News RIP Paul Feltham

[BrainOfMorbius]

It's mentioned in passing in this article that Paul Feltham, a former caretaker coach of the Brisbane Bears for the last 7 games of 1989, passed away.

Those [1975 Kangaroo premiership players] no longer with us are Barry Davis – the Kangaroos’ 1975 team captain – Mick Nolan, Paul Feltham and legendary AFL figure and 1975 coach Ron Barassi, who died two years ago.

A bit of further research on this shows that the announcement came from Rhett Bartlett on X about a month ago that Feltham died in 2019. His death was apparently mentioned by Mark Williams on The Front Bar last month.

I know he lived a lot of the last period of his life in the UK and Canada so it's in some ways not that surprising that the news did not make it back here, but nevertheless it's sad that there wasn't any announcement at the time. He's such a mysterious figure, just seemed to come out of nowhere to coach us and pull off a 5-2 winning record, including a miraculous win over the Hawks, only to vanish into obscurity. The story was the players didn't like him, that they'd heard about something in his past and told Bears management they didn't want him, but there's no details, very little substance to draw on.

 

[irel]

It's mentioned in passing in this article that Paul Feltham, a former caretaker coach of the Brisbane Bears for the last 7 games of 1989, passed away.



A bit of further research on this shows that the announcement came from Rhett Bartlett on X about a month ago that Feltham died in 2019. His death was apparently mentioned by Mark Williams on The Front Bar last month.

I know he lived a lot of the last period of his life in the UK and Canada so it's in some ways not that surprising that the news did not make it back here, but nevertheless it's sad that there wasn't any announcement at the time. He's such a mysterious figure, just seemed to come out of nowhere to coach us and pull off a 5-2 winning record, including a miraculous win over the Hawks, only to vanish into obscurity. The story was the players didn't like him, that they'd heard about something in his past and told Bears management they didn't want him, but there's no details, very little substance to draw on.

Yes, I heard the alleged rumors that he was not liked by the players, however his record was impressive and extracted maximum performance from a dispirited group. Surprised me that player power got Paul out of the club and even more surprising that he did not get a go in the industry. Whatever was in his history may have had something to do with his lack of progression in the AFL.

 

[Malleagle]

Hi all. Long time BF peruser and just joined up to add something to this thread, and maybe to join other chats later. I was a (mature age) student at USQ in Toowoomba when Paul was there. He was studying psychology, as USQ was developing work on sports psych in that period. He was a very effective coach of our AFL team, but had the reputation for having strong opinions, abrasive to some. There were also later perceptions of him (post 1989) as having undermined Peter Knights but that may be scuttlebutt.
While at USQ, he experienced a terrible tragedy, which was the murder of his girlfriend, also a student there, in horrendous circumstances, so I always wondered how that affected his later life.

 

[Malleagle]

Also started up a regular AFL column in the Toowoomba Chronicle, which was very much league territory.

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

God, that's awful. Thanks for letting us know.

 

[ZoBlitz]

There's a Courier Mail story online about the murder but I wouldn't suggest seeking it out.