What's Inside an AFL Player's Locker? 7 Essentials Every Player Needs

Pull up footage of an AFL club change room on match day, in the 90 minutes before the first bounce, and you see a room that is working. Strapping stations running. Ice packs being prepped. Guernseys laid out. Medical staff moving through the space. Players in their own zone, going through their individual preparation. None of this happens by accident, and none of it happens without a locker room that is designed to support it. Here is what is inside an AFL player’s locker, why each item matters, and what that means for the design of the space around it.

The AFL Locker Room Before a Match

On AFL match day, the change room opens to players typically 90 minutes before bounce. What follows is one of the most structured 90-minute windows in sport. The physios and trainers arrive first, setting up strapping stations and ice baths. The football operations staff lay out each player’s guernsey and shorts at their locker bay. The strength and conditioning coaches brief the warm-up sequence. Players arrive in ones and twos, each moving through a personal preparation routine that they have run hundreds of times before.

The locker is the anchor point for all of this. A player sits at their bay, boots at their feet, strapping tape to hand, mouthguard in its case on the shelf above. The locker is not just storage. It is a preparation station. Every element of its design, from the hook placement for the guernsey to the height of the mid-shelf, either supports that preparation or introduces friction into it. The elite AFL clubs have understood this for decades. Community clubs are increasingly understanding it too.

At AFL club level, the change room is part of the performance environment: a deliberate design brief that the club invests in with the same intention as the training ground or the recovery pool. At community level, the same principles apply at a different scale. A suburban club with a well-designed change room creates a better preparation environment than a club with metal boxes and a bench, and preparation environment quality translates directly into player experience and retention.

Essential #1: The Guernsey

The guernsey is what gets laid out first. At elite level, the football operations staff place each numbered guernsey and matching shorts at the player’s bay before the change room opens to players. It is part of the ritual of the day. The guernsey hangs on a hook or a hanger at the top of the bay, shorts folded on the shelf below. Home and away guernseys are stored separately; on home game weeks, only home colours are in the room. Away guernseys travel with the team.

The hook system matters more than it might seem. A guernsey hung on a single pin hook will stretch at the collar over time, particularly with the moisture-management fabrics used in modern AFL playing kit. A wider coat hook or a dedicated hanger bracket preserves the shape of the collar. At the elite end, some clubs use individual wooden hangers for match-day guernseys. At community level, a quality double-arm hook at the right height achieves the same function without the cost.

Training guernseys, the club’s practice kit and often a different colour from the match kit, live in the locker separately. At community clubs, where kit budgets are tighter, a player might have one set of training kit and one match-day set, and the locker needs to store both without either getting crumpled or confused. A second hook or a separate fold-down bracket at a different height in the same bay solves this simply.

Essential #2: Boots

Most AFL players carry at least two pairs of boots: hard-ground studs for dry conditions and a softer, longer stud for wet grounds. Elite players sometimes carry a third pair: a set of moulded-sole boots for synthetic surfaces or training on hard courts. Boot storage in the locker bay is almost always the first thing that gets compromised in an under-designed change room, because boots are large, irregular in shape, and damp after use.

The boot bay at the base of the locker needs three things: height clearance (at least 280mm, ideally 300mm, to accommodate an AFL boot standing upright with laces undone), a slatted or ventilated floor to allow air circulation under the boot, and enough depth front-to-back to take a size 13 boot without the heel protruding. Standard locker depth of 550mm handles this comfortably. Shallower lockers (450mm) force the boot to angle, which does not allow proper airflow and results in the heel taking floor contact stress that damages the back of the boot.

Boot bags, the mesh or fabric bags that players use to transport boots, should hang inside the boot bay or on a hook immediately below it. A boot bag on the floor of the change room is a trip hazard; a boot bag on a hook at ankle height is accessible and out of the traffic line. This detail is worth specifying in the locker design brief, not leaving to individual players to manage.

