It's a packing football.
In one agonizing moment, half of these people will be plunged into despair, and the other
half into ecstasy.
A frenzied rush, a fateful mark, and one deadly kick brings a surge of naked emotion.
For 100 years, the fans have worshipped such eye drama, millions of them, bonded together
by the fortunes of their teams, though they may be as different as paupers, priests and
poets.
The passion for Australian football, sired last century on the playing fields of Melbourne,
has bred a national obsession, making some men heroes, some villains, and some who are
both.
It gives you an amazing thrill, even going down to watch those fellows that you've only
seen on cigarette cards and heard their names mentioned in the paper, to go down there and
play with them, it's out of this world.
Of all the gladiators in 100 years of league football, the most notorious has been Jack
Dyer.
The mere mention of his name sends shivers down the spine.
Captain Blood, an old tiger who still sniffs the battle with delight.
I used to love the roar of the crowd there, if you were just behind and the wind was blowing
down this way and you were kicking towards the grandstand.
The roar was tremendous, you could sometimes you don't hear a roar of the crowd, but oh,
you could always hear the roar of the crowd and the rattle of the seats.
No game in Australia can cram into the short space of two hours more thrills and yells
of excitement than a well-contested final of a league football match.
Dyer carved his legend alongside those of Farlap and Bradman, and has endured through
generations of commentary and coaching of hungry boys like this, who in turn have seized
their place in the game's history.
The grand final is football's ultimate day.
When brave deeds become epics, such as in the most electrifying final of recent times,
in 1889, when the defining moment for Hawthorne was not a particular goal, nor kick, nor spark
of brilliance, it was the moment when the game's most flamboyant personality, Dermot
Reraton, rose to his feet after this attack in the opening seconds.
The doctors wanted him to come off the ground, but he wouldn't come, so we moved him down
into the poor bucket.
I just remember saying to myself, it cannot end here.
This has got to be most probably the most important two hours of my life.
It just cannot end here, and I just mentally wouldn't let it end there.
His body convulsing, his mind confused, but in the face of one man, the courage born of
commitment, the will never to surrender till the Premiership is won.
That's just the most entrilling thing I've ever seen.
Why, Hutt was just out here, you know, screaming out, go Dermot.
There's no myths about Reraton's courage.
He was a sensational player, his courage, whether you like him or not.
He handed it out, but he never pulled out when it came his turn when he wasn't in the
blessing box.
Still recovering from the clash, Brereton took a towering mark and goal, inspiring Hawthorne
to a great victory over Geelong and writing another chapter in football's folklore.
The game that's produced so many champions was first played in the 1850s and by 1896,
the year of Collingwood's first premiership in the Victorian Football Association, eight
prosperous clubs had chosen to break away to form the Victorian Football League.
Geelong, Essendon, Melbourne, Collingwood, Fitzroy and South Melbourne added Carlton
and St Kilda to their Super League.
This was the first game between the Fuchsers of Melbourne and the same olds from Essendon.
With Foody's first gym training, Fitzroy was the league's strongest in the early years,
while St Kilda lost its first 48 games.
Jack Worrell of Carlton became the first professional coach. His men toiled long and hard in factories
and foundries, only to cop an earful of sermons on strict discipline from Worrell.
Boys, booze and football don't mix was Worrell's catchphrase as he drove Carlton to successive
flags in 1906, 7 and 8 and he drove the players to revolt.
I'm very fond of tennis, at golf I like a smack and cricket is a game I'm partial to.
But there's one game that's super, it's really cracker jack, yes it's football and it's all
these through and through.
When Carlton faced South Melbourne in the great tribal occasion of 1909, Worrell had
already become the first coach sacked by his players, he wasn't the last.
South enjoyed their three quarter time breather, but the Carlton boys had reason to party long
and hard and just think, one of those brats could be your grandfather.
The next year Carlton surrendered to Collingwood in the grand final and the city was abuzz
with a bribery scandal, some Carlton men never played again and no doubt this cartoonist
was a disenchanted Carlton supporter.
In 1911 a meeting of 70 players voted for open professionalism, taking the weekly wage
to 30 shillings, though Collingwood paid only a pound.
The brothers Harry and Leta Collier were champions of the most dominant team in the game's history.
Collingwood's four flags in a row from 1927 to 1930 built a dynasty and coach Jock McHale
reigned over Victoria Park for 38 years, though he sometimes didn't see as much as he might
have.
The old coach Jock McHale, he was sitting next to me and he's going crooked and all
of a sudden he says, is it through yet, through the goals?
You know, he never used to look, well I was a 19th man anyhow, he said to me, yes it's
through yet, through yet, I said yes he's right Jock.
Who'd on Collingwood forever, they now had to play the game.
McHale's men learnt only one anthem and to his dying day Harry Collier never forgot its
value.
My name God blimey, hey the barrackers are shouting.
At Harry's funeral they sang the club song just as they have for many a football's faithful.
In life and death and everywhere between, footy has been the issue for millions, the
game of the people.
It is something that I think has bound the community together through all sorts of difficult
times, depressions, recessions and wars, good times and bad.
There's been a common thread football.
The kids dressed up in colours, they've got heroes of their own, a family there around
me, I still hear them say, that there'll never be a better game than the game we have today.
Wednesday on Chicago Home.
My wife is dead.
When somebody dies.
She changed me.
I don't mean just by giving me another chance.
Does their soul live on?
Would you like to listen to your wife's heart?
And a bizarre case.
Any idea what caused the burns?
Probably stood too close to the flying saucer.
To rival any ex-file mystery.
Was their patient abducted?
There's no medical explanation for these symptoms.
The answer will thrill you and all together, Spooky Chicago Hope, 8.30 Wednesday on Prime.
And you want to try a little bit?
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The secret is out.
Melissa Etheridge is back in Australia for a sellout tour.
The album Your Little Secret features the new single I Wanna Come Over.
Songs that come straight from the heart.
Melissa Etheridge, the new album.
Make it your little secret.
You've waited?
Now here it is.
By special arrangement, Wagga Pro Musica and Prime Television present the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra performing live in Wagga Wagga Wednesday May 15th.
Featuring Haydn's trumpet concerto and other works by Kadaj and Borzak, this not to be
missed performance commences at 8pm at Jaws Hall, CSU.
Tickets are strictly limited so book yours now at the 2WG booking office.
The grand game, our only game.
The best game of all.
Up they go there, flying so high.
Watch that king, king, straight to the sky.
It's a football, at its wonderful best.
The fastest game of all.
Full of action.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you, Newton.
Happy birthday to you.
Newton Chandra was born two years before the league was formed, played for Carlton and
Victoria and was the Blues recruiting officer till the age of 90.
On his 102nd birthday, his cherished visitors are Carlton Stalwarts, Jim Francis and Jack
Hale.
1933 he came and recruited me from Horson.
The strong backs of men like Newton Chandra carried the game to where it is today.
The golden era of the 30s trumpeted players of freakish skill, Cazaly, Nash, Regan.
Fitzroy's Hayden Bunton and Essendon's Dick Reynolds each won three Brownlow medals in
the 30s.
It was said of Bunton that he had the grace of a gazelle and the strike of a panther.
Bunton's about the best football I can remember.
He had beautiful balance and grace.
Though most in the 30s earned the princely sum of three quid a game, Bunton and Dyer lived
like kings.
I was getting a tenner, which was big money those days.
You were only getting paid three pounds from the club.
It was made up to a tenner.
By supporters?
No, by one-something.
One millionaire.
The big money was just as lucrative for the footy tipsters.
When Mrs Helen McKay won the Herald's Tipping in 1938, the 1600 pound prize was enough for
this wife of a South Melbourne policeman to buy a brand new Hillman Tourer and a house
where she could watch the sheep graze in Laver Street, Q.
These were halcyon days for the ice cream salesmen and for players who were treated
to such extravagances as an all-expenses paid end of season trip.
Of course, it was a big deal when we won the 28 grand final.
The club went for a picnic down to Mornington.
Sadly, the early Aboriginal players were treated appallingly.
Doug Nicholls, later Sir Doug, Governor of South Australia, suffered a terrible indignity.
Trainers in the Carlton rooms refused to rub them because they were Aborigines.
And they left, walked out of Carlton, of course, and they went out of Fitzroy and it was a
huge success for the Victorian Football League.
A committed Christian, Nicholls remarked that a footballer can preach a sermon by the way
he plays the game.
Today there are over 30 Aborigines in the Australian Football League.
The wizardry of Farmer, Cable, Jackson, the Crackers, Wanganui, Wynma and Long has enchanted
generations of fans.
Sixty years before Michael Long loped through the heart of the Melbourne cricket ground,
spectators marvelled at the game's first glamour man.
High flying forwards, Jack Titus, Gordon Coventry, Carlton Soapy Valance and the aerial genius
Bob Pratt.
Well, I practically lived for it, to tell you the truth.
The work didn't mean anything to me, but playing football on the Saturday meant everything.
Bob Pratt was South Melbourne's spearhead when storekeeper Archie Crofts lined his shelves
with the best players from around Australia, the Foreign Legion.
Pratt is the only survivor of South's last premiership in 1933 and still shares the all-time
goal-kicking record for his 150 in 1934.
The same year he declined a 100-pound bribe from gangsters betting on the grand final.
See, 100 pound in those days was really big money.
And who was behind that?
Squizzy Taylor.
South lost in 34 and the following year was hot favourite against Collingwood, but on
the Thursday before the final, Pratt was hit by a truck carrying bricks through High Street,
Paran.
I was walking up High Street and an old woman said to me, she said, what do you think tomorrow,
Harry?
I said, look, Pratt wasn't in that bloody side, I think we'd win.
And God blimey, when I got the paper, and what do you think's on the front of the paper?
Bob Pratt injured.
It'd be a truck.
Hudson has got three.
He's equal to Bob Pratt's record of 150.
Will he put this one straight?
How he must feel?
Oh, he's no more than eight yards out.
He should kick it.
Up he comes.
He kicks.
It would have been a shame.
I mean, I'll say from a selfish point of view that I'm very glad I at least got to the 150
because I go into the record books as, and it's been a lot of years now, as sharing the
150 with Bob Pratt.
Football fans through 100 years have marvelled at the artistry of the magical men in the
Gold Square, from Pratt and Coleman to Hudson and Jezelenko to the full forwards of the
modern era.
Hudson's nearly on his own again.
He's had a look behind to see who's coming.
He's got a round.
If you put this through, he's got a round.
There he goes again.
Up the left foot, screw up and it's through.
It's not over yet.
Not over yet.
