Steven King

Sports Hall of Fame Inductee

In the early 1990’s football fans were taking notice of the talented, young Shepparton Football Club ruckman, Steven King. He was a giant lad who wore size 16 boots and was a stand out in local under age football. Not surprisingly he was selected to play for the Murray Bushrangers in the regional AFL under 18 competition. The AFL talent scouts converged on Shepparton to sign him up and it was the Geelong Cats who drafted him. He played his first AFL game in 1996. King had developed into a 201 cm and 102 Kilogram Geelong player. Geelong thought so much of the big Goulburn Valley recruit that he was honoured with wearing the Cats number 1 jersey.

King had great ability to learn ruck skills at the Cats. He had strong aerobic capacity, fleetness of foot and was a strong mark. He ran to the right places on the field and showed intelligence at the throw- INS and bounces. By the year 2000 he was in top form and dominated in the ruck, giving his team first use of the ball. He had a great season and won Geelong’s Best Player award, the Cargie Grieves Medal. To top the season off he was selected as an “All Australian,” He also won the Geelong Best Player award in 2002.

King showed great leadership and won the honour of captaining the Cats from 2003 - 2006. Then came a premiership highlight in 2007 when he had the interesting honour of playing in the Geelong AFL premiership team, and the Geelong VFL premiership team. Which gave him 2 premierships within 7 days. Steven played a total of 193 games with Geelong before transferring to St Kilda where he played 47 games making his AFL games total 240 and he kicked 83 goals. He decided to retire as a player and turned his hand to coaching.  He became an AFL assistant coach and has enjoyed success with the Western Bulldogs as the Western Bulldogs forward line coach. At the conclusion of the 2021 season he was appointed as a senior assistant coach at the Gold Coast. Tonight we salute Steven King for his wonderful career with an All Australian award and we welcome him into the Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame.