![\"AFL](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1387109_030730_updates.jpg\")
AFL community mourns after the tragic death of Phoenix Spicer at age 23<\/p>\nAFL community mourns after the tragic death of Phoenix Spicer at age 23<\/p>\n
The Australian football community is mourning the sudden and tragic passing of former North Melbourne AFL player Phoenix Spicer who died on Friday night, January 2 at the age of 23.<\/p>\n
The news broke in a post from Dharna Nicholson-Bux stating: “On behalf of my sister Ky-ya and our family, we are devastated to share that last night we tragically lost our brother Phoenix Spicer. A beautiful, loyal and strong Nunggubuyu man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPhoenix will forever be our beloved uncle, son, a partner to Ky-ya and a second dad to Jordy.\u201d, the statement continued.<\/p>\n
Spicer played 12 games for the Kangaroos after being drafted in the 2020 national draft. He also played 18 games across two seasons for the Footscray Bulldogs in the VFL.<\/p>\n
In a statement released by North Melbourne on Saturday night, club president Dr Sonja Hood noted that although Phoenix was the only club for a short time, he was a beloved member of the playing group.<\/p>\n
The AFL Players Association lamented the loss following Phoenix\u2019s tragic passing in a short statement from CEO James Gallagher.<\/p>\n
The statement reads, \u201cThe AFL Players’ Association is saddened by the passing of our member Phoenix Spicer who played 12 AFL matches for North Melbourne from 2021 to 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spicer completed the agility test in the SANFL\u2019s 2019 Under 18 pre-season in 7.8 seconds, which was the fastest time of any participant.<\/p>\n
Spicer got his first taste of AFL football in the 2021 season when he made his debut in his home state against the Crows.<\/p>\n
The loss of a young talent marks a profoundly sad moment for the Australian football community, sparking an outpouring of grief from family, teammates and fans across the AFL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL community mourns after the tragic death of Phoenix Spicer at age 23 The Australian football community is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-390828","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-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390828","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=390828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}