What drama here at Princess Park.
Welcome, it's a big kick.
It's a battle of kicks.
Going down forwards.
There, there.
Jezelenko, look at that.
Forward zone.
Forward, Quintland.
Dunneville, he's got it.
He's got it.
Dunstallon, quite high.
He's got it.
But if you've got the meat, you've got the meal.
Where's my shapes?
Shapes. Where are they?
Shapes.
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Arnott's Shapes have flavours you can see on a base you can munch.
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No, no thanks. Bye.
Darling, did you know that 6mm plate steel can handle over 600 degrees Celsius?
And did you know that ceramic glass melts in excess of 850 degrees Celsius?
And did you know that refractory lining enhances combustion efficiency?
I choose the new generation Eureka Solitaire because it's one of the most technologically advanced wood heaters of today.
I like the shape.
What makes Golden Season Family Restaurants so special?
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It's the Captain Snooze Big, Bigger, Biggest Sale.
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Don't miss the Big, Biggest, Biggest Catalog Sale. It's on now at Captain Snooze.
Well you could hardly miss it.
And now here's the first goal of the game, kicked by Essendon's champion full forward John Coleman.
He was football shooting style. With ten goals in his first game and a hundred in his first season, John Coleman became a magnet for the crowds.
And of those lucky enough to be teammates, like centreman Alan Dale, pictured here with Coleman and Bill Hutchison, none ever equaled Coleman.
I think really that we were blessed to play with him. He was such a brilliant player.
Well he was a great mark and a magnificent kick and he was fast.
And I'm quite sure if Coleman played centre half back or any other position he would have been a star.
You could jump over that roof, just thrilling, absolutely thrilling to see him rise in a pack and go way above them.
I don't think I've seen one better than him. I know Ablett and those players, the day the lockets, but John Coleman was such a magnificent player.
If Gary Ablett's good and you think Coleman's better, how do you paint a picture of that?
And so the stage is set. Just on 100,000 people are ready to witness the 1950 grand final. So big as the crowd, they're on the OVO. They're sandwiched between the fence and the boundary line.
Like Pratt before him and Hudson a generation later, Coleman made the turnstiles click. With his movie style looks and business brain, you can't help thinking he was born 30 years too early.
The ground would only hold about 28,000 and there'd always be 35,000 in the ground packed and Collie had a following that'd be about 5,000 behind the goals crammed.
And playing in the centre at quarter time you think what's going on? The whole 5,000 would move from one end. You'd think there was a fight going around the other end. Then at half time back they'd go again.
Essendon featured in every grand final from 46 to 51 with Dick Reynolds coaching the club for 22 marvellous years.
And congratulations on winning the 1948 Premiership and I'm much more pleased now calling upon my captain and coach, one of the finest sports in the game, Dicky Reynolds.
Opposing teams were blighted by Coleman fever, especially the way Reynolds and Hudson fed him.
Defenders tried everything to stop his prodigious lead, even converging on him in packs of four. But each time he'd dug himself out of the ground.
Essendon won flags in 49 and 50 but the continual harassment tormented Coleman to breaking point.
John was the sort of bloke that wouldn't cop it. He'd hand it out as well. He didn't just take it.
He was an ideal footballer but he was a tough footballer. He wasn't a fellow that you could really rough up Collie because he could give it back.
He had a very fiery temperament and perhaps that was his Achilles heel if he did have one because he was a courageous player and if you sort of got in little rough ups with him he wouldn't back away.
In the final round of 1951 with Essendon rolling towards a hat trick of Premierships, Coleman was reported for retaliating against Carlton fullback Harry Casper.
And at half time he came in and threw his jumper off. He got stripped and he's putting his clothes on. He said, I won't play again. That bastard grabbed me down below. He said, I'm finished.
I had his head down, head between his knees and head down and I said, no, he says, I'm going home. He said, no, it's like that. Do that to me. And he said, they report me for it. And I just gave him the general talk and got him out there again.
He went out and he played on Ollie Grieve, one of the greatest fullbacks of all time. He kicked five yards in the next five minutes.
The tribunal suspended Coleman for four matches. He was devastated.
So while Coleman watched from the press box Essendon lost the grand final to Geelong by 11 points.
But I think if he had played in the 51 grand final against Geelong I think the result may have been different.
In the eighth round of 1954, a week after kicking 14 goals against Fitzroy, Coleman fell awkwardly, dislocated his knee and never played again.
As a footballer, that's the last we saw of him. Finished at 25. Kicked 540 goals near his demit. Played only 98 games. Finished at 25. Tragedy.
I don't think we ever really saw the best of him, but he was a sensational mark, incredibly quick player and a reasonably accurate kick for goal.
He made one attempt to come back, but even when he was kicking in the park with the kids, he could only use his left foot.
In 1961, Coleman replaced Reynolds as coach, winning premierships in 62 and 65.
One of the few great players of enormous natural ability that was able to coach a premiership side, very few great natural ability players have become great coaches.
Well, to all of you boys, I don't know whether you can hear me or not, but how would you live against these boys playing today? Firstly, John Coleman.
How would I what, Luke? How would you go against these fellas playing today? I wouldn't get a kick. What about you?
And he was a great athlete, great player, wonderful coach, and it's most unfortunate that his passing was so untimely really.
John Coleman was only 44 when he died suddenly in 1973. His life, like his football career, was tragically brief.
And it came to pass that a great pestilence descended upon the ancient city of Melbourne, and none of its inhabitants were untouched.
Only footy could serve up three hams on late night television and create a phenomenon.
Dyer, Davis and Richards on league teams were characters the fans could relate to, and they had the recipes for a football hungry public.
Hello. Ring back, lad. I'm doing the recipe, will you?
Turned up, Edna. He hasn't got time now.
That was Fancy, the chef-ed chef.
Oh, thank you, thank you, Peter.
Now look, we're having curried fish balls.
How many fish would you need for 125 fish balls?
Not too many, but I'll tell you.
Who was in charge?
Jeopardy.
I was nominally in charge.
Look at the two of you. You were good looking when you were, no, you weren't. Jeopard, you were.
Listen, listen, Louis. Beauty's only skin deep, but I knew you couldn't find it with a pick and shovel.
It must have cost 20 pound to produce, that to be all it was. I mean, I don't think there was a cameraman at one stage.
Is that the phone?
What? Phone?
What did he say?
You don't say.
You don't say. You're going to say anything to me until you're done.
What does he say?
He didn't say.
You're supposed to hang it up.
League teams was the father of today's irreverent footy humor.
A reminder that the business of winning can also be fun.
I'll take your advice and get a Ripco Gold Star engine fitted straight away.
Well, how's the side shiving, Bob?
Well, the side's going right, Lee, but I wouldn't know what you're doing standing up on that stand.
That makes me look taller.
No, no, no, these are fruit inside.
That's right.
Oh, they're so healthy for you too, they're beautiful.
Many of footy stars from the days of black and white television have endured three decades,
and today are as much a part of our households as ever.
They've taken us on a rollicking ride through laughter tinged with heartache,
and it's as if their fortunes have mirrored our lives,
and that we have willed them to keep rolling on.
Lots of lovely tend to meet the pilots you can buy,
our lovely piety boys at four and twenty-five.
Oy!
Thursdays have never been funnier.
Ooh, that has gotta make you popular.
As Ellen's dream comes true, to dance her very own Giselle.
Dance, Ellen, dance!
But to see it all, you'll just have to be watching Ellen at 7.30.
Then at 8...
We wanna have your baby.
...would Grace have a baby for her best friend?
No, they're just gonna blame me the first time it does something wrong,
like, you know, flunk math or shoot some pulp.
It's the Two Funny Women of Comedy, Thursday on Prime.
He was a secret agent, brave and most courageous.
He had the secret formula to make milk fun.
The spies were out to take it till he showed them how to make it.
He said, Nesquik's the trick for everyone's own mum.
Nesquik's the trick.
That chocolate strawberry taste really makes us tick.
The flavor's quite explosive, but what you oughta know is,
with milk our secret code is, Nesquik's the trick.
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Where's my shapes?
Shapes.
Where are they?
Shapes.
Ah!
I know it's got to be...
Iron-It Shapes have flavors you can see on a base you can munch.
For a taste that tap-tanses over your taste buds,
Iron-It Shapes, the Crave Crushers.
Pizza Shapes.
The new Mitsubishi Magna can leap from 0 to 100 in a mere 8.2 seconds.
But when it comes to your test drive, we prefer you to take as much time as you like.
Please consider the new Mitsubishi Magna.
Right now at Pizza Haven, we're having one of our biggest offers ever.
For a limited time, we'll give you a large extra supreme,
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That's not supreme value, that's mega value.
For a great deal on a great meal,
spend the night in front of the Fox.
One, three, one, two, four, one.
Don't worry about me, Jim. I live the way they make me.
Of all the wild men and personalities in footy,
only one made the big screen as a real bush ranger.
Carlton Captain Bob Chitty needed no coaching in the ways of wild men
to play Ned Kelly in this 1951 movie.
Chitty had terrorized his foes in football's most notorious game,
a day when even the Kelly Gang might have been shaking in their boots.
Chitty, the Carlton strongman, was one of nine reported in the infamous bloodbath of 1945.
They were without doubt the roughest, toughest final series I've ever seen in my life.
They went beyond that, they were cruel.
Truth newspaper asserted that it was the greatest blot
and most repugnant spectacle league football had ever known.
Carlton's Ken Hans, who was knocked out for most of his first grand final,
believes the fight started because of gambling.
I understand that a few South Melbourne players had a fairly heavy gamble
and in money for those days, after all, players were only getting three pounds a game.
And I think that probably started the ball.
Two years later, Carlton won a less spiteful grand final.
Carlton has won by one point.
We was robbed.
Yes, madam, but it was a great game.
Oh, shirt front.
Oh, crutch.
Football today is as tough as ever, but less violent than at any stage in the past 100 years.
Fans have loved and loathed the century of ferocious characters.
They've witnessed feats of bravery and acts of lunacy.
Oh, I do love a Saturday Harbo.
When me mates and I go off to see the game.
Oh, I do love a Saturday Harbo.
Cos there's nothing in the world that's quite the same.
Of course an evening at the ballet doesn't really turn me on.
And sitting through the opera's just a bore.
But there's nothing so divine as all the tingles down me spine.
When the crowd out in the outerside the rock.
Oh, I do love a Saturday Harbo.
When me mates and I go off to see the game.
Of all the controversies, few incidents have inspired as much folklore as the Hudson-Neill clash
during the 1971 grand final between Hawthorne and St Gilda.
