KEENAN Ramsey is 193cm tall, one of the most promising young footballers in South Australia and on the radar of AFL recruiters – and he only has one eye.

Cancer at the age of two left the Sacred Heart College and Port Adelaide Magpies teenager with one glass eye.

Not that you would know from watching him play. The 17-year-old is athletic and moves freely about the field, he can take a strong mark, is a beautiful right-foot kick and can evade a tackle just as well as he can lay one.

His peripheral vision might not be that of his opponents but, because it’s all he’s ever known, Ramsey has learnt to compensate for it and he reads the play in heavy traffic like he has a sixth sense.

The Port Lincoln product plays as a forward for the Port Magpies, in the ruck for Sacred Heart where he is a boarder, and as a key defender in the state under-18 team which is about to start the national championships where every AFL recruiter in the country will be watching.

“As a young fella Mum and Dad said ‘this is how you’re going to be’ and I got teased a bit in primary school but people were just unsure because you’re a bit different,” Ramsey said.

“But I’m really open about it and I think that shows people that it’s all right. I think I’m the same as the person next to me and see the way the next person does.

“I’ve had a few people doubt my ability because of my sight and that’s just been fuel for the fire and given me more determination to prove them wrong.

“I’ve adapted with my peripheral vision and you just move your head a bit more so I’m used to that, and playing from under-10s to what I’m doing now, I don’t think any differently.”

The problem was discovered when Ramsey was two-and-a-half, when his mum asked him to cover one eye and tell her how many fingers she was holding up.

Ramsey couldn’t see and doctors told them they feared it could be retinoblastoma – cancer of the retina – which specialists in Adelaide confirmed.

Within six months Ramsey had chemotherapy and lost his hair, and underwent an operation to remove his eye to reduce the risk of the cancer spreading.

For football reasons, Ramsey prefers to keep private which eye he is missing. But the fact he is missing an eye at all came as a surprise to state under-18 coach Brenton Phillips earlier this year.

“I’d been watching him since last year and didn’t know anything about it until we had our academy training camp in February and someone mentioned it to me,” Phillips said.”

“I was surprised, but because it happened at such an early age he’s been able to adjust and it doesn’t seem to affect him at all.”

Phillips knows AFL recruiters will question Ramsey and test him throughout the year, but he doesn’t believe there’s any reason he should be judged differently to the thousands of other young AFL hopefuls.



“From what I’ve seen and witnessed him doing in the last eight months, there’s no reason in my view he couldn’t be drafted (because of it),” Phillips said.

Three years ago a chance meeting with Adelaide 36ers basketballer Eddie Shannon, who also has one eye and had a distinguished college and European career, left Ramsey with some advice that he has followed ever since.

“I got to meet him after the game and he said ‘you just have to work harder than the person next to you’ and I’ve taken that in my stride,” Ramsey said.

It’s his commitment off the field as well as his talent on it – such as opting to stay in Adelaide last summer to work on his fitness and skills instead of going home to Port Lincoln – that attracted Sports and Entertainment Legal Management to pursue Ramsey’s signature earlier this year.

His manager Nick Ramsey, who is no relation, but also went to Sacred Heart College, which has produced champions like Matthew Pavlich, the Cornes brothers and young guns Hamish Hartlett and Jack Redden, says talent does not discriminate.

“If you can play footy, you can play footy,” he said.

“There has been interest (from AFL clubs) and while we don’t feed back to our young guys everything that’s going on behind the scenes, it is important we educate clubs that this is not something that’s happened the last couple of years.”

“Keenan has lived with this basically his whole life and he doesn’t know any different.

“But one of the big things that attracted us was his character because his professionalism exceeds his years.

“Because he had that setback when he was younger, he has left no stone unturned in making sure that everything he does with his footy, he does properly.”

For Keenan Ramsey– who had a regulation night at full back in SA’s trial game win over Norwood’s reserves on Friday night –, this season has so far gone to plan.

“My main goal has been to play really solid footy out at Port and also at school then hopefully that can open the opportunity to play in the state under-18 side,” he said.

“Then if I get the opportunity (I want to) consolidate my spot and contribute to the side.”