25 icons of Broken Hill Sport: Dean Solomon – North Broken Hill Football Club
A NORTH Broken Hill Bulldog and the Silver City’s only premiership player of the AFL, era Dean Solomon still continues his football life today.
Only son of Peter – a former North Broken premiership player himself – and Gale Solomon, Dean excelled at football, cricket and basketball in his youth.
These days he moved into the administration ranks, after more than two decades as a player and coach.
He is now a board member at the Essendon Bombers, elected in 2024.
Along with Taylor Walker, this North Bulldogs pair are the only two 200-game AFL footballers in the modern era from the district.
“I started at six or seven and played all my junior football in Broken Hill,” Solomon said, in a previous interview with the author.
“We had a pretty good record two, with five or six premierships from Under 9s through to Under 17s.
“Among the talented junior I played with included the Eddy brothers, Josh and Heath, Todd Baldwin, Mikel Lihou and Michael Denton.
“I was a lucky to have a couple of good junior coaches at the Bulldogs, including the Eddy brothers’ dad, Brian, Peter Baldwin and Wayne Walker, Taylor’s father.”
At age of 16 Solomon spent a season in the North’s senior A Grade team as well, but didn’t play in that year’s Bulldogs grand final appearance because he tore a tendon in his finger representing New South Wales.
Along with representing Broken Hill and the District in representative football, Solomon won selection for the NSW/ACT Rams at the first Under 18s championships in 1997.
Gaining All-Australian honours at this level, Solomon played alongside Essendon’s Mark McVeigh, St Kilda champion Lenny Hayes and Swan Craig Bolton.
“I then spent a year with the Bendigo Pioneers in the TAC under 18s competition, after being awarded at AFL scholarship,” Solomon said.
“I was then drafted to Essendon as a 17-year-old.
In front of 86, 000 patron in the 1998 ANZAC day clash with Collingwood, Solomon made his AFL debut against Collingwood.
“Sheeds (Bombers coach Kevin Sheedy) liked to throw the young guys in the deep end and see hope we coped on the big stage,” Solomon said.
“The 2000 grand final was certainly the pinnacle at 20 years of age.
“This was important after we received the “marsh mellows” tag from the media in 1998 and it was important we shook off the ‘soft’ label.
“We had a very physical pre-season in ’99 and that is where it all started.
“That year we had the famous one-point preliminary final loss to Carlton and in 2000 we were ruthless.”
After gaining the “holy grail” in 2000, Solomon also played in the following seasons grand final against Brisbane, vividly recollecting after the Essendon forwards missed easy set shots early and he felt the Bombers backline was under siege, especially in the third quarter.
After a 158-game and 56-goal tenure at Windy Hill until the end of 2006 season, Solomon explained that Kevin Sheedy made it public that either Jason Johnson or he needed to move on.
“Sheeds’ suggested the game had passed me by,” Solomon said.
“I was in Spain, surfing I think and got on the front foot and with my manager, we suggested I like to continue by career with the Dockers.
“Two people I had a lot of dealings with and respected in my time at Essendon, Robert Shaw and Mark Harvey were a part of the Fremantle coaching staff.
“Harvs’ was the guy who gave me a lot of support at the Bombers.
“He gave me a lot of confidence and believed in me.”
With Harvey moving into the senior role at the Fremantle Dockers, Solomon played a further 51 games, gaining his 200-game milestone in 2009.
In early 2010 Solomon announced his retirement from AFL football after a painful degenerative knee injury forced his decision.
He joined the newly formed Gold Coast Football Club as an assistant coach in the months preceding their entry to the AFL for the 2011 season.
During the 2017 campaign, Solomon was appointed caretaker senior coach of Suns, with three matches left to go after Rodney Eade stepped down.
After nearly a decade as an assistant he moved away from football for a couple of years but returned in that role with the GWS Giants for the second half of the 2022 season.
Away from football, Solomon has undertaken successful business ventures including as the founder and director of SALT Movement and Recovery, a fitness and wellness facility with two locations in East Melbourne and Kingscliff near Tweed Heads in NSW.
As a player, Solomon predominantly played as a hard as nails running defender.
Always priding himself on his fierce attack on the ball and winning the 50-50 contest, he may have got a little white line fever occasionally, but had a distinguished career in our native football code.