Essential #3: Strapping and Sports Tape

Strapping tape is used in every AFL change room, before every session. At elite level, the physio team does most of the strapping at a designated station, but players increasingly apply their own pre-session tape to ankles, wrists, and fingers, and every player carries personal rolls. At community level, where physio attendance is less consistent, self-strapping is standard.

The problem with tape storage in most lockers is that it gets buried. A roll of sports tape dropped into the main bay ends up under a jersey or pushed to the back of a shelf, and the player hunting for it three minutes before warm-up is not enjoying the experience. The right approach is a dedicated hook or bracket for tape rolls: typically a horizontal peg or a shallow lip shelf at mid-bay height, where the tape is visible and accessible without lifting anything else out of the way.

Pre-cut tape, zinc oxide tape for blistering, and cohesive bandage for finger joints all need similar accessible storage. Some elite clubs run a communal tape station at the physio bench rather than storing tape at individual lockers, which keeps the locker bay cleaner. At community level, where physio presence is variable, individual tape storage at each bay is more practical and more used. The locker should be designed for both scenarios: a mid-bay shelf that functions as personal tape storage when needed and as general storage when not.

Essential #4: Mouthguard

The mouthguard is mandatory under AFL rules and every player carries one. The storage question is hygiene: a mouthguard that lives loose in the bottom of the main locker bay, among boot mud, damp socks, and strapping tape scraps, is not being maintained appropriately. At elite level, UV mouthguard sanitiser cases are standard at each locker bay, keeping the mouthguard clean and dry between uses. At community level, a ventilated case on a dedicated hook at mid-bay height is the practical equivalent.

Positioning matters too: the hook for the mouthguard case should sit at eye level when the player is seated, roughly 1100–1200mm from the floor. This means the mouthguard is within reach without standing up, which matters in the compression of a pre-game change room. It also keeps the case away from the moisture zone at the base of the locker where boots and wet socks generate humidity.

Custom mouthguards, the individually moulded type used by most senior footballers, are expensive to replace and fragile enough that they need careful storage. The case is the protection mechanism, and the hook is the organisation mechanism. Both are simple design decisions that make a daily operational difference.

Essential #5: Recovery Items

Ice packs, compression sleeves, liniment, and sometimes a foam roller live in or near the AFL locker bay on match and heavy training days. Recovery items are among the heaviest and most awkward things stored in the change room: an ice pack for a knee can weigh 800g and be 30cm long, and they need somewhere specific to go.

At elite level, recovery equipment is staged at the player’s locker before they arrive (ice packs from the freezer, compression sleeves from the physio room) as part of the match-day preparation managed by the training staff. The locker bay needs a shelf or lower storage zone that accommodates this staging without obstructing the player’s main preparation area. A wider under-seat storage zone, accessible by lifting the bench seat, is well suited to bulky recovery items that are not needed until after the match.

Liniment is a specific storage consideration: the smell permeates enclosed spaces quickly, and a bottle left open in the main bay makes the whole locker aromatic in a way not everyone appreciates. A sealed compartment or a lower shelf away from the guernsey storage zone keeps liniment contained. At community level where individual liniment tubes are common, a small shelf at the bottom of the mid-bay section works well.

Essential #6: Personal Items and Electronics

Phones, earphones, wallets, and car keys are in every AFL change room. At elite level, phones are typically collected before match-day warm-up, since AFL clubs have protocols around device use during match preparation, but they are present at the locker before and after the collection window. At community level, there is no collection protocol, and phones stay in the locker through the entire match.

The security requirement is a lockable inner compartment: separate from the main locker bay, with its own key or combination lock, sized for a phone, wallet, keys, and earphone case. This compartment keeps valuables away from the main gear area and provides genuine security against theft in a change room that may have multiple staff, volunteers, and visitors moving through it on match day. The lockable inner compartment is the one feature that players at every level notice and appreciate immediately. It removes a low-level anxiety that exists in every change room without it.

Portable speakers are increasingly common in AFL change rooms, both elite and community, for warm-up music. The locker does not need to accommodate a speaker (that is typically managed by a team DJ or the footy operations staff at a separate station), but it should accommodate charging: a power outlet at mid-bay height or an integrated USB port serves the growing range of devices players charge between matches and training sessions.