I remember addressing the players on the Thursday night.
And Hudson had a fabulous year that year.
And he was all poised to break the all-time record of goals kicked in the one year.
And Genji got up and said, well, you know, Hudson, if we concede the fact he's going to kick half a dozen,
the thing we've got to do is stop him kicking any more and stop the supply from further up the ground.
And trying to get my point across, a voice from the rear of the crowd said that it's very difficult
for him to do it Hudson if he's unconscious.
Now that was the comment made and it came from the direction of Cowboy Neill.
Hudson's bowled over and Hudson's hurt.
As it turned out, that's the way it wins.
Hudson going for a run.
He steadies, he kicks. Oh my God, he's missed it. Oh, look at him.
The umpires have never had it easy.
The ones who get it in the neck would say that peace with the wild men has been hard won.
Here's Bill Snell's beautiful shiner. Just look at him.
He receives commissaration from Jack McMurray Jr. Ace League umpire.
The biggest change came in the 1980s when football authorities responded to community attitudes by getting tougher on violence.
The most dramatic penalty was handed to one of the game's greatest, Hawthorne's Lee Matthews, for this blow to Geelong's Neville Brams.
Oh gee, a Geelong player has gone down behind the plays. Matthews goes down.
Matthews was charged in a civil court and convicted of assault.
I remember the first thing to myself after I had, after Brams he ran past and I sort of struck him. I thought, what do I do that for?
And then I thought, oh they'll be coming. I knew they'd be coming, Geelong players. And so I just let them come.
Well the umpires haven't had much chance. There's no way the umpires could have controlled that situation.
Look at that. Look at that.
Matthews is scary. Those little black birdie eyes. Big Nick was ordinary. When you got real close to Big Nick you were in a lot of strife.
Carr was dangerous.
Crackers Keenan is one of several who have missed grand finals because of their impulsiveness.
He was outed in 78 for this shot in his feud with Don Scott.
Phil Carman probably cost Collingwood the 77 flag with this spot.
While Richmond captain Neville Crowe missed the only premiership he would have played because of this.
But the brave men aren't the ones dishing it out.
South's Bob Skelton was home resting after yet another tough season when he won his third Brownlow medal and was called to TV Ringside to be toasted.
I'll tell you one thing Bob. Here at TV Ringside I can say this honestly, you're amongst friends.
Skelton's mate was the idol of the western suburbs Ted Whitten.
Like Charlie Sutton before him and Doug Hawkins later, Whitten represented the working class origins of footy when larkins became footscray heroes by just being themselves.
You're a bit young son to host a show like this on your own.
No buts Doug. He'd be serious about this son.
Come on, keep going.
Now tell me Mr Whitten, Mr Football if you like, did you ever give some back chat to the little man in white?
How does it feel to be walking down this lane approaching the ground for your last game?
Feels bloody awful doesn't it?
I don't feel very happy about it at all.
The ball was out of sight.
Hey you've got the wrong boat. I only whacked them when the ball was in sight.
Now we've got our backs against the wall and we're going to fight hard.
You've got to show me all the guts and all the determination you've got in your body. You've got to inspire me with this last quarter bit. You've been in front all day and you've got to stay there.
There you go.
Beautiful Mark.
And there's crista cups going on right left and centre and I rushed in and of course I play with no teeth so I'm spitting and shouting at Teddy and shaking him and I was just about ready to go on with Teddy and all of a sudden he turned around and he said kiss me killer.
Try to get rid of it. Tell me Mr Football, was there a fight you'd ever miss? And didn't you give the gummy shark a hug and a farewell kiss?
No, no not me. I was just finding the mud out of his mouth.
I think thank you. I'm starting to feel a bit sad and sorry about it.
I'm glad you liked the film because a very special little presentation from all of us here at World of Sport goes with all of our very best wishes. Congratulations and that's the film and the action that you've just seen.
Thank you very much.
So that will be a memento of your last day.
Good on you.
Let's look at the camera Dougie and say go doggies go.
Oh oh oh.
On football's most emotional day when EJ Whitten dominated the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the last time, he was aptly described as one of the few men who had given more to football than it had given him.
It was one of the most moving things you could see and I think a tremendous tribute to Ted because Ted was seen as a footy person and was.
You know I think Teddy realised that the end was pretty near and it was a special moment to him and a special moment for footy.
It was one of those intricate things that brought through a person brought the whole footy world together.
To see that man push his arm into the air to wave was something that I think people you know were touched by.
Even in front of the members he gave them the defiant fist in the air when his son told him that he was passing the members.
Forget about any of the gals you just saw a father and a son really enjoying the moments of their last days together.
That when he grabbed his son's face going around in that car I've seen it and I've had goosebumps every time I see it and close to tears.
He's got his arm around his dad and their faces touched and Teddy's punching the air like only Teddy can do. It was just absolutely some feeling, something really special.
I think it's a great part of football to be involved in and I was here and I'm glad I went and I'm glad I took my own son.
Then at 8 o'clock don't dream about it, do it. Relax and unwind in beautiful Noosa and win a special Mother's Day holiday there.
Visit exciting Olympic City Atlanta as Ernie goes to Adelaide. 8 o'clock tonight on Prime.
I'm not just a pretty face Dave.
It's ready.
It's great.
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A broken fraps.
A problem with my go-go mobile.
Go-go mobile?
A problem with my go-go mobile. I was wondering if G-O G-G-O.
A problem with my go-go mobile.
Yeah? Yeah? No, not the dart. Not the dart. The hoes think it's the dart.
It's a weird wrapper.
Tony Charlton's football show.
What does your background with Melbourne tell you about this situation Jack?
Well Jeff I would say that this is one of the greatest calamities that ever happened at Melbourne.
And I hope that wiser wisdom prevails and that Norm Smith is back in his rightful place as coaches for Melbourne football.
Of all the thousands of sackings in the century of league football, the one that rocked Melbourne most was on a Friday night in 1965.
Norm Smith, who'd coached Melbourne to six premierships in 11 years, received a note to say he'd been fired.
Today his name is honoured with the medal for best player in the grand final.
But in the late 50s and early 60s Norm Smith was the super coach.
Well I suppose the sacking of Norm Smith was one of the biggest sporting stories of the century.
There's no question of it because the man was unchallenged as the best football brain we had and with the best team and they sacked him.
No one would come and tell me, just special messenger turned up and handed me the letter and I read the letter and I would say that I was rather shocked.
Norm Smith was never one to humour committees and he was neither the first nor last coach to feel the committee's axe.
But he was responsible for the most potent force in post-war football.
He was a remarkable person, very determined. I think he had an effect on a lot of people's lives.
Norm and his astute brother Len were the tactical masters of the 50s, the influences who shaped Ron Barassi and a generation of coaches.
When I was captain and playing I often used to spend some time after the match in the dark talking to Norm at the race.
And one of the greatest things about Norm Smith was he wasn't secretive about his ideas.
Norm had learnt will from the great Chequah Hughes and blessed with a batch of fine young athletes.
He developed a team for the wide open spaces of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Norm was uncompromising.
Hard with fear, he used to tell us that all the time, hard with fear and we often under our breath used to add in a few adjectives there.
Melbourne's 55 premiership was overshadowed by the sonic boom which shattered the MCG that afternoon.
The kick towards the centre of the ground and it was McLean and also Healy went up. Healy got the ball away from him, tears around using to rip it.
Two players met solidly.
The head on clash when Melbourne reserve Bluey Adams sprinted onto the field and into Collingwood's all Australian wingman Des Healy.
Adams and Healy it was and here's a kick towards McLean.
27 year old Healy had won the Copeman Trophy that year but never played again saying he couldn't stand another blow like that one.
Adams starred in all six of Smith's premierships broken only by one of the century's greatest upsets, the 1958 final when Fonce Kynes Collingwood baited Melbourne to play the man and not the ball.
The demons are first out led by John Beckwith and Ron Barassi. They are an all conquering side despite the wet, watch this beautiful pass.
Collingwood's Hooker Harrison achieved lasting fame by shutting the dynamic Ron Barassi out of the game.
Johnson again for the demons.
And I said to the other players you just play football don't worry about what Hooker and I do. So we went around and we hit a few plays.
After the change there came a change and now you can watch closely as Melbourne's diminutive rover Ian Ridley is floored by Collingwood's Bill Sarong.
Norm Smith shows concern as he moves amongst the Melbourne players in the last endeavour to win the premiership. His side in the frying pan is nearly in the fire.
In the magpie camp Fonce Kynes emphatically impresses the Collingwood players to hold Melbourne in this vital last quarter.
I can remember the cigar smoke was going up in the air and the Melbourne stand was dead I thought and I said we've got this Melbourne.
Markworth saves the Collingwood attack. He kicks it to the flank but it's all over and Collingwood wins the 1958 Grand Finals.
They've brought in the bean the greatest football upset for many many a long day.
In the Collingwood rooms afterwards Smith told the magpies I hate you bastards but my god I admire you.
The 1965 dismissal of Norm Smith was the culmination of many clashes between coach and committee.
We got arguing at the committee over something on Wednesday night I said you went to a big school.
He went to a published school I went to a state school I said but they still spell principal the same way and it's a principal for which I am fighting.
If you haven't got principal you haven't got anything and I've got principal and I'll fight for this principal to the day I die.
Unbelievable to be sacked like that after 14 years as coach.
But it was if you know they'd ruled far out of the Melbourne Cup and the sporting world the football world just came to a dead stop.
Norm Smith sacked.
As dramatically as he'd been dismissed Norm Smith was reinstated at a meeting four days after his sacking.
Smith was never the same coach at Melbourne and in 30 years since Melbourne Football Club hasn't won another Premiership.
Inside Geelong's dressing room they seem to care little for predictions of a Hawthorne victory.
Alistair Lord last year's Brownlow medal winner back from injury received special attention.
Here's a trivia question. Who ran out third behind the captain and the vice captain for Geelong in the 63 grand final.
Captain Fred Willard burst through leading his confident band who are too strong for the Hawks in the semi-final.
We raced out in between all the boys and as we were going around I could see the policemen standing there watching as I was coming back towards the race and he said to me hey you.
Happy Hammond romped onto the MCG symbolised the carefree spirit of Geelong in the 60s.
Well the coach was just a happy go lucky fellow he used to say we'll go out and win again today.
Here's Geelong's Bob Davies. The Geelong flyer he was called when he played on the half forward flank for Geelong and for Victoria and now coach of the Premier team Geelong.
Davies had been a star in the 51 and 52 Premier ships when Reg Hickey pioneered the running game with 23 consecutive victories.
