John Raymond Stephens (born 15 September 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer and cricketer during the early 1970s who played for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and also represented Victoria in first-class cricket.

Stephens was a goalkicking rover and, after managing eleven majors in a VFA game for Sandringham, was picked up by St Kilda.

He played the first six games of the 1971 VFL season before succumbing to a thigh injury which would keep him out of the side for the rest of the year. St Kilda made the Grand Final that year.

A consistent performer up forward, only four times in his league career did he fail to kick a goal in a game. Thanks to his solid finals performance in 1972, he managed to leapfrog Allan Davis, who was leading St Kilda's goal-kicking after the home-and-away season, with 53 goals for the year, including four in their Elimination Final win over Essendon; however, he again missed out on playing in the grand final when Carlton defeated the Saints in the preliminary final on the back of a seven-goal effort from football Legend Alex Jesaulenko.

As a cricketer, Stephens was a left-handed middle-order batsman and appeared in a total of four first-class matches in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 Sheffield Shield seasons. On his debut against Queensland at the MCG, he made his highest score of 48 in the second innings.^[1] Stephens finished his career with a disappointing 123 runs at an average of 15.37. He had played with fellow VFL footballers Peter Bedford, John Scholes and Max Walker.

References

External links

• John Stephens's playing statistics from AFL Tables
• John Stephens at ESPNcricinfo
• John Stephens at CricketArchive (subscription required)