{"id":71763,"date":"2021-05-16T12:44:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T12:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=71763"},"modified":"2021-05-16T13:58:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T13:58:37","slug":"cousins-all-smiles-in-local-football-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=71763","title":{"rendered":"Cousins all smiles in local football comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former AFL star Ben Cousins<\/a> has laced up the boots for the first time in over a decade, making a local football appearance in Perth's Metro Football League.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old ran out for the Queens Park Bulldogs, the competition's reigning premiers, kicking a goal on debut while setting up another for a teammate.<\/p>\n

Cousins started his team's 40-point win on the half-forward flank and appeared to be in terrific shape for an individual who has lived a troubled existence since his AFL retirement back in 2010.<\/p>\n

The 2005 Brownlow Medallist's appearance attracted significant fanfare, with the Queens Park club president, Ross White, indicating that the crowd in attendance was the largest he'd seen in a long time.<\/p>\n

"He cares about people and always gives his time just to talk and have photos," White told The West Australian.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

"The sort of old Ben who cared about supporters is still that – and now it's our supporters."<\/p>\n

Cousins is understood to have been training with the team a couple of times a week and is expecting to play between six and ten matches.<\/p>\n

A six-time All-Australian, Cousins' fall from grace has been one of the AFL's saddest stories, with the former West Coast captain fighting drug addictions and being in and out of jail since his retirement.<\/p>\n

Cousins most recently served a sentence for stalking his ex-partner Maylea Tinecheff and was released from Hakea Jail in Perth last November<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former AFL star Ben Cousins has laced up the boots for the first time in over a decade, making a local football appearance in Perth's […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71763"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71765,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71763\/revisions\/71765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}