AFL great Brian Taylor opens up on how footy saved him
From working in the mines to being one of the most recognisable figures and voices in footy, AFL legend Brian Taylor opens up on how the game saved him.
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One of the great voices of the AFL, Brian Taylor has told how footy saved him.
After a decorated playing career with Richmond and Collingwood, Taylor has gone on to be one of the giants of the footy media over the past three decades. As he moves into his 13th year as a key part of Channel 7’s broadcast team, Taylor has opened up on how the game he loves gave him the chance to grow from his battler beginnings in WA, his relationship with TV’s fastest rising star, Tony Armstrong, his deep interest in indigenous culture, his advocacy of ‘off the grid’ living, the influence of Bruce McAvaney and the secret behind the success of ‘Roaming Brian’.
Fiona Byrne: Hello Brian, Are we going to see you on screen with Hollywood star Liam Neeson given he has been filming near your home in Walhalla?
Brian Taylor: No, we stayed clear of the movie (Ice Road 2: Road To The Sky), but it has ignited the town with day visitors. It has been fascinating to see what they did to Walhalla to turn it into this little Nepalese village for the film. I have not seen him, but my friends up there have been hiding in the bushes and taking photos of Liam Neeson.
FB: You have had a great career as a player and TV and radio commentator, but footy was not your preferred sport when you were growing up.
BT: Basketball and motorbikes were one and two when I was growing up in Mandurah. Footy was a late thing that came along. A guy said to me ‘Why don’t you go to Perth and try out for this state under 18 footy team?’. I reluctantly did.
Anyway, three weeks later I ended up in Adelaide and some recruiting guys from Richmond saw me. I was playing on a friend of mine, Mark Weideman, who was a good solid player at the time, and from that, three or four months Iater, I end up getting this contract from Richmond thrust in front of me. My mum was a housewife, my dad was a truckie and I was bad at school, we were battlers, so none of us had any idea what this contract meant. Anyway, I ended up in Melbourne in 1979 and the rest is history. I was 16 when I left (WA).
FB: Did footy save you?
BT: I was about to start a job as a mechanical fitter at an Alcoa Bauxite mine in Pinjarra (when the Richmond contract landed). I would say that I would be there today still working in that mine had I not chosen to come to Victoria, so footy did save me. It gave me opportunity that I just would never have got, so I am forever indebted to Noel Judkins and the Richmond family for bringing me over.
FB: Had you seen media as a potential career post footy while you were still playing?
BT: I was always amazed at the media. The thing that stood out to me, this is as a 17/18-year-old, is that I’d go to training and it hadn’t been announced who was the new player in the team for that week, let’s say someone was debuting, yet on Thursday night all the cameras would be around this one guy that was about to debut. Somehow the media knew. From that point on I worked out there was a relationship between media and clubs.
People used to hang a lot of shit on me as a player and I fought that for a couple of years and I was angry about that for a couple of years, and then I realised that perhaps, if you become a bit friendlier and talk to these people, you can build relationships with them and things can change. There will still be the odd negative thing along the way, of course there will, but there will be many positives as well. I decided to jump into bed with the media at that particular time and that really helped me to progress and work out whether I wanted to do that (work in media).
FB: After you called time on your playing career at the end of 1990, you moved into radio and then in 2002 TV.
BT: At that time in 1990 the only people that were employed in the media as former footballers were Brownlow medallists, premiership players, 300 game players, so you had to be at the top echelon of our game to get a job in the media. I think I might have been the first of the ones not with those credentials; I had 150 games, or whatever it was, that is nothing in comparison to what the others had done at the time. I got there through preparation and hard work, watching, learning and enjoying what I did.
FB: How do you feel about footy now?
BT: My passion for the game, my love of the game, is the same now as what it was when I first started. I would say right now I love the game probably even more because it is better than when I was playing.
FB: At the Logie Awards, ABC star, Tony Armstrong thanked you for helping him get started in media. How did that relationship come about?
BT: Tony went to school with my sons at Assumption College. He was a boarder and he used to spend weekends at our place and lived with us for a while. He played junior footy with our kids. He was a great young man. Being just a little tiny ingredient (Taylor mentored him and recommended him to Triple M where he started doing footy special comments in 2019) in what he is doing now has been important. It has been a lot of fun seeing him blossom. He has unlimited potential in a whole wide range of areas. I hope one day we see him back in football.
FB: Can you tell me about your interest in, and respect for, indigenous culture?