Winning and grinning Davies toughened his men on the sand dunes.
When we'd finished we'd go and have a swim and then we probably undid all our work because we'd have a barbecue on the beach.
I feel that we've got one boy here in particular that won't worry about woods or brownlow at all.
What's his name? A boy called Newman, John Newman.
Young Sam Newman was to win many hearts though not with this slap to Billy Barrett's kisser.
But it was another Geelong Ruckman who revolutionised football.
West Australia's Graham Polly farm.
I'd like to get with a club that is not in the four and yet it has a chance of getting into the four.
So I dialed the Geelong exchange and I said look it's Bob Davies here from the football club.
I want you to ring Perth, just ring the Perth exchange and say you want to speak to Graham Farmer.
And she said but what is his address or phone? I said they'll know, just ring them.
And I reckon within three minutes he was on the phone.
Farmer's transfer fee from East Perth in 1962 cost Geelong £1500.
Worth it. He earned more than that the first day in a practice match when we used to charge Bob to go into the game.
We had £15,000 at a practice match just to see.
Farmer in 1962 would spend as much time then on his game as the present day players do now.
Farmer never spoke to me, never told me how to play, never gave me advice.
But his great silent contribution to coaching aside or being an example was just that if you were around him you could just see how the game was played.
Farmer goes up and passes it to the person next to him, Peter Corgan.
In this centenary year of football it is very apt to say that Graham Farmer is the only individual person that I've seen change the game.
He changed the game because of his style. He changed, he brought the ball down and handballed it away.
And really put a new emphasis on football.
With an overall tally of 15 goals, 19 behind, 109, Geelong defeats the Hawks, 8 goals, 12-60.
And Bob Davis receives congratulations for his part in the victory.
Gerald Bordock is the captain of St Kilda. He's married, has a small son and a baby daughter. He comes from Tasmania of farming stock.
Just as Polly Farmer had learned his unique skills far from football's mecca, Darryl Bordock had grown up bouncing a ball in the Tasmanian bush.
The dock was decidedly unfashionable, an odd contrast to the glamour of his blonde ruckman.
But with fellow Tasmanian Ian Stewart and a band of goers, the St Kilda team of 1966 were to write their own fairy tale.
It was the year of the saints.
Oh, boy!
Gerald, you've lately been branded as a bad man. Do you think this label fits?
I don't know. It's just that I'm, it's my view or my aim to play football. That's the only way I can play football. I can't adopt it any other way.
Carl Dittrich, yes. Well, I always thought he was going to be a sensation just by his running gait.
Seventeen-year-old Dittrich was best afield in his first game, the opening round of 1963.
For all its history now, it was probably the most spectacular game of any player I've ever seen. His spring was unbelievable and he ran around the ground like a gazelle.
The media gave Carl Dittrich pop star treatment as a rebel of the 60s. But come Grand Final Day 1966, the blonde bombshell was out, suspended.
So St Kilda had 20 heroes with halos and coach Alan Jeans urging them to an historic triumph.
I can never play football! I can never play football! 25 minutes to make a 90 or so! I can never play football!
Jeans spots a weakness that has to be covered as Collingwood refused to surrender an inch of territory.
Collingwood sees possession as Tuttenham dashes in, but the wind takes the ball off for a behind and the scores are tied at 10-13-73.
The tenth St Kilda coach sees Breen grab from a ball up. A long, hurried shot goes through from behind and only 13 seconds of actual play remains.
Morrow tears out to mark at the final siren and St Kilda take their first Premiership after 69 years.
The dedicated Alan Jeans is accorded vigorous and hair-raising congratulations for his grand contribution to the victory.
The MPL President's Against Loof presents the Premiership Cup to Baldock, a tangible symbol of the Saints supremacy.
First of all I'd like to congratulate you all, first of all, and I'd like to also charge up and bring a toast to our players.
This is the first time we've been able to do it and it's something tremendous. An effort to every boy just will fuel guns in one place.
Oh when the Saints go marching in, all I want to be in that number, when the Saints go marching in.
Oh when the Saints go marching in, oh when the Saints go marching in. While Big Carl and Cowboy Neil celebrated as only Cowboy could, over at Princes Park Carlton had plotted how to grab their first flag since 1947.
Today it became known that Melbourne champion Ron Barassi is an applicant for the position of playing coach.
Where is your heart Ron? Right here Mike. Football wise? Well I think your heart is where you are at the time.
It's a far, almost a far finer thing to make your loyalty portable.
No matter who I play for, I give everything for that day, for the Guernsey, whether it be Melbourne, whether it be Carlton, whether it be Menangatang Thirds.
And if for whatever reason, next year you're there, you do the same thing.
It's just a way I think everyone should play football and certainly the way that I play.
Carlton had offered Barassi the then huge amount of £5,000 over three years, but he still needed seducing.
I rang Barassi at 7.30 in the morning on the Tuesday, still in bed, and I harangued him, I begged him, I persuaded him to such an extent that two or three times my wife said,
for God's sake, leave the poor fellow alone, he can't take much more of this.
It was the best thing that I ever did in my football life was to break away then as a coach. I've got no doubt about that.
Ron Barassi was cast in Red and Blue. His father, a Melbourne Premiership player, was the first Australian soldier killed at Tobruk.
Ron Junior grew up in Norm Smith's house and dutifully earned his £12 per game in 204 matches for Melbourne.
So when he switched to Carlton as captain coach, Melbourne fans considered it high treason.
I got threats, people ringing me up and parents telling me that I was destroying their kids' faith in things and I should be hung and what have you.
There were constant reports of crying kids with 31 Guernsey's and what were they going to do?
My constant answer was, well we're going to give him a 31 Guernsey at Carlton.
I mean I felt that the boy had given us such wonderful service and he'd battled when he was a young boy and he's done well for himself and I was not going to stand in his way.
He chose the neck wrestle, the neck come and go.
The siren's gone, the siren's gone, has it? Yes!
Verrassi had learnt well from his mentor. In 1968, his hell-raising methods drove Carlton to its first flag in 21 years.
Carlton are braver!
John Nicholls leads Carlton. Along with first-ruck partner Sergio Silvani, Nicholls is playing in a VFL Grand Final for the fourth time.
Ron Verrassi on the verge of completing his second three-year term with Carlton has an added incentive to steer his team to victory.
The 1970 epic in front of over 121,000 has often been described as the most remarkable Grand Final in history.
Trailing Collingwood by 44 points at half-time, Verrassi brought on a blonde-mopped reserve named Ted Hopkins and the game swung dramatically.
It was just one of those games where the ball wasn't running well for Carlton, they looked slow, you know, he was a fresh player that had a bit of a reputation for Nip and that was me.
Guides the ball through for his fourth goal.
The 70 Grand Final broadcast to the football world the arrival of the modern game. On Verrassi's half-time instructions, Carlton handballed at every opportunity and the game, Collingwood was the victim.
Carlton passes to Hopkins who's in the clear.
It's all over and Carlton wins one of the VFL's most memorable Grand Finals by 10 points, 17-9, 111 to Collingwood's 14-17, 101.
Carlton takes the flag for the tenth time in a game which produces the ultimate in Australian football.
Sheer determination and all-round brilliance in the final two quarters takes Carlton to the Premiership.
Tonight on Home and Away...
I haven't heard, the wedding's back on.
Will the wedding go ahead?
I thought you were relieved, she said no.
And a special guest appearance...
Are the shocks in there?
The stars in Home and Away tonight on Prime.
The secret is out.
Melissa Ritzridge is back in Australia for a sellout tour.
I like the way you look, I know you like me.
The album Your Little Secret features the new single I Wanna Come Over.
I wanna come over.
Songs that come straight from the heart.
Somebody bring me some water.
Melissa Ritzridge, the new album. Make it Your Little Secret.
He was a secret agent, brave and most courageous.
He had the secret formula to make milk fun.
The spies were apt to take it till he showed them how to make it.
He said, Miss, quits the trick.
For everyone's own, my miss quits the trick.
That chocolate strawberry taste really makes us tick.
The flavor's quite explosive.
And what you oughta know is, with milk, our secret code is Miss Quits the Trick.
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And its shapes have flavors you can see on a base you can munch.
For a taste that tap-tanses over your taste buds, and its shapes, the Crave Crushers.
Pizza Shapes.
Another robbery. I told him you didn't do it.
But this one's brutal. Sure.
Will a boy lose both his parents? I love you. I hate you!
And Australia's number one drama.
You're in love, aren't you?
Blue Healers, 8.30 tonight on Prime.
Run it out hard, every float. Run until you drop.
The psychological limit is a lot closer than the physical limit.
Remember when you're tired and you think you can't go any further? You can! Do it! And see how you go.
He was such an example setter, I suppose. It was a matter of the gospel according to St. Kennedy.
If you get beaten, that's one thing. But if you don't get up and chase, that is another thing and that's inexcusable.
Yeah, the single most respected person that I have ever had the pleasure to know and to work with.
Very just person, tough as nails, but a man of literature.
I mean, I'd be in the front row for his pre-match addresses or mini-addresses because we get a bit of Marx and some of the Bible and a bit of Winston Churchill all wrapped up with some of Alan Jeans and Norm Smith.
In 100 years of football, few people have influenced a club so dramatically as John Kennedy has Hawthorne.
Kennedy revolutionised football's attitudes to fitness. His troops marched into folklore as Kennedy's commandos.
His coaching put a new emphasis on team discipline. His values were as Victorian as his brown raincoat.
Trouble with this generation, he said, you got dollars on your back and fast cars in the car park and brute under your armpits, you know, and like, well, you're laughing and we were laughing, but I can tell you in the room, whilst the seats were all shaking and people inside thought it was very funny, there was not one face that showed any mirth or humour whatsoever.
Kennedy set up a commando-style training camp alongside the Yarra River at Bulleen.
It was an idyllic setting with trees, gum leaves and sandbags and running through the trees. You couldn't ask for a happier venue for training and everybody turned up smiling and they enjoyed their training.
When we used to train at Bulleen, the commando course, he would run from home and be there. When we got there, now as far as I can make it, it would have taken him at least three quarters of an hour to an hour. So if we got there at six, he must have started running at five to get there.
As the sun came up, we got through the trees and carried the sandbags and came across the river on a rope, you know.
A lot of us are more concerned with how we look than what we do. It doesn't matter really whether you've got a broken nose or a broken heart.
A lot of us are more concerned with how we look than what we do. It doesn't matter really whether you've got a broken nose or black eyes. You might cut a figure with the girls but you can still get a kick because it doesn't matter above the next line.
