Card of the Day - 2026-05-16

Select Australia AFL 2009
SELECT Australia Pty / Herald Sun [trade/commercial : cards? : O/S - Torrey Hills, New South Wales, Australia] "AFL Rising Stars" (2009) RS18/20

Our first clue, gave us another "Urquhart", and it also shows that football takes many forms, this being Australian Football. There is actually a Scottish connection though because a man called William Swan Urquhart went from there to Australia as a surveyor and planned the streets of Ballarat in 1852. He seems to have no connection with the castle - though the truth is that no one by the name of Urquhart ever lived there, the name is not a title, it is from the Irish, "aird", which means a promontory, and the Welsh, where "carrden" means a wooded area.  

So here we have Gavin Urquhart, who was born on the 18th of May, 1988, in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. Now, although our card calls him a rising star, it is not his `Rookie` card - that honour goes to another Select issued one, the "AFL Pinnacle" series of 2009, which tells us that he made his debut in 2008 for a club called Morningside, which is actually in Brisbane,  and then he joined the North Melbourne Kangaroos.

Now you may not have heard of them, but their first appearance on a card was in 1905, and it was issued by Sniders and Abrahams! 

Further research has discovered that his first team was not Morningside, but the Glenmore Bulls. It appears that Morningside was simply his first adult team. He does seem to have been a good signing, and was frequently named Man of the Match, but in 2010 he suffered several injuries, and the Kangaroos let him go in 2012.

He then left the sport entirely, and moved over to American Football, but it does not seem to have worked out and in 2014 he went back to Australia and signed with Airport West, also of Melbourne. In 2015 he moved to Pascoe Vale, where he remained until 2018, after which he signed for Riddell. He joined the Essendon Doutta Stars in 2021, but then there was another brief time when he played no football at all, before joining the Springbank Tigers in 2024. 

Our set seems to have been issued in conjunction with the newspapers "Herald Sun" and "Herald Sun Sunday", so maybe some cards, or packets were given away as promotion. I will try to find out.