5'11"  12st.10lb.
b. Sydney (Australia) 8 February 1970
 

Debut  9 August 1997 (27y 182d) Final Game 10 October 2001 (31y 30d)
CAREER: St Michael's,Meadowcroft;Marist Brothers Eastwood '87;Budapest St George '89;Wollongong Wolves '91;Budapest St George '92;Wollongong Wolves '92;Stoke City (trial);Southampton (trial);Peterborough United (trial);Cambridge United Mar'93 (£40,000)[68];Nottingham Forest Dec'94 (loan);Coventry City Mar'95 (£300,000)[15+1];Blackburn Rovers Jul'97 (£700,000);Wigan Athletic Dec'01-Jun’07 (£400,000)[187];Doncaster Rovers Oct’06-Nov’06 (loan)[3].
INTERNATIONALS   Australia 2 apps
’92 v Uru.’97 v Hun.
HONOURS FLC los (Wigan Athletic) ’06.” Div Ch (Wigan Athletic) ’03.
SQUAD NUMBER  13 Aug’97  1 Aug’99  13 Aug’01.
 

PL/FL   61 + 1 apps  - 3 wdn                                                     53 ns
FAC        5 apps          - 1 wdn                                                        5 ns
FLC         6 apps                                                                               4 ns
UEFA                                                                                                2 ns
Total     72  + 1 apps   - 4 wdn  + 45m -177m  et 60m           64 ns
Penalty record F 8 Sc 4 Sv 3 M 1 (SO) F 4 Sc 2 M 2
Minutes per goal  87  Clean sheet %  31
Longest unbeaten  234m First conceded 234m
Most goals one game   4

After a successful Olympic Games in which he played in the third place play off, Filan tried his luck in England. It took several trials at various clubs before he was signed by Cambridge and even when he made the starting line up there, a move up the ladder to Coventry brought only more frustration. Spotted by Tony Parkes and Derek Fazackerley, playing in the Coventry reserves, he was brought to Ewood because Shay Given was not prepared to understudy Tim Flowers and had moved to Newcastle. Although he was unknown the first sight of Filan was sufficient to convince the fans they had an ample replacement and indeed he subsequently kept Flowers out of the first team. Not a tall man he was superbly agile, left his line with conviction and when presented with a physical challenge he punched his weight. A dreadful broken arm injury sidelined him but he had regained his place when Souness decided that Brad Friedel was the man he wished to have between the Blackburn posts. Not a man to tolerate inactivity, Filan dropped down two divisions in search of regular football and was rewarded with a Second Division Championship medal with Wigan and then helped them gain promotion to the Premiership. He delayed retirement and played his part in the club settling in the upper league before returning to Australia in 2007 to supervise the building of a new house. He was almost immediately tempted out of retirement and signed for Sydney but changed his mind three days later because of personal reasons. However he did become the club’s goalkeeping coach. After eight years in Australia he decided to return to live in Lancashire. A chance meeting with the club’s reserve team coach Eric Kinder, led to him joining the club as his assistant in September 2014 but he left in February 2016. In September he took over as coach at Burscough. After helping William Askey at Macclesfield  he became his assistant when Askey became  manager of Shrewsbury in June 2018.