Stephen Laybutt

Stephen Laybutt made his professional football début with the Wollongong Wolves in 1995 before joining the Brisbane Strikers in 1997. Domestically Laybutt played for several clubs in the National Soccer League and the Newcastle Jets in the A-League, winning the 2007–08 Championship with the latter. He also played overseas including for Feyenoord in the Netherlands, Lyn Oslo in Norway, and K.A.A. Gent in Belgium where he made 70 appearances for the team from 2004 until 2007.

At an international level Laybutt first played for the Australia U23 team in 1998, culminating with him playing in the football tournament at his home Olympics in Sydney in 2000. He played in all three of Australia’s group matches; the team lost all their games, however, and were eliminated from the competition. After the Olympics he made 15 appearances for the senior men’s team and was part of the squads that won two editions of the OFC Nations Cup (2000, 2004).

In 2008 Laybutt’s football career ended when he suffered an Achilles tendon rupture whilst playing for the Newcastle Jets. After his football career he worked in the rehab unit at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. In 2021 he made the headlines when he donated one of his kidneys to a patient on dialysis at the hospital. Tragically Laybutt was found dead in January 2024 near to Cabarita Beach, New South Wales, with the police ruling his death as a suicide.