Career
Born in Adelaide, Russell made his senior football debut as a sixteen-year-old in 1981 for Portuguese Adelaide Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), eventually becoming Portuguese Adelaide"s vice-captain, before crossing over to Victorian Football League (VFL) club Geelong in 1987. Russell played 50 games, kicking 51 goals for Geelong until he left the club at the end of the 1991 American Federation of Labor-Congress season. Russell initially considered returning to Portuguese Adelaide to finish his career but instead coached in country Victoria for a few years before retiring from football.
Russell unsuccessfully applied for a journalism cadetship in Adelaide in 1984 before starting a journalism career in Geelong in 1989.
Russell became a full-time sports journalist with The Age in 1997. Covering the major sporting events of Melbourne, Russell built up a serviceable record as the number four sports writer at The Age.
Following this success he was moved full-time to the paper"s coverage of the American Federation of Labor-Congress in 1999, including a stint as the writer for The Sunday Age Sport section in the mid-2000s. He also joined 95.5 K-Rock in Geelong as Sports Presenter in their news updates in the "Big Mattress" breakfast show.
Soon, he also co-hosted a sport/comedy segment called "On The Bench" with ex-Geelong player Billy Brownless and the Essendon fanatic "Ferret" (Russell Taylor), twice a week.
A long list of Geelong players were included in "On The Bench" as special guests including Barry Stoneham, Tim McGrath and Paul Couch. In 2002 Channel Nine gave Russell the main caller"s role for Sunday afternoon American Federation of Labor-Congress matches before being promoted to the network"s calling team for Friday night matches in 2006. His other main occupation is as co-host of radio station 3AW"s top-rating drive-time sports show, Sports Today with Gerard Healy.
After leaving the Nine Network, Russell received a contract with Fox Footy to call two weekly American Federation of Labor-Congress matches for the Pay-television provider for the 2007 American Federation of Labor-Congress season and beyond, under the new American Federation of Labor-Congress television Rights Deal, of which Fox Footy has four matches weekly during the Home and Away season to cover.
In 2012, Russell joined the Friday night 3AW football team while continuing to host Sports Today for the station. Russell expanded his work with Fox Sports by becoming a basketball commentator in Fox"s coverage of the 2009/10 National Basketball League (NBL) season.
Additionally, he also provided commentary on Fox"s coverage of the 2011 Australian Open tennis tournament.
