| |
|
EDITORIAL
THE
CHALLENGE REMAINS
By Geoff Slattery.Now that Brisbane has fallen at the
last hurdle, the challenge remains. To equal Collingwood’s
four straight premierships (1927-30) stands alone as
the ultimate goal of any football team.
To pass it seems inconceivable if a team such as Brisbane
could not claim the quadrella. No team in the modern
era of equalisation and travel has dominated September
like Brisbane, yet not even those brilliant Lions could
overcome a mix of injuries, ageing champions and a Port
Adelaide team that played with all the hardness, flair
and commitment that were, and are, Brisbane’s
signature tunes.
Peter Blucher, once Brisbane’s media manager,
has been part of the club since before it was dominant
and traces every part of the Brisbane story. He says
a new challenge was put to the group moments after its
2004 Grand Final loss: to win the title in 2005, as
Melbourne did in 1959, after its challenge was wrecked
by none other than Collingwood.
Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams’ victory speech
will be part of history for different reasons. He took
a personal challenge into season 2004 after the club’s
major sponsor, Allan Scott, had told the club after
its 2003 finals fadeout that it could not win a premiership
under Williams. This was a challenge that Williams did
not discuss through 2004, but it was one that clearly
rankled, and motivated, if such a double can work together.
With minutes remaining in the Grand Final, he left the
coach’s box and to the cheers of the crowd, he
expunged the club’s tag of chokers, as he play-acted
with a mock self-‘hanging’ with his own
tie. His final words on the dais were: “Allan
Scott: you were WRONG!”
There are so many challenges in football. Some are about
winning, some are about survival. All are allegorical.
Francis Leach’s life has been entwined with the
multitude of challenges facing the St Kilda Football
Club. His story of life with the Saints, is not just
an observer’s tale, but it is the tale of the
observer. It is not just a story of watching the Saints,
but of watching Leach. Year after year, Leach asks himself
why? Sometimes he finds the answer, as often as not
he doesn’t. Maybe there is no clear answer. Maybe
passion for a cause has no logical conclusion. It just
is. Leach’s story is a challenge in itself, a
challenge to himself, a challenge to those of us like
him.
AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou is able to define his challenge
more easily than most: it is the simple goal of ensuring
that his administration is able to hand over to the
next an AFL that is stronger than the one he inherited.
Demetriou’s AFL is far from the AFL that so many
consider it to be: this is not a hard-edged bunch of
business types aloof from the game, its supporters and
its traditions. Demetriou’s AFL is as much a political
party in its essential form: a group of people with
a vision, a dream, not only for what is best for now,
but also for the future.
Like Leach, Bruce Guthrie found his love of football
in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Broadmeadows.
Unlike Leach, Guthrie left Melbourne to follow his professional
opportunities, but his love for the AFL, and the Essendon
footy club, have never left him, and never will. His
need – very much like Demetriou’s –
to pass on his love and understanding of his game to
his son, Scott, is palpable as he describes the life
and times of a Melbourne boy in New York and now in
Sydney, and how he tried every ploy – subtle and
not so subtle – to convince Scott to follow the
game of his dad’s dreams.
Jason Kimberley, a unique talent as both writer and
photographer, comes from rich football blood. His father
Craig was president of the South Melbourne Football
Club, a benefactor to the club in Sydney and a dynamic
AFL Commissioner. Jason’s memories of his youth
at the Lakeside Oval are so much a part of why we love
the game. It’s not all about now, but of all that
went before. Kimberley’s words and photos show
much of what has influenced us, what has formed us.
The Challenge is the second edition of the Australian
Football: a quarterly journal of essays, ideas, commentary
and illustration. Publication has been a challenge in
itself. This is an ambitious project, and one that will
take many editions to find its place as a commercial
success. We remain committed to face down that challenge,
and win. Our next edition will be published on the eve
of the 2005 season, a season already anticipated as
keenly as the 108 that have preceded it whether your
team was a winner, or perennial loser, or somewhere
in between.
The third journal will be as ambitious as this and its
predecessor. It will define the life of an AFL player:
we will describe every part of that life through the
minds of the players. We will consider the ambition
of a draft pick, the reality of a rookie. We will define
the midyears, the twilight years, the final year. We
will paint the picture of the truth of an AFL player,
over a lifetime.
Finally, on behalf of all of us who have put so much
into this concept, I’d like to thank you for your
post-first edition contributions, by letter, voice and
email. We have also been flooded with manuscripts, ideas,
comments and advice. As soon as this edition works its
way into the marketplace, we will respond to you all.
We look forward to more challenges. It’s what
the game is all about.
Geoff Slattery, Series Editor
|
 THE
ULTIMATE CHALLENGE
THE
HUNT FOR FOR 4
By Peter Blucher.It started
with an experience Lions captain Michael Voss labelled
“humiliating and embarrassing” and “a
disgrace to the jumper”. In round eight, 2001,
at Optus Oval, the Brisbane Lions were obliterated
by Carlton. It was the ultimate wake-up call for a
playing group that had been around the mark for two-plus
years without really making a statement.
