{"id":388746,"date":"2026-01-03T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388746\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:00:11","slug":"phoenix-spicer-former-afl-player-for-north-melbourne-dies-suddenly-aged-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388746\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Spicer: Former AFL player for North Melbourne dies suddenly aged 23"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">WARNING: This story contains the name and images of a deceased Indigenous person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Former AFL player Phoenix Spicer has died aged 23, with his family remembering him as a \u201cbeautiful, loyal and strong\u201d man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The death of the former North Melbourne small forward was announced on social media on Saturday by Dharna Nicholson-Bux, the sister of his partner Ky-ya Nicholson Ward, following his passing on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-3mk41m-StyledText eze0guv9\">Sign up to The Nightly&#8217;s newsletters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1r9pdr5-StyledSubText eze0guv8\">Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>By continuing you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/thenightly.com.au\/subscription-terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sevenwestmedia.com.au\/privacy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cOn behalf of my sister Ky-ya and our family, we are devastated to share that last night we tragically lost our brother Phoenix Spicer,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cA beautiful, loyal and strong Nunggubuyu man.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/85a0d7964eca6061e427ec2576a7cddc476797da.jpg\" alt=\"Former AFL player Phoenix Spicer has died aged 23.\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>Former AFL player Phoenix Spicer has died aged 23. Credit: AAP<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cPhoenix will forever be our beloved brother, uncle, son, a partner to Ky-ya and a second dad to Jordy. Our hearts are broken with your sudden loss \u2026 you are watching over us in the Dreaming now. Forever 23.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Drafted by North Melbourne with pick 42 in the 2020 national draft, Spicer played 12 AFL games across three seasons for the Kangaroos before being delisted at the end of 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">He went on to play for Darwin in the NTFL and later joined VFL club Footscray, where he had spent the past two seasons. Spicer was named an emergency for Footscray\u2019s 2025 VFL grand final win over Southport in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Originally from Numbulwar, a remote community in the far north of the Northern Terrtory &#8211; Spicer grew up with nine siblings before moving to Adelaide at age 11 to live with his grandfather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">He was drafted from SANFL club South Adelaide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Tributes have continued to flow from across the football community following his death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING: This story contains the name and images of a deceased Indigenous person. Former AFL player Phoenix Spicer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-388746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}