Warwick Capper is still Warwick Capper. Or Wiz. Or Caapppeer. Always will be.

He’s a 55-year-old former Sydney Swans high-flyer living the life of a 25-year-old Sydney Swans high-flyer. And loving it.

Interview him for just a few minutes and you are left in no doubt that, although the hair is shorter and the shorts are a bit longer and not as tight, he hasn’t changed one little bit.

Now based in Melbourne, he said: “I’m living the dream with all the beautiful people in my $3.8 million house out at Balwyn and driving around in my CLS Mercedes. I’m the only bloke still living off his name 30 years on,” he added.

“And don’t forget to plug my TV show.”

Yes, Wiz. Will do.

These days, in addition to his core business of “180-200” speaking engagements and promotional appearances a year, Capper is part of the team  on “The Platform”, a late night entertainment show seen on Foxtel Aurora.

In series one earlier this year it was headed by high profile criminal defence lawyer Michael Kuzilny, who conducted a series of celebrity interviews, with Capper doing weekly ‘ Warwick’s World’ spots.

But in series two, that will start soon, Capper will have a more prominent role. He will be joined by long-time good mate and former radio DJ Andy James, better known as ‘Togsy’, in conducting their own celebrity interviews from any and all profile walks of life.

“We’ll have actors, singers, sports people .. everything. It’ll be huge,” he promises.

That is the public Capper. Larger than life and, as he rightly and unashamedly points out, still living on the notoriety of his days with the Swans in the mid-1980s.

But truth be known, as much as he plays the village idiot, talking up his massive ego and telling anyone who will listen how much he loves himself, there is another side to him. It’s the football Wiz.

People who have been close to him understand he’s not as silly as he makes out, and those who played football with him always say “he’s a good bloke – he loves playing the fool but when the cameras were off he was just like any other player. And he could really play.”

Indeed he could. In 1986-87, when Tom Hafey was in charge and Gerard Healy and Greg Williams ruled the Swans midfield, Capper was at his best.

In the two years that genuinely were ‘Capper time’ only 10 players kicked more than 100 goals. There was Richmond’s Michael Roach (103), Hawthorn’s Dermott Brereton (108), Geelong’s Gary Ablett Snr (118), Fitzroy’s Richard Osborne (124), Carlton’s Stephen Kernahan (135), Collingwood’s Brian Taylor (160), Footscray’s Simon Beasley (161), Hawthorn’s Jason Dunstall (171), St Kilda’s Tony Lockett (177) … and Capper (195).

He kicked 92 in ’86 to finish second in the goal-kicking behind Taylor (100), and 103 in ’87 to finish second again behind Lockett (117).

He kicked a career-best 10 as a 22-year-old in his 38^th game in a one-point SCG loss to Richmond in Round 8, 1986, and in Round 1, 1987 booted nine in a famous 91-point Victoria Park win over Collingwood in which the Magpies fielded no less than seven debutants, including 1990 premiership players Gavin Crososca, Michael Christian, Gavin Brown and Craig Starcevich.

In the same period he topped five goals a further 16 times including two sevens and two eights.

It was all part of the story that made Capper one of just three Swans players to have kicked 100 goals in a season – Bob Pratt and Tony Lockett are the other two – and sees him 11^th on the club’s all-time goal-kicking list with 311 goals in 88 games.

On a goals-per-game basis for players who played a minimum 50 games he sits fourth at 3.60 behind only Lockett, Pratt and Simon Minton-Connell.

Only 11 Swans players with 50 games have averaged better than two goals a game. They are:

4.71 - Tony Lockett (98 games)
4.31 - Bob Pratt (158)
3.67 - Simon Minton-Connell (46)
3.60 - Warwick Capper (88)
3.16 - Lance Franklin (102)
2.88 - Barry Hall (162)
2.83 - Ted Johnson (136)
2.70 - John Roberts (50)
2.48 - Laurie Nash (99)
2.18 - Roy Moore (66)
2.05 - John Sudholz (86)

Five others have averaged three goals or better from limited games: Lindsay White (4.44 from 25 games), Jack Mulligan (3.38 from 8 games), Austin Robertson Jnr (3.33 from 18 games), Daniel Bradshaw (3.11 from 9 games) and Harry Brereton (3.06 from 17 games).

Yet in a massive shock to the football world the Capper story took an unlikely twist at the end of ’87 when he was pilfered by Christopher Skase and made the face of the Brisbane Bears for their second year in the VFL in 1988.