From that 9.14 (68) to 21.16 (142) scoreline on Saturday,
May 19, was born the juggernaut that became the best
team of the modern era. A side that would win three
premierships in a row in 2001 to 2003, taking all
before it under the masterful coaching of Leigh Matthews
and the inspirational leadership of Voss. And in 2004,
it would be looking to equal Collingwood’s four
in a row of 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930.
It was all about role-playing, they learnt. About
individuals being prepared to forgo personal recognition
in pursuit of team success. About accepting that each
member of
the team had a key part to play, irrespective of goals
or possessions. About understanding that the first
line of attack is the last line of defence. And that
the first line of defence is the last line of attack.
It’s about recognising that defensive pressure
from the forward line and midfielders who are prepared
to push back to help out are just as important in
stopping opposition scoring as the one-on-one skills
of a defender. And that a backman who is prepared
to run 20 times to create a possible attacking opportunity
is just as important as the one time he might actually
get the ball.
And it was about the fact that tackles, chases, smothers,
shepherds and spoils are
just as important as kicks, marks, handballs and goals.
“It’s as simple as football can be. We
can be the most talented group of individuals of all
time, but unless we’re all pulling in the same
direction, we aren’t going to be successful,”
said Voss at the time.
And so it was. As simple as that. Then and from that
point on. Because thereafter, the Lions did their
utmost to respect the individual contributions to
the team good. Publicly and privately. And as often
as possible. The simple things, the corny things even,
like ‘it’s us and we that counts not I
and me’. And the old ‘there’s no
I in team’. It was all part of a new beginning.
The Lions didn’t win the week after their Carlton
humiliation. They were five-point losers to Adelaide
at the Gabba. But they were much, much better. And
the week after that, round 10, they did win. A monumental
28-point win over 2000 premier Essendon in a game
indelibly branded by Matthews’ unforgettable
“if it bleeds you can kill it” line.
Little did he know that he was developing a mighty
football power, which, for a time, was almost immune
to the customary football ‘kill’. They
didn’t lose another game in 2001, winning 16
straight. On Grand Final day, up against the same
rival they had started their remarkable run against,
they won by 26 points. The first AFL premiership for
a so-called developing football state.
In the 2002 Grand Final, they beat Collingwood by
nine points. In 2003, they beat Collingwood again,
this time by 50 points. The team from the north, born
seven years earlier via a merger of the fledgling
Brisbane Bears and the battle-scarred Fitzroy Lions,
had become the AFL benchmark.
It was a special group. Not since 1955-56-57 had a
side won three consecutive flags. With the advent
of the AFL national draft and the salary cap –
man-made equalisation tools – no side was meant
to win three straight.
But this was a truly special group, blessed with a
unique blend of youth and experience, power and speed,
and with extraordinary leadership capabilities. It
was prepared to sacrifice individual and monetary
reward for team good. Not once but twice. So tight
that if anyone dared go elsewhere, he was branded
a traitor…
(Full story in Australian Football: A Quarterly Journal
of Essays, Ideas, Commentary and Illustration, issue
No. 2, The Challenge)
|
 FIRST
PERSON
INSIDE
THE BUBBLE
By Peter Schwab.SATURDAY,
JULY 24, 2004, would have been my daughter Emily’s
15th birthday.
It was also the last time I coached the Hawthorn Football
Club.
I understand perspective. I try to live it every day,
but in a world called AFL football, it is sometimes
hard.
The Tuesday before, July 20, I was told by Hawthorn
that I was no longer required as coach. The message
was delivered by representatives of the board —
the president, Ian Dicker, who I had come to know
over the previous five years; Dermott Brereton, who
I first met when he was a precocious talent aged just
18, some 22 years ago, and Jason Dunstall, who arrived
at Glenferrie at the start of 1985 as a goalkicker.
Brereton and Dunstall are not only playing legends
of the club, they are also premiership teammates of
mine.
The dream was over.
WHEN I AWOKE on my last Saturday morning as Hawthorn
coach, I felt how (I imagine) someone feels when the
person they love tells them the love will no longer
be reciprocated.
I have known the Hawthorn Football Club since I was
16; I am now 45. In that time, I have always believed
in Hawthorn, given my heart and soul to it, even loved
it, if you can love something as intangible as a football
club. My passion, my drive, my energy, my optimism,
my enthusiasm, my working life … all collapsed
when I was told I wasn’t needed any more.
After I was told I wouldn’t be coaching in 2005,
I still believed I could go on until the end of the
year – after all, it was just a half-dozen games.
I still believed l could give the relationship something.
I was wrong.
Why were we staying together? What were we trying
to do for each other? As hard as it was, we were delaying
the inevitable. So we said goodbye and we left each
other on as good a terms as we could, given the circumstances.