Essential #7: Training Kit and Wet Weather Gear

The second full set of clothing (training kit separate from match kit, and wet weather gear that lives at the locker rather than the car) is consistently the most under-designed storage category in AFL change rooms. A player arriving for a Wednesday training session needs to store a second set of clothing in a locker that is already holding match-day kit and personal items. Without designated space for training gear, it ends up on the floor, on the bench, or stuffed into the boot bay.

Wet weather gear deserves particular attention. An AFL winter in Melbourne, Canberra, or Adelaide means a player arriving for training in a rain jacket, puffer vest, or tracksuit over their training kit. That wet weather layer needs somewhere to hang during training and needs to be accessible on the way out. A secondary hook on the outside of the locker door, or a designated panel hook on the wall beside the bay, handles this without taking up internal space. This detail is almost always missing from standard locker specifications and almost always requested after installation.

For community clubs running two-session training weeks plus a Saturday match, the locker is a storage ecosystem that needs to handle three distinct kit loads across the week. Design for the maximum load, not the average: a locker designed for match day only will be disorganised by Tuesday training.

What Separates a Good AFL Locker from a Great One

The difference between a good AFL locker and a great one is accumulation of detail. A good locker has a boot bay, a main hanging section, a mid-shelf, and a hook rail. A great locker has all of that, plus: a ventilated slatted boot bay floor (not a solid shelf), a tape hook at an accessible mid-bay height, a lockable inner compartment at eye level for valuables, a secondary garment hook for training layers, a USB port or power outlet at mid-bay height, and name and number plates that are engraved rather than printed on adhesive labels.

Each of these details costs less than the inconvenience it prevents, multiplied across a 40-player squad using the room four times a week for 20 years. The cumulative maintenance hours saved by having tape on a hook rather than buried in the bay, the player experience improved by a lockable inner compartment, the kit lifespan extended by a ventilated boot bay: these are not marginal improvements. They are the daily compound interest on a good design brief.

Our AFL lockers guide covers the full design specification for AFL change rooms. The complete guide to custom sports lockers works through the broader design process. Both are worth reading before committing to a specification.

Community vs Elite AFL Locker Room: What’s Different and What’s the Same

The 18 AFL clubs play at venues where the change rooms are part of the venue specification: the MCC change rooms at the MCG, the facilities at Adelaide Oval and Optus Stadium, the club-owned training and match-day facilities at Arden Street, Moorabbin, or Alberton. These facilities operate at a specification level that community clubs cannot replicate in full, since the fit-out budgets are different, the available floor space is different, and the operational model is different.

What community clubs can replicate is the design philosophy: individual named bays, ventilated boot storage, accessible tape and mouthguard storage, secure personal items compartments, team branding throughout. These principles work at $597 per bay (Varsity tier) just as they work at the top-specification end of our Stadium and Elite tiers. The quality of the material, solid timber with a commercial finish, is the same. The scale and specification level differ.

A community AFL club with 50 listed players, two training sessions per week, and home games every fortnight across a 20-week season is running its change room hard. That facility deserves the same design intent as an elite facility, delivered at the price point that makes sense for a community organisation. Our wood vs metal comparison shows why solid timber at the Varsity price point outperforms cheap metal over a 15–20 year horizon. For a community club, the economics are compelling.

Next Steps

The AFL locker room is a practical environment, and the seven items covered here (guernsey, boots, strapping tape, mouthguard, recovery items, personal electronics, and training kit) define the design brief precisely. A locker that stores all seven well, at the right heights and with appropriate ventilation and security, is a locker that serves its player properly for 15–20 years. A locker that gets three of the seven right and compromises the rest is a locker that the players work around rather than with.

Whether you are a community club upgrading from metal, a VFL or SANFL club building a new facility, or a school with an AFL programme that has outgrown its change room, the starting point is the same: a free design consultation where we review your space, your squad size, and your brief, and come back with a 3D rendering and fixed quote. Reach out here.