BT: I have been involved with guys like Leon Davis and other players over the years. It is probably my background in Western Australia, having an understanding of indigenous affairs and how all that goes. It is a real enjoyment and an absolute respect. I love their stories. Leon’s dad would tell us Dreamtime stories around a fire down at the river at the farm (at Romsey). It was amazing. We would often have indigenous footballers from five or six teams come to the farm, have a meal and tell stories. They felt comfortable in that environment and I felt really super comfortable in that environment. The indigenous part of our game is probably the most exciting aspect of football, full stop.
FB: Who has been the biggest influence on your AFL commentary career?
BT: James Brayshaw through his professionalism. He, like me, cops a lot, but he is just a complete professional. He knows how to push the buttons to bring the best out in the people he works with. Bruce McAvaney was fantastic.
Unfortunately, I only worked with him for a short time, but I loved him and he was a coach to all of us. He has had an enormous influence on what I do. Smokey (Graham) Dawson, in a radio sense, very early on (taught me) the absolute basics in radio. I couldn’t have done it without him because if I had not got the basics right, maybe, I would not have been able to build from there.
FB: What was his key advice?
BT: It was the old story of the three Ws: Who’s got it? What is the score? Where is it? Just keep repeating those if you have nothing else to say.
FB: What is James Brayshaw like to work with?
BT: I have worked with James in radio and TV and we have an incredible understanding of each other. We have never once in over 20 years of working together had a serious word or an aggressive word between us. There has never been an argument. (When calling) I am thinking about the football and involving myself really emotionally in the moment. I don’t think about stats and things I need to say. JB is thinking about ‘how do I piece this commentary team together?’. His role is much wider than mine. I am just concentrating on the 50m around the footy. He is concentrating on the commentary box and the oval because he is the jigsaw operator.
FB: How did F1 influence your ‘Roaming Brian’ segment?
BT: I am an F1 fan and I watch (commentator and former driver) Martin Brundle. There are a million people on the grid and they are all famous and I was always amazed that he would start at the front of the grid and walk up to Tom Cruise and the body guards would get in the way and he could not talk to Tom. Then he would go over to the head of Ferrari and he would not talk to him, then he would go over to Rihanna and she would say, ‘No, I don’t want to speak’, and he would get to the end of the grid and he had not spoken to anyone. He had had all these knock-backs. I was asking myself ‘why am I still watching this?’ and I realised it was about the pictures. Correlate that to the ‘Roaming’ stuff and it is not about what I say or who I interview or who I don’t interview, it is about you, sitting at home, enjoying the fact I am taking you on a walk where you would not normally be able to go.
FB: Why did you choose to live ‘off the grid’ at your home in the Otways?
BT: We had a quote to put power to the property and it was over a million because they had to go under a bridge, across a river, through a national park, through a state park and through private land, so you can understand the cost. But that made us decide to go solar. I have heard all the horror stories about running out of power and it is absolute nonsense. The best thing I have done in my life is go off grid and not have a power bill. We don’t even think about power now. We have tanks for rainwater.
FB: Is a man shed part of the off the grid living.
BT: I built my own shed. I have got a man shed. I am big on man sheds.
FB: Have you recovered from doing The Real Full Monty charity special for 7?
BT: I did not want to do it at the start and then some really good people, Kris Smith and Shane Jacobson, were instrumental in telling me I would be well protected, despite not being protected at all. That was totally out of my comfort zone. To strip naked on stage in front of women and be told that an explosion would go off in my groin section to cover that, was just frightening.
FB: Away from footy, you were supposed to be a part of 7’s Holey Moley game show
BT: We got caught in Covid (in 2020). We were in the States, in LA, we were three or four days into filming and we had another six days to go and got a call from Australia saying that they were going to close the borders tomorrow at midnight and you have to get back to Australia. So we packed up, went home and never went back. (Footy commitments meant he could not continue on the show when filming was rescheduled in Queensland).
FB: How do you feel going into your 13th year as part of Channel 7’s footy broadcast team?
BT: You must evolve in this game because the actual game is evolving, so we as a commentary team must evolve as well. I am looking forward to this year as we have a few new people in the team - Joel Selwood, Trent Cotchin, Erin Phillips. They help our team because they bring us the knowledge of what they have learnt and experienced as players over their career.
FB: What defines your commentary style?
BT: I get sucked into the vortex that footy offers when there is an exciting game, an exciting passage, an exciting moment. I become fully immersed in that moment or that period of the game or the game. I am a moment by moment, passion for the game person. My thing is flowing with the emotions of the games. There are so many ups and downs from a team perspective and also from individuals within the games.
Originally published as AFL great Brian Taylor opens up on how footy saved him
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