‘Razor Ray’ Chamberlain names his favourite AFL player to umpire

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‘Razor’ Ray Chamberlain is without doubt the most iconic AFL umpire in the recent memory of many.

Beginning his career at the top level in 2004, Chamberlain officiated AFL games until 2024, totalling more than 380 games in the middle.

Chamberlain was known for his interactions with players, as the umpire’s personality came out more than any other whilst giving directions and reasoning behind his decisions.

With that in mind, there’s no surprise his favourite player to umpire across those two decades was also someone who loved a chat on field, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin.

“Bud's always been my favourite,” Chamberlain said on SEN.

“I just marvelled at his ability to play, but his personality on-field - which is different to who I'm sure he is as a human being and how I've found him off-field – he’d just say some funny stuff.

“He was always entertaining, always engaging.”

Other characters that Chamberlain enjoyed conversing with on-field included those that were funny, constantly nagging and even the Cornes brothers, despite neither Kane nor Chad having much going for them in terms of banter.

“Then over the journey, it's changed so much because when I started, we didn't have the match communications vests. So, as you can imagine, the dialogue took a different tone,” Chamberlain said.

“But there are so many characters, like Andrew Mackie from Geelong was just so funny. He was never derogatory to anyone but God, he was funny.

“Ben Hudson, the people's beard, he was always at me, but always funny.

“The Cornes Brothers, they needed new material. They'd roll the same stuff out (all the time).

“That's why I'm so actually staggered that Kane's so unbelievable in the media because when he was playing, it was the same crap every week like, ‘You owe us one!’. So, he’s grown and kudos to him.”

Chamberlain discussed his career and much more on this week’s episode of This is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.

Listen to the full chat with the former umpire and Sam Edmund below.