Hawthorn's military-style discipline forced other clubs to double their training.
It was deadly serious for me, football. It still is. It was deadly serious at the time because we had been beaten so often.
The ring comes in, there's the final siren, the final siren and Hawthorn are premiers for the year 1961.
What we wanted was respect. I don't care whether they hated us or not. That didn't matter. We won the premiership and they gradually came round and they respected us.
What about the ovation at the ground tonight? They were all there, all the supporters. There were thousands of them there. It surprised me really.
But I didn't realise how little boys and old people over 80, under 5, under 6 were so thrilled to see the team win the premiership and it gave football for me another dimension besides just win at all costs.
The man in the overcoat had set the standard for Hawthorn which powered to nine flags in the next 30 years including a record 13.5 points.
The man in the overcoat had set the standard for Hawthorn which powered to nine flags in the next 30 years including a record 13 successive finals inspired by champions like Matthews, Scott, Knights and Tuck and driven by a succession of coaches in the Kennedy mould.
At least do something. Do. Don't think, think, don't hope. Do. At least you can come off and say I did this or I shivered or I played on. At least I did something.
Talk to your, talk your damn head off. Get across and use your bloody body. Look at that word there. Bloody aggressive. How many years have been aggressive so far?
It's fair enough to say that we played in a manner that was just sort of kill or be killed. That's how it was with us.
In the centre Barrett urges Richmond on. With tension mounting the scene is set for a fiercely contested final quarter.
If John Kennedy was relentless then Richmond through the late 60s and 70s was unashamedly ruthless.
We defend ourselves by saying look we're answerable basically, basically to the people that pay the membership to join the Richmond Fully Club and the supporters and what they want is success on a Saturday afternoon.
We never made any pretensions about what we were there for. We were there to win at any cost and a lot of people might have objected to the way we did play but we played it with full blooded intent to win.
Graham Richmond and Ian Wilson didn't look it but they were Geelong Grammar graduates. A couple of tough talking power brokers who drove Richmond when it was the league's superpower.
I remember a great Jack Dyer saying hey I hope you two public school poofs don't stuff up my football club.
Graham Richmond cultivated an us against them mindset and the players forged an unbreakable bond with their straight talking coach Tom Hayfee.
We're not running straight at the ball. That's the cruel part about it Tigers. Nothing more tigerish than a bloody tiger, a wounded tiger. Kevin, fair dinkum mate you've got to put your boot into the ball. You're too slow to do all this finessing.
Bloody back pocket plumber. That's what I want. You see the bloody straight get your boot to the damn thing heading towards goal.
Richmond coach Tom Hayfee appears impassive as Sheedy has awarded the mark over Jones allowing Richmond to momentarily keep Carton at bay.
We didn't mess around. There was no frills in the type of game that we played. We just got on with the job.
In those days Richmond could have been called Unadatta because I believe that the players actually played for Tom Hayfee.
Jackson's drink from Richmond. Richmond's Premiership era from 67 to 74 mixed fury with finesse.
And have a look at him. Well I think Tom Hayfee might have his first drink tonight. I reckon there's a chance about that too mate.
And a tremendous atmosphere here at the MCG. Roy West kicking in towards the centre. Royce Hart.
At the age of 22 Royce Hart had written a book naming himself at centre half forward in his best ever team earning widespread ridicule.
By the time his career was over most critics agreed Royce Hart was amongst the best centre half forwards the game had ever known.
The ball tapped down the court. Hart kicks up. One to eleven. Look at this. Oh what a make.
In the 74 grand final against Carton Richmond's kill or be killed philosophy was implemented by a lethal forward Neil Barne.
His kick smothered. Ohhhhh.
Yes well there was no love lost with Finn Waite because Finn Waite had hit a lot of our little blokes along the way and Barne and Ricky McLean always thought of Finn Waite in a special way.
In 1974 fired by Mel the Mouth Brown the Tigers mood was explosive.
So we went out to Essendon with the view that we were going to win at any cost and any cost is putting it mildly.
That's going to be look at this going on out here. Gwendolyn Allen on the scene and Parsons going for his life didn't want to be in it. Players are laid out. People are laid out everywhere.
So I took off in hot pursuit of this particular fellow. I wasn't to know he was actually an Essendon official.
I don't know I was just giving you the half time score.
It was a tough turbulent time but the kill or be killed era was the Tigers finest as the flags rolled by one by one.
Overcome with emotion. Hayfee experiences the finest moment of his football career.
Attention all earthlings. I'm up here. Never hit on aliens. I killed him. The attack of the body snatchers. When you're all going to die.
In Bird Rocks 730 Wednesday on Prime followed by Who Dares Wins.
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Don't dream about it. Do it. Relax and unwind in beautiful Noosa and win a special Mother's Day holiday there.
Visit exciting Olympic City Atlanta as Ernie goes to Adelaide.
In the great outdoors. 8 o'clock tonight on Prime.
Champion unless you're consistent. No way. No matter what the press says or anyone says.
You've got champion potential but the true champion's on the job, you know, nine times out of ten.
While Richmond, Carlton and Hawthorne were the driving forces of the 70s, the biggest recruiting coup of all was pulled off by the league's lowliest club.
North Melbourne moving swiftly on a rule which turned 10 year players into free agents,
snared some of the league's greatest names in a bid to win their first Premiership. And yeah, the much talked about 10 year rule which North Melbourne benefited from.
North Melbourne voted against that. But as soon as they could see they weren't going to, their view wasn't going to prevail.
Within I think 48 hours they'd interviewed the 22 of them. Now that is class.
The rule survived just a few months of 1973. Just long enough for North to entice Essendon's Barry Davis, South's John Rantel and Geelong's Burleigh Doug Wade.
They were finally won over with $10,000 each. Cash.
A brown paper parcel tied very tightly with string and when it opened it sort of flashed across the table.
The red notes, they were money.
In the wad was $10,000 which I didn't know at the time but it was the biggest amount of money I'd ever seen in my life.
And he's thrown it across the room and it hit the sofa, bounced, fell on the floor and my young son, Brad,
this running, picked this wad of $10,000 up and drop kicked it across the room.
Led by former captain Alan Aylett, manager Ron Joseph and marketing whiz Barry Cheatley, the only club without a flag came out fighting,
luring Ron Barassi to his third league club.
Well I know for a fact that several of the committee, I wouldn't know if it was just two or three or seven or eight,
I would tend to think it was the latter, put the houses on the line.
And I think we may become a bit like modern society, a bit bloody soft and spoiled. Get a little bit of dirt on your hands.
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
I'll say one thing to you young blokes, you may be green but as long as you're not yellow, that's where I'm interested in.
Come on now, come on now.
North Melbourne was transformed into a force as irrepressible as Kekovic and as skillful as Cable, but the dynamics between coach and players were volatile.
That's sort of pressure on anybody.
The world's changed these days, I mean we try and reason through that now, but I mean that was the way it was then and that was the way press was.
And yeah, it did occasionally, it got you down. And in the end, one of the problems he ended up doing was playing despite him.
The end result must be a player who's very, very tough with his, with himself in resisting temptations, in staying focused, and he's got to be, he's meeting tough people.
I mean you're talking about the end result is the grand final and out there like it's murder day on that particular day.
He was harder on the skillful, good players than anybody else, and Keith Gregg and Malcolm Blight and Sam Kekovic and Oswald.
That bloody one! Darrell, you are a ****, I'll tell you why.
He didn't have a thick skin, you were in a bit of strife. If you were a very sensitive person, he used to get the inner man and rip your guts around a bit every now and then.
Keith, you've done the typical bloody **** thing, the ball's gone over, you could have run and intercepted that first goal, or second goal what it was, and you probably don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?
He didn't waste a lot of time on plays he couldn't play, but he certainly put tremendous demands on people he thought had ability, and he'd shake, rattle and roll that any way he could to get it out.
I enjoyed Brass, I think he's the most honest bloke I've ever met in my life. Brass will never tell you a lie.
Chance here for Burns, he's going to be taken by Wells, a long hand pass to one of Brightus, Brightus steadies, he shoots at the big ones, and here's another one.
In the 74 Grand Final, North lost by 41 points to Richmond, but in 75 they were psyched to avenge.
The crowd was enormous, I mean I've played in quite a few Grand Finals, but I don't think I can remember hearing so much support to one side in a Grand Final as there was in that last quarter.
Just going back to North Melbourne and seeing those older people, it was as though their whole life had been fulfilled.
It was everything that I dreamed of, and I, first of all, I never thought that I'd ever get there.
They did football at a huge turn, they brought it into the 20th, perhaps the 19th century or 20th century by their professionalism.
A few years of dominance for North Melbourne eclipsed a lifetime of losing, but the mid-70s also had a lasting impact on Hawthorne, through the courage of a rover they called the Littlefella, and his fight to play in the 75 Grand Final.
Only one jumper hangs amidst the trophies in the Glenferrie boardroom, the number five, worn by Peter Crimmins.
Of all the players in my career, Crimmins had the biggest influence on me.
I'd say Peter Crimmins is the best rover that I've played on, because he'd give it all to you, and he'd give his all to his club.
So tenacious, so ferocious, so competitive on the field, worked really, really hard, gave nothing away, he asked no quarter, and he certainly played the game that way.
But once he was part of Hawthorne, he was just Hawthorne through and through, there was no other club.
I'm a Peter Crimmins fan. I love the little bloke, we used to give it to each other down in the fourth pocket at Hawthorne.
While Sheedy and Crimmins were slugging it out, the Hawks skipper was battling what was first described as a groin injury.
1974, we found out Peter had carried the injury all during the year, but being 26 and being a super fit, supposedly super fit footballer, athlete, we weren't too concerned about a swollen testicle.
Then we weren't concerned at all, Peter and I, weren't concerned at all about cancer, because he was 26 and in fact that long ago you didn't even mention the word cancer.
I must have been, I did consider the kids straight away as soon as I was told, wondering whether I'd be able to see them grow up to be men, which I'd like to see them do, the two boys.
But I think that was instantaneous thinking, now I don't think anything of that sort at the moment.
In September 1974, doctors removed a testicle, and after two prolonged sessions of chemotherapy, Crimmins fought back, intent on captaining Hawthorne in the 75th Grand Final.
On the Thursday night before the game, the selection committee of Kennedy, Crimmins, Vice Captain Don Scott, and Chairman of Selectors Ken Herbert picked the team.
We'd known about the problems that he was facing, and had seen him fall over and get up again and fall over and get up again.
