Brad Boyd, the last Fitzroy captain, is celebrating a big milestone birthday today. He is 50.

Now a very successful real estate agent at Mount Martha, an outer Melbourne suburb on the Mornington Peninsula, and married with two sons, Boyd has been longer out of AFL football than he was in it during  a career savagely disrupted by injury.

It was 16 May 1999 that he played his last game against Richmond at the MCG, collecting 20 possessions and a goal in a 16-point loss in what was Leigh Matthews’ eighth game as Lions coach.

It was also the 200^th AFL game of adopted Brisbane favourite Craig Lambert, who reached his double century against his former club, and the 15^th game of 322-game club record holder Simon Black.

In his 85^th game, Boyd was just 27 when finally he admitted defeat in a career-long battle with injuries.

Fitzroy club champion and a Victorian State of Origin representative in 1995, he is fondly remembered as a 70-game Fitzroy player from 1992-96 who took over the captaincy at 23 and did a wonderful job steering the club through their last two years before the merger.

After Boyd moved to Brisbane via the merger Lions fans desperately hoped the 186cm running utility would have more luck with injuries, but it wasn’t to be.

He played one game in 1997, six games in ’98 and eight games before retirement in 1999.

But Brisbane fans remember vividly a magnificent game coach Matthews’ first game with the Lions against St.Kilda at the Gabba in Round 1 1999.

Skippering the side in the absence of co-captains Michael Voss and Alastair Lynch, Boyd had 29 possessions and kicked four goals out of the centre to pick up three Brownlow Medal votes and pilot an 89-point win.

He played the first eight games of the ’99 season before his body failed him again and he was forced into retirement.

Never one for the spotlight, Boyd’s primary football focus is via his sons these days, but he still keeps a quiet eye on the progress of the Lions.