Mark Robinson: Kevin Sheedy’s contribution to and celebration of Indigenous culture in football is unmatched

When he was accused of racial abuse, it felt like a stake through Kevin Sheedy’s heart. His contribution to and celebration of Indigenous culture in football is unmatched, writes Mark Robinson.

When Kevin Sheedy was told that he had been accused of racial abuse, it felt like a stake through his heart and through everything he had accomplished for Indigenous people for the past 50 years.

Stunned doesn’t go close to describing his reaction.

He was angry and most of all was saddened. He spoke briefly on Sunday and asked not to be quoted. But as his grandchildren splashed around in the pool at home in front of him, you could tell.

His voice lacked the enthusiasm and playfulness that almost always accompanies a Sheedy conversation. This hurt him. Perhaps more than losing a Grand Final.

Sheedy has created more front pages for football than probably anyone who has served the game, and this time he was in the crosshairs.

The headline might as well have been that Sheedy is a racist.

All this from a comment, allegedly made at a sportsmen’s night in 2017, that Sheedy encouraged his players to abuse Jim and Phil Krakouer in the 1980s to gain a tactical advantage.

It’s flimsy.

But mud sticks because the internet never forgets.

And that’s jarring because his good outweighs his bad 100,000-1.

Michael Long and Kevin Sheedy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Undoubtedly, the brothers were dealt with appallingly through that time. The world was a naive and nasty place then. The words attributed to a bunch of Essendon players in the class action were commonplace, and not only on the footy field.

Thankfully, as education became paramount, vilification became real and punishable in football.

The AFL was the first sporting organisation in the world to introduce an anti-vilification code. That was in 1995. The AFL couldn’t right the wrongs of the past, but it sure as hell wanted to shape the future.

Sheedy was part of that.

As coach of Essendon, he took the club around Australia. From Port Lincoln to Geraldton. From Mildura to the Tiwi Islands.

He’s been to more remote communities in Western Australia and Northern Territory than every Prime Minister combined.

He engaged Indigenous Australians. He offered hope. If Michael Long from the Tiwis could make it to Melbourne, so could they.

He helped create traineeships and school scholarships and, with then Essendon official Simon Matthews, pioneered the Dreamtime blockbuster between the Bombers and Richmond at the MCG.

His contribution to and celebration of Indigenous culture in football is unmatched.

And now he’s accused of racial abuse.

Sheedy has taken the game around Australia. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The class action against the AFL might well lead to pay outs for the Krakouer brothers and the Supreme Court might not be the place to determine that. Mediation has to be the first play.

It will be complex because the 1980s were a free-for-all for racism compared to today’s standards.

Can the AFL – the semi-professional VFL in those days – be held responsible for the community, government, business and school attitudes back then?

Maybe Sheedy said those things. He says he didn’t.

And people close to Phil Krakouer say he wouldn’t make it up.

Still, it must be traumatic for him and certainly it has devastated Sheedy.

It came a week after he agreed to another venture in his Iconic football book series. There’s been the best-selling list of the greatest coaches and players, the icons of footy, and the greatest sportsmen of Australia.

The title of this one?

The Greatest Indigenous Players.

He is still planning to pen it.

Originally published as Mark Robinson: Kevin Sheedy’s contribution to and celebration of Indigenous culture in football is unmatched