He was the captain of the side, I suppose everyone knew the sort of effect that he'd have on other players around as far as building them up and doing it for him.
And I suppose through sentiment we felt that he'd get the nod.
I sort of thought that he wasn't fit, in fact I knew he wasn't match fit, but I just had a hunch that his presence on the field might do something for the team.
But I didn't have the guts to follow my hunch through because the stakes were, to put it mildly, pretty high.
He was an absolutely shattered man, shattered. It was the most disappointing and the most upset I've ever seen him.
He told me in no uncertain terms what he thought, and I didn't blame him for that either. I think I would have been the same.
And I think John had to make the final decision and John was worried about Peter's health.
So he didn't play, and we lost.
Peter and Gwen stayed home on Grand Final Day, listening to the game on radio.
If you're feeling tired, if you're feeling tired just think of Crumans. He's home, he's not here. He brought his insides up this morning, he's not here.
You weren't at the match committee on Thursday night as I was when we had a big argument as to whether he ought to be in or out, and everybody spoke his mind and he finished up out.
He's not happy, he wasn't happy about it, who would be?
The Hawks lost to North Melbourne, and when they played off again for the 76th Premiership, Crumans was on his deathbed.
He sent a telegram and John Kennedy read that telegram out prior to the game, whereas the effect of it's going to be the toughest 120 minutes of your life, I'll write every bump with you all the way, or words to that effect, signed the little fellow.
And that's all John Kennedy needed to read out, the rest was history.
And of course we went on to win the grand final and then a few of us went back to his place that night and shared it all with him, until about two o'clock in the morning, and unfortunately that was the last time we saw him alive.
The club lost a favourite son in terms of a footballer, but they lost a lot more in that he was one of the genuine leaders, one of the genuine good people in that club that just made it a place that you want to be a part of because you could rub shoulders with the kind of people that Peter Crimmins represented.
But the impact on this club, it's still here, as strong as ever, and that is true, I'm not making that up, people have never forgotten him.
It wasn't easy, it wasn't easy, but when my wife's, we're both getting a bit older and we've had a pretty good life and these things come up and you have to accept them and make do with situations such as this as best you can.
Thursdays have never been funnier.
Ooh, that has gotta make you popular.
As Ellen's dream comes true, to dance her very own Giselle.
Dance, Ellen, dance!
But to see it all, you'll just have to be watching Ellen at 7.30, then at 8.00.
We want to have your baby.
Would Grace have a baby for her best friend?
No, they're just going to blame me the first time it does something wrong, like, you know, flunk math or shoot some pulp.
It's the Two Funny Women of Comedy, Thursday on Prime.
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Well you could hardly miss it.
Twiggy Dunn with the ball.
Only about 10 metres out from goal.
Look at those North Melbourne players on the mark.
Oh the pressure on this veteran from Collingwood played over 200 games.
Fires for the goals.
And he's put it through and scores at that level.
Scores at that level.
Now what will happen? Can they get it down there and score at quite either side?
34 minutes approaching. Allen with the ball on the half back line.
And the ball driven out there towards Max Richardson.
Picked up by Little Bond. He's going for one.
Can he get it down there and score?
There's the solid I think for the end of the game.
It's a draw.
It's a draw. The 1977 Grand Final is a draw.
And we'll be back here next week.
The first ever live telecast of a Grand Final.
And the league got a crackerjack result.
Tom Hafe took Collingwood from bottom to top in his first season.
Only to lose the replay a week later.
In the 79th Grand Final the Magpies met arch rival Carlton.
Led by the people's favourite Alex Jezelenko.
He's struggling.
Jeza had some faults. Jeza wasn't terribly keen on being heavily involved in work and things like that.
And I felt that they were things that probably wouldn't make him the best coach.
Turns around into an open goal. He's on an angle and puts it through.
Collingwood ready to go on to attack. A hand pass down to Magro.
Up there towards the full forward zone. Davis there punched out by Jeza.
Even the club president who appointed him because he was popular with the fans didn't expect Jeza to coach Carlton to one of their grandest victories.
The first of three flags in four years for the Blues.
Down towards the half forward line. Harms tries to pick it up. Buckley gets it out to Harms.
He's pursued by Brewer but he can't catch him. Harms fires at the goals but he's off target.
It's rolling towards the boundary line and Harms almost makes ground. He takes it back to Schell and there's a goal!
Oh what a goal!
I can remember Magro and Picken just screaming at the boundary umpire saying the ball was out of bounds but there wasn't a damn thing the boundary umpire could do because it happened so quickly.
And he wasn't in any position to make a decision nor was the goal umpire because no one could believe what had happened.
It was such an extraordinary sporting moment I suppose. Probably one of the greatest in grand final history.
Which basically won us the game.
I remember also the last quarter went for 27 and a half minutes. It was the shortest quarter for the entire season.
Harris told the grand final night celebrations that the only thing better than beating Collingwood by 10 goals was beating them by 5 points.
At Victoria Park Tom Hapey was to coach Collingwood into 6 grand finals in 6 years without one premiership.
Nobody's lower than the coach when you lose a grand final. Nobody. The players probably forget in a day, sometimes in an hour. The coach has got it with him for a long long time.
Down at Punt Road in 79 Richmond's captain and games record holder had become disenchanted with the Tigers.
At the end of 1979 I was captain of the club and I decided to leave the club and quit the club because I felt that the support wasn't there.
Tom Hapey talked me into staying and he was coaching Collingwood at the time.
So I actually talked him out of it and it was quite ironical because they beat us by 14 goals in the grand final.
And that little bludger kicked 7 goals and I just often think now if he had been playing for us at 7 goals they wouldn't have got.
If he had kicked 7 for us we would have won the game by 3 points.
The winner of the Norm Smith medal for 1980 is Kevin Bartlett.
Another Hapey protégé, Kevin Sheedy, the former back pocket plumber, started his coaching career at Essendon in 1981 bringing toughness and cunning to the Bombers.
He was a man who was just hell bent on having success and there was nothing that was going to get in his way and I think a few took exception to that.
You know let's be honest he wasn't keen on school teachers, let's not, you know, he wasn't either a school teacher, he had this long, you know, this long hair and I don't think I fitted his mould of a captain.
He always favoured those who were trades type people and he'd probably dispute this now but I think he did.
He always had a question mark against people who might have been teachers or academics because he believed that with those jobs came a little bit of softness.
Sheeds wanted a certain type of footballer and in many ways I didn't feel my personality was that sort of a footballer.
And I'm in that nice possible way of course but he wanted fellows that would walk over hot coals I suppose and I probably wasn't co-ordinate enough to walk across those sort of hot coals.
And at point blank range one would suggest that he wouldn't miss.
That he has, oh, in front of Zoha, this is their goal, Baker puts it through.
Sheedy brought the Premiership flag to Windy Hill in 1984.
In a memorable grand final Essendon led by Leon Baker, Terry Danaher and Billy Duckworth stormed home in the final quarter.
The first flag since 1965.
The Bombers went back to back in 85 crushing Hawthorne but the grand final was memorable for the arrival and departure of two of the Hawks greatest.
Lee Matthews bid a tearful farewell atop his teammates shoulders while Dermot Burriton kicked eight goals in one of the best ever loan efforts in grand final history.
When he first started off I mean he was a bit of a giggling kid more than anything.
I mean he wasn't naturally extroverted and flamboyant in fact he was pretty quiet, he was a bit of a giggling kid.
That's where his nickname came from, you know, from the kid.
Fouls, dispossessed, Rewetton, he could get his name in the record books if that's a goal.
It is, he's broken the record, eight goals, that's a fantastic end.
You know all the really great marks and all the flashy goals and all the things which people as a spectator love to see in Australian rules football,
those acts are committed by people who are in the game in their first, second or third year, unless it's a freak like Gary Abbot,
because they've got flamboyance there, that's what's got them there. Once they get into the team to be a good team player they get regimented.
Jason Dunstall kicks for goal but somebody's come over the mark, he's now, he's reversed it against Burriton.
Oh that's bad.
Well I reckon they were both doing it and I think that's a poor decision.
Well maybe Dermot took his chance.
Well that's the siren and Burriton is it.
Burriton is it. Forid to Forid with Umpire Clayton.
Not only did Burriton voice his frustration at this decision, he made his point to the Essendon camp by running through their three quarter time huddle.
And he still needs three for his century. Three quarter time here at VFL Park, controversial end.
Pushed past a couple of blokes and I saw Sheedy go past and I knew I was half way once you see the coach go past and then you get to the other side and there was you know,
Duckworth and Wallace and those types of blokes and I really started to think I could be in a bit of trouble here because I'd slowed down with momentum by then.
Awesome strong play by all the players. Oh Burriton is ironed out with the hip and shoulder of Vanduha.
If Paul Vanduha had a sore head after this shirt front, there were plenty of headaches after the biggest off field drama of the 80s, the move of South Melbourne to Sydney.
Ironically the cloak and dagger days of the swans had been forecast in a 70s movie starring John Jarrett.
Hey McCarthy, you come back here.
The Great McCarthy was a 1975 farce in which a futuristic team called the Swans bagged a boom recruit in a frenzy and flew off on their helicopter.
Like a lolly.
Eight years later the chairman of the league's first privately owned club and his blonde wife bagged a full forward wearing tight shorts for a team called the Swans.
Though Jeffrey Edelson insists the stories of a pink helicopter was someone else's fantasy.
But Dr. Alan Aylett was steering the VFL into a national competition and the league had forged its direction by building its own stadium.
President Sir Kenneth Luke's dream of turning a cow paddock at Waverley into the nation's second biggest stadium materialised as VFL Park and footy was on the move.
Tonight on Home and Away.
I haven't heard, the wedding's back on.
Will the wedding go ahead?
I thought you were relieved, she said no.
And a special guest appearance.
Oh the shock's in there.
Michael Palin guest stars in Home and Away tonight on Prime.
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A broken frets.
A problem with my go-go mobile.
Go-go mobile?
Problem with my go-go mobile?
I was wondering if G-O, G-G-O, problem with my go-go mobile?
Yeah? Yeah? No, not the dark, not the dark.
They always think it's the dark.
That's a weird rapper.
Hello Dave.
What's cooking?
Steak and veg.
Again?
I want real food.
What's this?
Red Rooster chicken strips.
They're taking Earth by storm.
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Heavenly.
I'm not just a pretty face, Dave.
It's ready.
Flora.
Oh baby.
Flora.
Flora. Hiya.
Who loves Flora?
He was a secret agent, brave and most courageous.
He had the secret formula to make milk fun.
The spies were up to take it till he showed them how to make it.
