Footy's top 10 people of 2016

Football in 2016 delivered many great stories, controversies, drama and incident. Behind nearly all of them were individuals whose names either captured the public imagination or dominated the headlines.

Fairfax Media's top 10 people of the football year aren't necessarily the most popular, or the most successful, but all left a sizeable imprint on the game's landscape over the past 12 months.

Some forged triumphs, others were the face of new and exciting eras, some dealt with constant pressure and scrutiny, and one faced and dealt with a battle far more important even than sport.

Here are the people who most grabbed our attention in another huge year for the game.

Photo: Scott Barbour

LUKE BEVERIDGE (Western Bulldogs coach)

Is it the greatest single coaching performance of all time? It's pretty hard to argue otherwise. In his first two years as a senior AFL coach, Beveridge has taken the Bulldogs from 14th at the end of 2014, to eighth to arguably the most romantic premiership the AFL has seen. His man management skills may also have helped change the face of coaching, Beveridge eliciting new heights from a score of players not many would have believed possible, names like Liam Picken, Jason Johannisen and Lachie Hunter. He's fostered a level of depth and flexibility across his list superior to all his rivals. And he's cajoled a side which finished only seventh on the ladder to four successive against-the-odds finals wins to land the ultimate. All whilst retaining a humble and self-effacing persona. THE footballer person of the year.

Photo: Quinn Rooney

JARRYD ROUGHEAD (much-loved Hawthorn star)

The year didn't start well for the four-time premiership Hawk, a troublesome knee requiring surgery which would keep him out for half the season. But that was trivial compared to devastating news late in May that the melanoma which had been removed from his lip in 2015 had now been detected in his lungs. Football instantly became secondary to his health. Yet even as Roughead endured a debilitating long-term course of immunotherapy treatment, he remained a visible and inspiring figure not only to the Hawks, but to many facing their own health battles, his upbeat positivity contagious. When the full Hawthorn list turned out for the first pre-season session on 5 December, Roughead was there. The next day, he announced he'd been given the all-clear. For many, it was the best news of the football year.

Photo: Getty Images

PATRICK DANGERFIELD (Geelong Brownlow medallist)

One of the most-publicised moves between clubs the game has seen from Adelaide to Geelong saw Patrick Dangerfield under intense pressure to perform before he'd even earned a kick with the Cats. Not only did he live up to the hype, he soared to new highs, winning the Brownlow Medal with a record 35 votes, and also by a record margin. He polled in no fewer than 15 games and was awarded the three votes in nine of them. Dangerfield set the tone with a best-on-ground effort in his first game for Geelong, and his out seldom dropped, still the Cats' best when they went under to Sydney in the preliminary final. Dangerfield became an even more public figure under the relentless gaze of football-obsessed Victoria, and won the public relations stakes handsomely, too. A class act.

Photo: Penny Stephens

MOANA HOPE (Collingwood women's team star)

It goes without saying women's football made huge strides in 2016 with the announcement of a new AFL competition to run over February and March. There are many selling points for the new league. But none bigger or better than this superstar of the women's game. Hope was already a bona fide star in the local women's league, booting 100 goals this year for St Kilda Sharks, starring in exhibition games for the Western Bulldogs and subsequently recruited by Collingwood. But her personal story is also remarkable: Hope, one of 14 children, a young woman who has devoted much of her life from the age of 10 to caring for her late father, who had cancer, her ill mother, and disabled sister. Somehow, she has also found time to indulge her passion for sport. A striking presence physically, Hope is heavily tattooed, far different to the traditional female sport marketing figure. She is also thoughtful, articulate, and increasingly, the face of a boom sport.

