a massive contract in 1996. I didn‘t take it because I wanted to stay at Carlton, because I love the club. And then yes, later on, my contract grew. That’s the way it goes. I mean, half my career I earned phenomenal money. The first half? Not as good. But that’s the way it goes. I don’t have any regrets. I love the club.”

Koutoufides‘ timeless brilliance lives on in the memories of millions, and on YouTube for those not old enough to have seen him in full flight first-hand. It’s quite remarkable to think he will be turning 50 next year, and that we’re now three decades removed from that memorable game at VFL Park.

His legacy, though, lives on.

And his pure love of the game serves as an inspiration still.

“When I first started, it wasn‘t about money,” he says. “It was about fulfilling my dream.

“And when I saw $7,800, I knew it wasn‘t a lot of money – $150 a week to go to do fifty 100m [sprints], get punished by the club and play in the reserves all year and put up with a lot of stuff.

“But it was my dream. I didn‘t know what was going to eventuate later.

“And that‘s what happened.”