The highest-paid player in the game at the time, he kicked 70 goals in 34 games in three years for the Carrara-based Bears, including eight against Richmond on his 25^th birthday in 1988, and four including a last-minute winner that gave the Bears an unlikely three-point victory over Carlton at Princes Park in 1989.

He enjoyed a huge profile in a market dominated by the Brisbane Broncos, and was especially good with kids. Long-time football people in Queensland still rave about his willingness to give of his time when others saw that sort of thing as a chore.

But it didn’t really work at the Bears, where Capper claimed teammates wouldn’t kick him the ball because they were jealous of his rich pay packet,  and he returned to the Swans in 1991 after a trade for selection #68 in the National Draft.

He kicked 38 goals in 13 games with the Swans in ’91, including two in Dennis Carroll’s 200^th game in Round 19, but that was the end. A knee injury and a falling out with coach Col Kinnear meant it was his last game. At 28, Capper’s AFL career was over.

In retirement Capper continued to love the spotlight, and was never far from it.

Among his exploits while enjoying life on the Gold Coast glitter strip were stints on Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Apprentice, a photo shoot for Australian Penthouse and a charity boxing match against rugby league star Wendall Sailor.

For a period he worked as a stop-go man with the Gold Coast City Council, and in 2009 he announced he would contest the 2009 Queensland State election for the seat of Beaudesert against Pauline Hansen. But he missed the nomination deadline.

It was a very public lifestyle but not so well known, or forgotten by most, is how it all started.

His father Wally, a stocky rover, played in the Ovens and Murray League with Lou Richards, and with the Fitzroy Reserves, before a broken leg cut short his football career.

Denied his football dream, Wally turned his hand to coits and as Capper recalls he got himself into the Guinness Book of Records nine times. “He had a good eye – he’d make 3000 or 4000 without missing,” he said.

Young Warwick grew up in suburban Huntingdale in Melbourne’s east and played junior football with Oakleigh alongside former Sydney and Carlton star and near neighbour David Rhys-Jones. He won the club’s Under 11 best and fairest in 1974 and the Under 16 best and fairest in 1979.

When Rhys-Jones broke into the South Melbourne senior team in 1980 Capper, 12 months younger than his good mate, said to himself “I’m as good as him – if he can do it I can do it” and set himself to play AFL football.

Recruited by South after graduating from the Cazaly Squad, he played in the Under 19s in 1980-81 but found the step up to senior football more challenging. In ’82 he returned to Oakleigh to play with and against men in the Federal League in the hope of bolstering his AFL claims.

It was a smart move. He won the League best and fairest playing as a ruckman/full forward and in ’83 got a call-up from coach Ricky Quade to make his AFL debut against North Melbourne at Arden Street.

Capper shared his debut with Steven Hedley as Francis Jackson played his 100^th AFL game and Rhys-Jones his 54^th game.

Memories? “I did OK – kicked a goal with my first kick – but we lost I think,” he said.

No Caps. Wrong. Stats say it was five kicks, one handball, two marks, one hit-out, two free kicks for and five free kicks against. No goals. But South did lose by 32 points.

Hedley did kick a goal but never played another senior game. And Capper was dropped the following week.

It was Round 3, 1984 before Capper got his next chance against St Kilda at Moorabbin. An 18-year-old Lockett was at the other end in his 15^th game. The rising Saints superstar kicked six and the Capper stats read five kicks, two marks, two handballs and his first goal. And five free kicks against. Sydney won by 29 points.

It was hardly an auspicious introduction, but Capper had 16 disposals and kicked 2.4 in his next game in Round 8 and conceded only three free kicks to hold his spot in Round 9.

“I took a hanger on (Gary) Malarkey (in Round 9) and suddenly people were saying ‘this kid can play’. I kicked four that day and after that I got a regular game,” he said,

In fact it was only three goals, but the outrageously confident young man was away. He moved to Sydney at the end of the season to begin what he called ‘The Warwick Capper Side Show’.

Twenty-five years on Wally Capper, a long-time Melbourne City Council worker who turned 88 last November, now lives with wife Nancy in the Melbourne seaside suburb of Mt Martha.

Wiz, now engaged to the lovely Lisa, visits regularly and says his parents are still his biggest fans. “They love me – how could they not,” he said. Of course!