He said, Miss Quicks the trick for everyone.
So, ma'am, Miss Quicks the trick that chocolate strawberry taste really makes us tick.
The flavor's quite explosive.
But what you ought to know is, with milk a secret code is Miss Quicks the trick.
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Another robbery.
I told him you didn't do it.
But this one's brutal.
Will a boy lose both his parents?
I love you.
I hate you.
And Australia's number one drama.
You're another parent, aren't you?
Blue Heelers, 8.30 tonight on Prime.
A Russian band playing Up There Kazaly was bizarre.
But it wasn't the silliest thing the fans saw in the 70s and early 80s as football tumbled into an era of growing pains.
As we told you earlier, the board of the VFL is meeting in Melbourne to decide on the possibility of the Sydney Swans becoming Australian Rules' first privately owned club.
An offer from Dr. Jeffrey Eddleston to actually buy the club lock, stock and barrel.
And he openly courted the players and his jurors.
The players played gurus and their boys in red and white.
It had to be different in Sydney. Sydney is not like Melbourne.
The big question is what will I create this year? It must be bigger than last year. People expect it of me. They demand it of me.
I decided at the time that I wanted to see Sydney being successful and the national competition work.
The doctor neglected to mention that a company called Westec...
What went wrong you ask? Well I suppose the doctor was found out to be the big money person and the people who were with him give him the boot.
Because he's the only one getting any publicity, any kudos. Petty jealousy. They boot him out. But these are business people. They're not interested in football.
I think club ownership is the better way to go. It has more support from everyone and it doesn't rely on a single individual such as with private ownership.
...Laurie and Capper. Capper! Oh what a the marks of the year!
Warwick was sensational wasn't he up in Sydney? My two years he kicked 92 and 103 goals. So I can only speak so high of that boy.
For as much as Warwick and Joanne have made their vows today.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I'm marrying a footballer.
To find a sports event bigger than the Super Bowl one must travel halfway around the world.
This is Grand Final Week in Melbourne Australia.
While the Americans were having a nice day at the Australian game, Peter Knight was grappling with another foreign culture in 1987 as first coach of the Brisbane Bears.
We went up there of course without any facilities, any home. We didn't know where our ground was. Of course in those early days we had no name, no colours, no players, no nothing.
That was obvious that all had to begin. But we were just nomads.
The Bears priorities were so contrary to football tradition that Knight was told he couldn't leave out three high profile players despite their abysmal form.
Actor Chairman Paul Cronin steadfastly refused to leave out the three marketable stars who included Warwick Capper, a high priced signing from the Sydney Swans.
So Knight pleaded with the then owner Christopher Skace.
Christopher finally saw the reasons why.
And then I had to go back and tell Paul that I'd gone over his head to Christopher and I'd got the OK to omit Warwick.
And Paul wasn't too happy about that.
In those case, I'm sorry for Cronin, but we are new.
The next walk on in the Bears' soapy was Reuben Pelliman, a multimillionaire well into his 70s who became the biggest individual loser in the game's history by sinking five million in two years as the Bears owner.
The rocky expansion northwards finally yielded dividends on the field in 1995.
The move to a national competition is what really saved the then VFL.
The national perspective on the game provided us with much in the way of dollars from TV and sponsorship, but the game itself has never been so financially healthy in its whole 100 years.
The Eagles are going to win their first leg.
When the Eagles won the premierships in 1992 and 94, the competition became truly national.
Everywhere we go, people always ask us who we are.
So we tell them, mighty, mighty Eagles.
The Adelaide Crows had started with a flourish in 1991.
Their hometown support and vast membership harnessed the Croweys' traditional rivalry with Victorians and how close they came to history in 1993.
Leading Essendon by more than seven goals in the preliminary final, only to be overwhelmed by the Bombers, who went on to win the flag.
And the 1995 arrival of the Fremantle Dockers has brought flair and sparkle to a competition which had outgrown its Victorian origins and which had recovered from financial disaster.
In 1986, the league had its backside out of its pants.
Many of the clubs were bankrupt and things weren't going too well.
Crowds were down, dollars were down, memberships were down.
The clubs made a very important decision and that was to hand over most of the power that they had to an independent commission.
The pressure to compete with international codes for spectators, sponsors and participants means dire consequences for those who fail.
The Richmond Tigers are facing extinction. Liquidators have us in their sights.
If it doesn't work, we're dead in the water by the 22nd century.
You could forget all about Australian rules if we weren't national.
Through the 80s and 90s, one player had risen above all around him.
Hawthorne had let go the young Gary Ablett after just six games.
Though it's not widely known, he did sign a contract in 1988 to return to the Hawks.
That contract was never acted upon, though it still sits in a drawer at Glenferrie Oval.
He's going to be a big loss, isn't he? And now Gary Ablett's gone.
And so important was Ablett to Geelong that the city was devastated when he announced his retirement in 1991, only to come back a few months later.
Looking forward to playing today, Gary?
Yeah, it's good to be back.
Yeah. And what made you decide all of a sudden?
I really don't want to say anything at the moment.
He's got to get back to the game.
For everyone, including Ablett, in the 89 grand final, the stakes were at an all-time high.
The attack by Mark Yates on Brereton at the opening bounce was the first shot in a war.
I thought that if Dermot was going to do one of his tricks to come off the back of the square, that perhaps we should have an insurance policy.
So that was Mark Yates, whom he bowled over early in the year beautifully.
So Yates had the motivation.
I mean, it was a legitimate bump. It was probably two metres away from the ball, from where it should have been.
It was probably seven metres away. I don't know what the...not five.
Geelong hadn't won since 1963, while Hawthorne, despite their age of supremacy, had never won back-to-back flags.
These players, if they really wanted to be the players to play in the first back-to-back premiership, they had to pay a supreme price.
The price was supreme, but no-one minded paying it.
Twelve players were taken to hospital afterwards, six from each team, including Hawke Robert Dippier-Domenico, who had continued playing despite a punctured lung.
This was the day of football's gladiators.
So ferocious was the battle that Batman's romp passed unnoticed.
For the 95,000 fans, this was an epic to be thankful for.
I'd just like to thank Hawthorne, congratulate Hawthorne, and I'd like to thank the Geelong Football Club, and I'd just like to thank God for making it all possible. Thank you.
Ablett won the Norm Smith medal for his nine goals, but Hawthorne won the flag.
And for the Cats, this was the first of four grand final losses in six years.
I think being involved in three losses in a grand final as a coach, it's not pretty.
The first one was exciting. The second one was the most disappointing day I ever spent in 40.
I honestly think that when you get nearly five goals up in a grand final and don't win it, that hurts.
And I'm not sure that the club understood that and the players at the club understood that at the time.
And I think those sins are now being paid for with the last couple of results, to be honest.
Attention all Earthlings.
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Never hit on aliens.
I killed him.
The attack of the body snatchers.
You're all going to die.
Catch the louse with John Lithgow and Jane Curtin, 7.30 Wednesday.
Then at 8 o'clock.
It's a world first.
Dobbed in by his wife.
Never parachuted before.
He's now facing the adrenaline rush.
Check right.
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Make sure you're part of this breathtaking television first.
Doctor, doctor, give me the ooo, I got a huge case of love and coon, just the right bite to it. I like it on top, nothing else can do it. Great taste of coon that never stops.
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Spend the night in front of the fox.
One three one, two four one.
The secret is out.
Melissa Etheridge is back in Australia for a sellout tour.
The album, Your Little Secret, features the new single, I Wanna Come Over.
Songs that come straight from the heart.
Melissa Etheridge, the new album, Make It Your Little Secret.
He was a secret agent, brave and most courageous.
He had the secret formula to make milk fun.
The spies were up to take it till he showed them how to make it.
He said, Miss Quicks the trick for everyone.
So, ma'am, Miss Quicks the trick.
That chocolate strawberry taste really makes us tick.
The flavor's quite explosive, but what you oughta know is,
with milk, our secret code is Miss Quicks the trick.
Chewy, chewy, chewy, chewy, chewy, chewy, baby.
Always got my fuzz in the sand.
All right, if you still remember all the words to chewy, chewy,
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Ask your doctor for a simple test, Groovers.
Chewy, little chewy, don't know what you're doing to me, but you're doing...
I'm calling for a doctor forever.
Take your time and play the game.
From 1958 until 1990, a plague descended on Australia's most famous sporting club.
Lou Richards diagnosed it as the Collywobbles,
and everyone had a theory why Collingwood came so agonizingly close.
So often, without winning a premiership.
CHOIR SINGS
Along Lully Street, we had two or three trees there,
and we had to demolish them in 59,
and there used to be nests of magpies up here,
and if you wasn't careful coming along Lully Street, they'd come down and peck you.
But when the trees went, the magpies went.
That's one of the reasons why I think we have won a premiership.
The magpies deserted us.
If the deserting magpies took the good fortune with them,
assistant coach Neil Mann thought he had the lucky charm for coach Bob Rose
before the 66th Grand Final against St. Gilbert.
So we get to the ground, and I went over to Bob, and I give it to him.
I put it in his pocket, this little troll doll.
He said, this is for luck today, Bob.
He took it out of his pocket and he threw it on the ground.
And he said, no, I don't want any of that today.
He said, I've got a new suit on, a new tie.
He said, I'm not having any superstitions.
After the game, I said, we got beat by a pointer.
I said, you shouldn't have done that, Bob.
That little troll doll took it out on us.
This is the third time Bob Rose has coached Collingwood to a Grand Final.
In 64, they lost by four points, and in 66, by a single point.
Sivardly recalling those two narrow Grand Final losses
to Melbourne and St. Kilda,
Rose is realistically aware of Carlton's threat.
Barassi only had one move, and he made that move.
He brought Hopkins on, and he kicked four goals.
Well, he shouldn't have been allowed to kick four goals.
Someone should have, well, let's say, run into him accidentally.
Oh, no, look, the Collywobbles was just a convenient myth.
Everybody likes to sort of stick it up Collingwood, you know.
Rarely has a picture told a story so clearly.
Today completes an unenviable hat-trick of Grand Final losses
for Bob Rose over a seven-year period.
I shall never forget how they collapsed on the ground
straight after that game,
because we'd had three finals in a row
where we'd lost by four points, a point and a point,
and it's pretty shattering.
Oh, well, Bobby, I think, you know, he's a strong man, Bobby,
but it sort of destroyed him in a way.
It's pretty so close so many times, and, yeah, Tommy,
over those people are very strong characters,
and they, you know, handle it very well, I thought.
