"I got a concussion at training about five or six weeks ago and I can't remember the exact number but it is around the seven, eight or nine concussions now," he told The Standard's Main Break podcast.

"I knew coming into the year I was one or two away from pulling the pin. It didn't feel too bad but the next couple of days I felt really average and I decided to pull the pin a week-and-a-half later.

"I'm not playing footy anymore which is disappointing but it is what it is. I take my health pretty seriously and in the long term I want to look after it. It was hard but it wasn't shattering.

"Now with all the research it made it quite clear I needed to stop. If it is a 50-50 decision it makes it quite harder but when it's 100 per cent you can live through it."

The former South Warrnambool and Camperdown defender has had his fair share of injuries across a 44-game Hampden league senior career.

He had groin issues and ankle sprains as a junior at Leura Oval, broke his collarbone in his second senior season with the Magpies, had his shoulder reconstructed after dislocating it playing in Melbourne, managed achilles issues for a number of years and had an ankle clean out as recent as 2020.

But the multiple concussions have left a more lasting impact on him.

"There are footballers running around now who have had as many as me if not more and have got no symptoms and had no worries," he said.

"That is where it is hard because if you have a hamstring or a calf you recover in X amount of time and then it develops into a chronic thing so that is where it gets hard but I was getting more susceptible.

"The symptoms were worse for longer and more intense over the first couple of days so I definitely noticed that.

"The scary thing about the last one was it wasn't the biggest knock but it still gave me the most symptoms.

"So if I was lying in bed and I'd stand up I felt like I was going to faint, then I'd get a little dizzy and then have quite intense headaches, have fatigue and lights and noise would drive me insane. You can't sleep that well either.

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"That was definitely the most amount of symptoms I've had with not the biggest knock."

Bradshaw said with what he knew now he would have handled his first concussion differently.

"My first one that I felt the symptoms from was against South Warrnambool in 2017. It was a sling tackle, my arms were pinned and I slammed my head on the ground," the 27-year-old recalled.

"Then I felt OK but my ears were ringing and then I was standing at full-back and I was like 'I think this ground is moving and people are moving' and then I went off and from there I had a really tough few weeks.

"I then played in a final two weeks later and probably shouldn't have looking back at it. That's what's hard about concussion, if you don't have one you don't know so at the time I thought I was 100 per cent.

"Now looking back at it it was two or three months down the line where I couldn't have lights on in my office and it coincided with a bad time with university as I couldn't recover and had to keep studying for exams and it dragged on a little bit."

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The Warrnambool-based chiropractor never thought of getting a helmet in his time as a player.

He added if he was playing in another era the idea of retiring because of repeat concussions wouldn't have come up.

"If I were playing footy in the early '90s I would still be playing, there wouldn't be a doubt about that," he said.

"I tell people at the moment who ask 'are you playing footy?' and I say 'nah I've actually pulled the pin because I've been concussed' and not one person has said 'oh come on mate'.

"Everyone is like 'mate, that's a good decision'. That shows you how much things have changed in the last few decades but the last 10 years especially."

Bradshaw was pleased the AFL got on the front foot with its concussion protocols.

"I think it's spot on, especially if it leaks down to country footy, and that's probably because AFL players are so competitive they have to take it out of their hands," he said.

"Footy fans remember the Jordan Lewis and Jarrod Harbrow game from a couple of years ago I think Lewis came back on.

"It is awesome what they are doing now. Imagine if Jordan Lewis did that on the weekend and was back running around we would not stop hearing about it, there would be 50 newspaper articles and the works."

Bradshaw says there is a place for the AFL's medical substitute in community footy but believes other rules might also help.

"I'm more aggressive than that - if there is any doubt on a player just pull them out," he said. "I think on a more broader level they need to be more fluid with the rules.

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"So say the South-Koroit (Good Friday) game where it is 30 degrees and they're still playing 33-minute quarters where it should just be more of a common-sense thing.

"Say Allansford are left with no players and they ask 'can we play with 16 on the ground?'. I don't know why they can't do that, it's common-sense.

"If there are boys spewing after the South game with heat stroke why can't they play 20-minute quarters?.

"There needs to be more common-sense with player safety in general. The hardest thing with country footy is most of the trainers are volunteers.

"I think for them it should be a more aggressive ruling that if you're in doubt then they're not playing so then there is no stress on the trainers and potential risk to the player."

Bradshaw said he hadn't had itchy feet since pulling the pin but would continue to train and be around his football mates. He is now getting back into squash and slowly back into jogging.

The RMIT University graduate said if others are unsure about whether they should retire due to concussion or other injuries they should talk about it to someone.

Bradshaw said more people were starting to understand concussions.

"People always say to me 'I didn't realise you'd been knocked out seven times' but I actually haven't been knocked out. You don't have to be knocked out to have a concussion," he said.

"That is the biggest thing that people ask me about.

"They say they didn't realise you had been knocked out that many times but for me I've never been unconscious but I've had X amount of concussions which were getting more sensitive and with more symptoms.

"That is the main one because people think you have to be stretchered off the ground and go home in an ambulance to have a concussion but that is definitely not the case."

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