But for me, a large part of my life ended and as sad
as that is, I look forward to seeing what happens
next. Of course I will watch the Hawthorn Football
Club with great interest and hope, but never again
will I be involved with all my heart, even though
I will always have a place in my heart for it…
(Full story in Australian Football: A Quarterly Journal
of Essays, Ideas, Commentary and Illustration, issue
No. 2, The Challenge)
|
 FIRST
PERSON
TO
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
By Francis Leach.The Animals
– Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Last year, I had the honour of spending two hours
in conversation with Eric Burdon, one of the great
blues men of the late 20th century. He was in town
to promote his new autobiography which charts his
remarkable life from the tough, post-war streets of
north-west England to the Ed Sullivan Show; from touring
around the UK on a bus trying to stop Jerry Lee Lewis
killing Chuck Berry with an impressive array of hand
guns to ending up down and out on Sunset Boulevard
in the ’70s.
What to ask him first then? I needn’t have worried.
As soon as he strode into the room, he spotted my
Arsenal shirt and was on me in a flash. “Did
Newcastle win last night? Did Shearer score?”
The old Geordie rock dog may have travelled far and
wide in his life and, like his beloved Newcastle United,
he has made plenty of mistakes along the way that
have denied him greater glory. Regardless, his head
and heart belong to the black-and-white stripes and
he still dreamt of the lush green turf of St James’
Park.
Thankfully, I was able to answer yes to both questions.
We got along famously after that, though he never
did understand why I’d take Dennis Bergkamp
over Alan Shearer any time.
I’m catching a train to Geelong to watch my
football team, just like I’ve done for the past
30 years. Alone on the platform, a sad creature of
habit at the arse end of the world who should know
better, and does, but can’t – no, won’t
– break the habit of a lifetime.
Friends who were spared the affliction of football
in their childhood are often incredulous at the lengths
I would go to see my team play. I have a lot of friends
who live seemingly normal lives without a football
team to call their own, though if I were to admit
it, I’m incredulous at their immunity to the
game’s charms.
They think I’m infantile and crazy; I think
their lives are about as exciting as being locked
in an Ikea store with an allen key for a month. Their
self-satisfied smugness sometimes breaks the surface
with comments such as: “You’re going to
Brisbane to do what?” “Football. Oh, come
on, really? It’s only a game!”
More than one friendship has been lost to those words.
You don’t have to understand, but you do have
to respect my particular brand of insanity. Hell,
if only I understood.
Does this actually pass muster as a so-called life?
Serious people don’t catch the ‘Footy
Express’ to The Cattery to suck down beers and
meat pies and yell obscenities at anaemic, orange-clad
pinheads with whistles. They don’t schedule
a date on the terraces to bemoan the inability of
a muscle-bound wrecking ball called ‘The G-Train’
to chase his man up field. People of real eminence
and import don’t care that Robert Harvey has
been known to run 20 kilometres in a game or that
the last time Stephen Milne got close to a tackle
was when he went out fishing as a kid. Those people
are out building cities, mapping the human genome,
curing cancer and working on a secret recipe for chocolate-flavoured
beer. They don’t have time for this.
But I do…
(Full story in Australian Football: A Quarterly Journal
of Essays, Ideas, Commentary and Illustration, issue
No. 2, The Challenge)
|
 NEWS
A FACELESS OPPONENT
By Ben Collins.The
trademark smile on Brad Johnson’s face wasn’t
as genuine as usual. While the normally exuberant,
rosy-cheeked Bulldog did his best to celebrate a thrilling,
come-from-behind victory in the First Test of the
2000 International Rules Series at Ireland’s
Croke Park, his mind was literally half a world away.
Back home, in Melbourne’s western suburbs, Johnson’s
wife of barely a year was bedridden.
Intermittently ill for months, Donna Johnson had endured
a series of viruses that seemed to run their course
but never fully leave her system. This most recent
bout flared during a holiday in Queensland with the
young family of Johnson’s best mate and teammate,
and Smith. It was a trip to help the champion duo
recharge their batteries before they went off to Ireland.
No one had any inkling that Donna’s condition
would deteriorate, or that it was actually a debilitating
disorder that would have long-term implications. It
was expected that she’d simply rest up and get
over it – like she’d done before. But
this wasn’t like before. Life for the Johnsons
was about to change.
While Brad was in Ireland, Donna became progressively
worse and was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Although he didn’t show it, the normally self-assured
Johnson was confused and racked with doubt and fear.
“What the hell is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?”
he wondered. “(Brisbane Lions veteran) Alastair
Lynch has got it, but what is it? How do we deal with
it? What impact will it have on our lives?”
Questions that he was unable to answer raced through
his brain.
During a series of long-distance telephone conversations,
Johnson says Donna was “brave” and “chirpy”
and initially didn’t give him a true indication
of how bad she was actually feeling – an attitude
Johnson both admired and abhorred. Donna told her
husband she would be OK and that he should focus on
playing well for Australia – an honour he richly
deserved after earning his second All-Australian selection.
Johnson, just 24 at the time and a 24-hour flight
away, felt helpless. He was physically unable to help
his wife, his high school sweetheart, in her greatest
time of need, and it was weighing heavily on him.
He agonised over his predicament: “Should I
go? Should I stay?”…
(Full story in Australian Football: A Quarterly Journal
of Essays, Ideas, Commentary and Illustration, issue
No. 2, The Challenge)
|
|
•
• 
•
