Josh Gibson (footballer)


Joshua Gibson is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the North Melbourne Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League. He is a member of Hawthorn's 2013, 2014 and 2015 premiership winning teams.
Currently he is host of the CBS Sports programme Sports Tonight on their Australian division, Network 10.

Playing career

Early career

Gibson began playing football with Surrey Park and played junior football for East Burwood, before moving on to play for the Oakleigh Chargers in the TAC Cup and Victorian Football League side Port Melbourne. Gibson was recruited from Port Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League and drafted onto the Kangaroos rookie list in 2006.

North Melbourne (Kangaroos)

Gibson played 10 matches with the Kangaroos in 2006. On 3 June 2007, he suffered a head injury in the bathroom at his home as he was preparing for training. After initially being ruled out of football for the remainder of the season, he returned to the AFL in round 21 and was able to shut out Lance Franklin who had kicked seven goals the previous round.

Hawthorn

Immediately after the 2009 season, Gibson requested to be traded to the Hawthorn Football Club. The deal was done early on the first day of the 2009 trade week, with Gibson traded, along with North Melbourne's fifth round draft pick No. 69 for Hawthorn's second and third round draft picks. Gibson had a season interrupted by injury in 2010; he tore his hamstring in the third round but recovered to play 12 games. He played in every game in 2011, holding the backline together after longterm injuries to key backmen Ben Stratton and Stephen Gilham. In 2013, Gibson won the Hawthorn best and fairest award, the Peter Crimmins Medal. He won his second Peter Crimmins medal in 2015. Coming off his third consecutive premiership with Hawthorn, Gibson starred in the club's first home game of 2016, ending the match with an equal-club record 44 disposals in a victory over the West Coast Eagles. On August 15, 2017 he announced his retirement from the AFL at the conclusion of the 2017 season.

Personal life

Josh Gibson was born in, and grew up in Blackburn, Victoria. He was instantly recognisable because of his afro hairstyle before he cut it. Gibson has direct links to Barbados, where his father was born. He attended Trinity Grammar School in Kew. Gibson is currently living in Sydney and is the owner of BeFit training Double Bay.

Statistics

! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2006
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2007
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2008
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2009
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2010
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2011
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2012
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2016
! scope="row" style="text-align:center | 2017
! colspan=3| Career
! 225 !! 5 !! 8 !! 2017 !! 1898 !! 3915 !! 1152 !! 469 !! 0.0 !! 0.0 !! 9.0 !! 8.4 !! 17.4 !! 5.1 !! 2.1

Honours and achievements

In January 2018, Gibson was a celebrity contestant on the fourth season of the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here. On 5 March 2018, Gibson was evicted after 38 days in camp, coming in eighth place.
Since 2018, he has been a panelist of the CBS Sports programme Sports Tonight on their Australian division, Network 10.