Nathan Lovett-Murray

Australian rules footballer

Nathan Lovett Murray (born 18 November 1982) is a former Australian rules footballer with the Essendon Football Club.

Lovett Murray has Indigenous Australian heritage and his tribal ancestry can be traced to the Wamba Wamba and Gunditjmara. He began his football in Victoria playing country football with Heywood and the North Ballarat Rebels.

Lovett Murray was initially rookie listed by Collingwood, playing for the Williamstown Seagulls in the Victorian Football League. After switching to the Bendigo Bombers, he was rookie listed by Essendon in the 2003 Rookie Draft. Lovett Murray was promoted to the senior list early in the 2004 season and played 20 games. He spent the 2005 season on the rookie list again, he was promoted again that season and stayed on the senior list since then. In 2006, Lovett Murray copped a three game suspension from the AFL Tribunal for intentionally striking midfielder Matthew Carr in the Bombers' round fourteen loss to the Dockers at Subiaco Oval. This was one of many lowlights for the club, which finished 15th at the end of the season with just three wins and one draw from 22 matches played. Lovett Murray, along with 33 other Essendon players, was found guilty of using a banned performance enhancing substance, thymosin beta 4, as part of Essendon's sports supplements program during the 2012 season. He and his team mates were initially found not guilty in March 2015 by the AFL Anti Doping Tribunal, but a guilty verdict was returned in January 2016 after an appeal by the World Anti Doping Agency. He was suspended for two years which, with backdating, ended in December 2016; as a result, he served approximately fifteen months of his suspension and missed the entire 2016 season, when he had intended to play and coach for Rumbalara Football Club.

In August 2009, it was reported that Lovett Murray's home had been raided by police on 3 August. He was charged with possession of a drug of dependency, after the search found a single tablet of ecstasy at his home. However, on 11 December it was reported that the drug charge against him had been dismissed. On 22 May 2013, he was stabbed in a domestic incident by a girl's boyfriend and hospitalised. Lovett Murray belongs to a sporting family and is the great grandson of pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls, who played for Fitzroy Football Club. In addition, he is the cousin of former Essendon Football Club player Andrew Lovett.