Collingwood fans could always bask in the two flags of the 50s,
though in 1951, Lou Richards was already putting his boot in his mouth.
So I said to my brother,
now, when it comes to nominations for captain, you nominate me.
So Ronnie nominated Lou Richards for captain,
and there was deathly silence in the room,
and no one seconded it.
I never became captain that year,
but I made it my business.
I'd do a bit of PR for myself the next year,
and I became captain.
Collingwood's benefactor was John Wren,
whose gifts to players were legendary.
Mr. Jack Stewart, a great friend of Mr. Wren,
Mr. Wren's telling you to come down and tell me firstly
to give the players 500 pounds.
Oh, you beauty!
A lot of money there, 500 pounds?
Oh.
It sort of brings back memories of how great old Jock was
and how emotional he used to be,
and he passed away just after this,
and so did John Wren, the man that he mentioned that gave him the 500 pounds.
I'd like to thank all the players for the magnificent job that I've done today,
and if anyone stays that size on a trip, Collingwood's all the way.
Knock me down!
Any rate, I walked past Wren,
and Jock McCall said, great game, young Richards.
It wouldn't matter if you're 45, he'd call you young Richards.
And Wren said, good game, son, good game,
and I thought, oh, this is it, this could be something coming my way.
So I went back to my locker.
Well, it's not a locker in those days, it was a nail on the wall.
And I had seven showers that night walking past John Wren,
but he never noticed me.
The excitement of the 53 premier ship was too much for McCall and Wren,
who both died of heart attacks within a fortnight of the victory,
leaving Collingwood much the poorer.
When Collingwood met Essendon in the 1990 Grand Final,
the premiership drought weighed heavily on everyone wearing black and white.
This was the magpies' chance to avenge three decades of heartbreak.
And I remember going to the MCG on the Thursday or the Friday to do a shot with the cup,
and Timmy Holden and I held it, and I just thought,
well, Timmy wasn't as excited as I was when I had it in my hand,
because he had been there, I probably, and I thought,
well, maybe that might be a little edge on himself.
I've got no doubt in myself, maybe Dennis Banks,
maybe Peter Dacos would have been retired by the club if we had lost that premiership,
and that's the realism of winning or losing.
However hard it is, I look back now and I think that would have happened,
no doubt, if we had lost that game.
Shorry had just driven those players right throughout that contest,
and I still believe that had he not been the captain of the club in 1990,
they wouldn't have won that flag.
And after the game, I just grabbed him,
and I said that I believed that he deserved it.
This is the death of Collywobble.
The jinx leaves only memories of finals defeat,
which were sent to the grave one by one.
It's ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the Collywobbles are buried,
and once again, it's them against us.
America's a shouty, and America's sure,
for the premiership to take one good old Collywobble.
7.30 Thursday, Ellen's dream comes true,
to dance her very own Giselle.
But to see it all, you just have to be watching Ellen's 7.30 Thursday on Prime.
The Giselle is the number one priority number now.
Bushman Tanks, the strength in Parks New South Wales.
The new Shick effects performer,
with its unique skin guard, lubricating strip,
and even greater flexibility,
the first most comfortable shade yet.
The new Shick effects performer, changing the face of shaving.
Where's my shapes?
Shapes, where are they?
Shapes.
Ah!
Wave on, it's a crazy feeling.
Yeah!
And its shapes have flavors you can see on a base you can munch.
For a taste that tap-tances over your taste buds,
and its shapes, the Crave Crushers.
Pizza Shapes.
The new V6 Mitsubishi Magna can leap from 0 to 100 in a mere 8.2 seconds.
But when it comes to your test drive, we prefer you to take as much time as you like.
Please consider the new Mitsubishi Magna.
Right now at Pizza Haven, we're having one of our biggest offers ever.
For a limited time, we'll give you a large extra supreme,
a large Hawaiian, garlic bread, and lasagna.
Plus, we'll throw in a bottle of Coke and a chocolate Bavarian dessert.
All for $19.90, delivered free.
That's not supreme value, that's mega value.
For a great deal, on a great meal,
spend the night in front of the box.
One, three, one, two, four, one.
It's ready.
Mmm, Flora.
Oh, baby.
Mmm.
Are you?
Oh, Christ.
Who loves Flora?
Oh!
Now, you can witness a new focus on Australia and the world.
Witness with Jan Event.
Join the Experience, 9.30 Tuesday on Prime.
MUSIC
I remember, I remember, I don't think so much, I don't think so much.
Football today is faster, the players fitter, the rich are richer,
and the poor are more vulnerable now than at any time in a century of league football.
For the Battlers, a bad year is a crisis.
Everyone's under pressure to perform, not only on the field, but off the field.
And if you take the risks, the rewards can be glorious if they are successful,
but if you're a failure, the industry reminds you of that pretty quickly.
MUSIC
Matches have become board games of tactics, of set plays and counter plays, and secret strategies.
And it's made the life of a coach in terms of the match day much more invigorating, much more demanding.
I mean, I'm getting older too, but I've got to lie down to sleep after a hard day in the box
if you're coached against shooting or you're coached against walls.
The subtleties of moving only one player five metres in a centre square bounce can be important.
Come on.
Football has become a blur of constant motion, of corporate boxes, of entertainment by day and by night.
Well, just have a look at this atmosphere. It is just fantastic. Night football is what it's all about in the future.
There's no doubt that people prefer to come at night. It just creates a fantastic atmosphere.
Our crowds are three times the size of any other spectator sport in this country. It must be the game of the people.
It's a sensational game. It is a sensational game.
I think our game as Australian football probably demands more of its athletes than any other game I can think of that's played anywhere in the world.
Today, I mean, the players are just sensational with their athleticism and their fitness and strength and speed.
Players are now drafted to clubs and are more prepared than their dads were for the overnight switch from schoolyard to the big time.
A lot of athletes are getting a game of football now and haven't got good football brains because the game is so quick and hard.
I'm probably the last of the non-athletic footballers.
For years, you had to be a footballer first and an athlete second or an athlete was pretty handy if you were those.
Well, nowadays, one of the changes is that the young blokes have to be fabulous athletes.
Club limits of 42 players have made them more conscious of keeping players injury-free,
and coaches are now more calculating with their emotions than hot-gospeling predecessors like Alan Killigrew.
Come September, you're either in the finals or you're on the table waiting to go in the operating room.
And, you know, for the teams that didn't make the finals, that's where we are.
Morning, sir. Good to see you. I've come to the PMA. This will be on for about 10 minutes and it will take all the years.
So the season's all over for you blokes, isn't it?
I'm sure it is.
Bring it down here.
A week after Collingwood's 1995 season ended, best and fairest Severio Rocker was having surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament.
Take slow breaths as you go off to sleep. That's the way. See you when it's all finished.
This is the atheroscope, which has a camera here looking down through a lens and then we add a light source to it here.
Knee surgeries are so common these days because the game's getting so quick and so tough that, you know,
something has to give in your body. Blokes are throwing themselves in so hard.
Last year he had inflammation in this region here at the bottom of his kneecaps.
He had to shave away these tissues in here to get into his patellar tendon.
Seth, you're waking up. You're in recovery room now.
Severio Rocker walked out of hospital on the same day as his operation,
a far cry from when another Collingwood full forward, Dick Lee, had football's first cartilage operation in 1912.
Sav also didn't need the bandage worn by Collingwood's greatest goal kicker, Nuts Coventry, in the 20s.
Oh, today they can take your knee to pieces, put together and die now and you'll be playing next day. It's unbelievable.
How's the player plead? Guilty. Please, guilty.
Footballers today face surgery by video, coaches judge them by video, and the tribunal has trial by video.
The crackdown on violence includes finding clubs for brawling under the melee rule.
Well, that's a melee.
That's $50,000 almost if you get seven in there.
These fellas sitting up top now, like feeding them, they take all the thrills out of the game there and have basketball.
I'm thinking about writing in and telling them, why don't you have basketball instead of these fellas having an invalid one now and again.
There's nothing more exciting than one of those, what do they call them now, a melee.
One bloke pushes another fella, another fella pushes another fella with a melee on.
It's the biggest joke I've ever heard and I like it. It's not having one good punch thrown in four melees.
Months of failed negotiations over the standard player contract came to a head last night.
The escalating demands on the performers brought a stand from the players in 1993.
The game stars turned out with their mates and opponents to demand better conditions.
It's a limited opportunity to play football and the last thing you want to do is spend your time worrying about whether you're earning enough money from it or earning a quid win.
It's going to disappear pretty quickly and you should get out there and enjoy it.
The pond of to Lord, Lord was running the other way and the pond of said, Lord hear us, Lord hear my pass and he went bang and it's just about all over Sam, what are Richmond doing for God's sake.
In 1989 four players were paid $100,000 in the glee.
In 1995 100 players were paid more than $100,000. It gives you some idea of the capacity of the league to pay its players because it's now on a very solid financial base.
Hey Fadigam, if it was raining bikini clad women here today, Richmond would be washed down the tube with a truck driver. They cannot buy a goal.
It doesn't last forever and whatever they may get at football they should store away. Whether they want to go into business later on or buy a lovely home and have a nice bank roll to invest in.
But I can't stress upon the kids playing today, it doesn't last forever.
League football has become so dynamic, so hectic that we might wonder where it will be in another 100 years.
We've seen changes to virtually every aspect of footy, but what hasn't altered, what keeps Australian football unique among the nation's sports, is that the people rightly believe we own footy.
It's the game we created and the history of football is very much the story of our lives.
I can still remember when I first saw the game, remember just how good the feeling was. I was never quite the same.
A family there beside me and we all went on to say that we'd never find another game like the game we saw that day.
So we watched the champions coming up and we watched the champions fall and we watched the champions hang on with their backs against the wall.
We had our share of heroes, there were many there it's true. But those were the greatest heroes I guess I ever knew.
Aussie Rose, I thank you for the best years of our lives, all those hazy, crazy, young days, all those fun days in our lives.
I thank you for the laughter and I thank you for the tears and I thank you just for helping us to overcome our fears.
And I thank you for 100 years. Aussie Rose, I thank you for the best years of our lives, all those hazy, crazy, young days, all those fun days in our lives.
I thank you for the laughter and I thank you for the tears and I thank you just for helping us to overcome our fears. And I thank you for 100 years.
I killed him.
The attack of the body snatchers.
When you're all going to die.
Catch The Lousy with John Lithgow and Jane Curtin, 7.30 Wednesday.
Then at 8 o'clock.
It's a world first.
Dodged in by his wife.
Never parachuted before.
He's now facing the adrenaline rush.