E. J. "Ted" Whitten, a former
Footscray Football Club player who died of
prostate cancer in 1995, was regarded as one of the greatest-ever players of the game. He was also passionate about
State of Origin football. With his enthusiasm and ability to keep in the media spotlight, Ted had kept State of Origin going for many years, and his emotional farewell at the
Victoria vs
South Australia game at the MCG in 1995 has persisted as an enduring symbol of not only State of Origin passion but Australian rules football in general. Soon after his death, the popularity of interstate football waned, and the last such game was played in 1999. When he died, his son,
Ted Whitten Jr., launched a foundation for research into prostate cancer, and the Legends Game raises money for the foundation. The first-ever Legends Match was played at the
Western Oval, home of the
Footscray/Western Bulldogs, EJ Whitten's club. Most of the games have been
televised free-to-air in Victoria and South Australia. Due to popularity of the event, later games were moved to bigger venues. Since 2003, the game has been held at
Docklands Stadium. In 2007, the organisers included female participants for the first time:
Daisy Pearce and
Shannon McFerran of the
Victorian Women's Football League. Since then, it has become one of few high-profile mixed-gender-friendly events. On average, the event was raising A$1.2 million revenue per year for the five years prior to 2016, with in the order of $100,000 profit for the foundation. In 2016, the
Seven Network secured the rights to televise the match from 2016 to 2020, and the match was moved to the football-free weekend between the final round of the premiership season and the first week of the finals series. In 2018, the match was played at
Adelaide Oval. This was the first game played in Adelaide since 1999. In 2019, the match was contested under the
AFLX format—a high-scoring format played on a rugby-sized field—and was played at
AAMI Park in Melbourne. The match was not held in 2020–2021 due to the
impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic, and from 2022 to 2024, there was no indication that the match would return in the future. The game returned as the
Four 'N Twenty Legends Game for Prostate Cancer, in a similar format to previous years. The game saw a series-record attendance of 31,320 and led to the hospitalisation of comedian
Dave Hughes after he was physically targeted by other players and suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung. == Highlights ==