Photo: Getty Images

JOBE WATSON (ineligible Brownlow medallist)

Watson, along with 33 other former and present Essendon teammates, never played a single game in 2016 after being suspended for taking illegal substances by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in January. Unlike many of them, however, his name continued to resonate across the football year, first as he weighed up whether to even continue his AFL career after having to shoulder much of the public burden of the four-year scandal, and then about whether his 2012 Brownlow Medal should be forfeited. Watson, who spent considerable time in the US pursuing, among other things, life as a barista, only confirmed he would continue as a player in late September. His decision to relinquish his medal was announced later, in mid-November. Both statements were among the most scrutinised and eagerly-anticipated of 2016.

Photo: Karleen Williams

GARRY LYON (media commentator)

Perhaps it's a sign of a media and public fascination for scandal and controversy, but the revelation in February that respected commentator Garry Lyon had been involved in a relationship with his Footy Show colleague Billy Brownless' former wife Nicky, then his subsequent decision to withdraw from his work to attend to a mental health condition, continued to attract interest whenever it was mentioned. Indeed, three out of the top four most-read stories in online Fairfax Media involved the Lyon-Brownless saga. Lost in the wash somewhat was the absence of Lyon's sharp analytical commentary left on the football landscape. Which makes his return to the fold next year as a major plank of radio station SEN and Channel 9's long-running Footy Classified a timely one.

Photo: Getty Images

EDDIE McGUIRE (Collingwood president)

Few people in the football world are as comfortable with the public spotlight as the media mogul and Magpie chairman. But McGuire has never been subjected to as much pressure as he faced this year, on several fronts. Chief among the controversies was "Caro-gate", when McGuire's off-colour remarks about drowning Fairfax Media's Caroline Wilson caused a storm which prompted even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to weigh in. Thus followed a couple of botched apologies before a more contrite and shaken McGuire hit the right note. Later in the year, the Lachie Whitfield saga and, specifically, McGuire's thrusting of Graeme Allan into the Magpie football manager's role at the expense of the popular Neil Balme, caused him more grief, Allan suspended for his involvement in the Whitfield drug test episode and subsequently resigning from the role he'd barely commenced.

Photo: Getty Images

EDDIE BETTS (Adelaide goalsneak)

If Betts didn't officially become the AFL's most-loved player in 2016, he must have crept awfully close. Mostly, that was about his football. Betts had another superb season, booting a career-high 75 goals, winning All-Australian selection for the second time and runner-up in the Crows' best and fairest. But, perhaps sadly, Betts' imprint on this year also revolved around his dignified response to another incident of racism when a Port Adelaide fan lobbed a banana in his direction as his brilliance sewed up a win for his team in the "Showdown" against the Power. Betts graciously accepted a subsequent apology from the disgraced supporter, winning more popularity points. And his understated comment on the incident – "It's sad that racism still exists in our game" – said it all, really.

Photo: Daniel Kalisz

NATHAN BUCKLEY (Collingwood coach)

His president may have been under the pump, but even Eddie McGuire didn't have to deal with the weekly questioning not only of his coaching capacity, but his coaching future that Buckley did in 2016. After a promising pre-season, things went pear-shaped for the Pies from the opening moments of round one, when key player Dane Swan went down clutching his leg, his year over. The almost-weekly inquisition of Buckley reached a peak midway through the season when Collingwood had won just four of 12 games. Things improved from there, but the heat was still on the coach, who memorably bared his soul in a very frank interview on SEN's Coaches Box, where he conceded he was finished if the Pies didn't make the 2017 finals.

Photo: Getty Images

JOHN WORSFOLD (Essendon coach)

Worsfold, approaching his first season as Essendon coach, had the rug pulled from under him before he'd even settled into the club, via the CAS decision to suspend almost half a first-choice team for the entire season. Instead of moping about the prospect of coaching a team almost there and then sentenced to a wooden spoon, Worsfold remained relentlessly positive, using the opportunity to develop a clutch of young players destined to be a part of the Bombers' future, and continuing to speak directly to a fan base wearied by four years of controversy, selling hope to the disenchanted. Completely unflappable, Worsfold kept the flame flickering, eked out three victories in a season many thought his team would remain winless, and goes into the new year with not just hope, but plenty of optimism.