Malcolm Blight’s 50 years in league football — The move to the boardroom
MALCOLM Blight started his journey in league football 50 years ago, and has left a significant mark on the game. In the final instalment of our four-part series, Michelangelo Rucci looks at Blight’s move to the boardroom.
- Tell the truth: Blight slams Mitch’s reasons for wanting out
- Blight’s 50 years in footy Part 3: TV and media
- Blight’s 50 years in footy Part 2: The coaching days
- Blight’s 50 years in footy Part 1: The playing days
MALCOLM Blight could win a football game with a kick. He could recast the way of a match as a coach by putting an unlikely player such as Shane Ellen at the goalfront in the 1997 AFL grand final.
The Hall of Fame Legend certainly could change the way anyone thought of a contest with his unrivalled remarks from a television booth as a commentator.
But Blight does not hide he never quite felt right in his move from a tracksuit to a suit as a boardroom director in 2009 when AFL chief Andrew Demetriou sent an SOS to guide Gold Coast through its birth from a workshop at AFL House in Melbourne to a professional sporting team on Australia’s toughest patch.
“At times,” Blight recalls of his entry to the one room at a football club he generally avoided as a player and coach, “I felt things needed to be done differently. But I respected the roles of the people in the changeroom too much — and I probably did not say enough.”
On reflection, almost a decade after Gold Coast was positioned as the AFL’s 17th team, Blight has much to say of the birth of the Suns — and the AFL’s planning for expansion in Australian football’s non-traditional zone in New South Wales and Queensland.
“To put up Greater Western Sydney a year later was unfair,” Blight said. “It was not a great plan. The AFL needed to consider how hard it was to establish the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Bears … and they gave the Gold Coast Suns one year before turning their attention to Greater Western Sydney.”
Blight’s football career — and 50-year journey in league football — is marked with extremes when he considers the boardrooms at his six clubs (Woodville, North Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide, St Kilda and Gold Coast).
There was the devoted service of Bill Sanders at Woodville and the Crows; the enterprise of Ron Joseph and his fellow directors at North Melbourne; the passion he found at Geelong with Ron Hovey and future AFL commissioner Colin Carter; the expertise from inaugural Crows chairman Bob Hammond who, like Blight, has moved from the changerooms to the board room via the television booth … and the madness of St Kilda where president Rod Butterss sacked him after 15 games.
Tellingly, Blight refuses to speak of the man who replaced him in the St Kilda coach’s box by his name, Grant Thomas. And he leaves the defence of his work at St Kilda on the words of Butterss from his shocking revelations on the Channel Nine Footy Show last year of being under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he led the Saints from 2000-2007.
“I don’t waste any time in my life analysing what happened at St Kilda,” Blight said. “In 15 weeks of 2001, Rod Butterss and his board decided they knew from 15 weeks of football more than I did from 15 years in the game.
“My decisions in that challenging role were based on integrity in my job as coach. And I remain in the game. After all Rod Butterss revealed on The Footy Show, I don’t need to answer for what happened at St Kilda.
“But as (former St Kilda player) Danny Frawley asks, what about the rest of the St Kilda board? How did they allow such an irrational leadership of their board?’
Blight’s move to Queensland in 2002 — as his wife Patsy set up holiday accommodation for tourists — put him in the frame a role in a football club’s administration well before Demetriou had the Suns on his planning board.
North Melbourne board member Mike O’Brien had tapped Blight as the Kangaroos were debating the prospect of moving from Arden Street to the Gold Coast.
“Mike asked if I would help, not just with my football background but my business experience — and I was always going to agree to help my old club,” Blight said. “But even today I still do not know the full story behind what was on the table for North Melbourne to move to the Gold Coast.
“What I do know is how friendship were split by that debate. I stayed in the background.”
Blight’s strongest connection with a football club’s boardroom was at Geelong, in particular with future AFL commissioner Colin Carter as they drove to and from games “picking each other’s brains — Colin on football and me on business”.
Geelong had been accustomed to coaches writing weekly reports for its directors and making regular appearances at board meetings. Blight changed this.
“I was not going to board meetings,” Blight said. “The board was free to come to any of my team meetings, to training sessions. But as far as the board room was concerned, that was for them; it was where they could run the club — and at the end of each season they only to tell me if I was to come back or go.”
In his time in presenting to business forums and conferences, Blight always asked one key question: “What is the most common ingredient in success …?
“I pause. And it is a long pause. And eventually someone will say hard work. No.
“It is people. Board rooms — be it in football or business — need to have the right people making good decisions.
“This stood out to me at North Melbourne with Ron Joseph, Allen Aylett, Al Mantello and Barry Cheatley. Each of them brought an expertise to the boardroom — Ron with his sharp recruiting, Allen as the figurehead, Al as the man who pulled the strings around the VFL table and Barry with his creative thinking in the first moves in marketing in Australian football.
“Those four men together changed North Melbourne. From the boardroom, they put the right people in place from Ron Barassi as coach to the team that won the club’s first VFL flag in 1975. And the rest is history …”
THE BOARD ROOM THEN AND NOW
THEN
ALL-MALE bastions with board room filled with high-profile local businessmen and former players. Each director was compelled to claim his seat from a vote from the membership.
NOW
GENERALLY all AFL clubs will have two women on their boards - Kate Ellis and Linda Fellows at Adelaide; Amanda Vanstone and Holly Ransom at Port Adelaide.
Not all directors’ seats will be decided by a membership vote. Some board members are “co-opted” to a board to fill gaps inspecialist fields, particularly law. And in some cases - such as Adelaide and Port Adelaide - board members must be ratifiedby the AFL Commission.
LANDMARK MOMENTS
DECEMBER 4, 1985 - VFL board of directors (made of representatives from all 12 VFL clubs) hands control of Australia’s biggest football competition to an independent “commission”.
FIRST FEMALE BOARD MEMBER: Beverly Knight, Essendon (1993).
FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT: Peggy O’Neal, Richmond (October 2013).
THE LEADERS
BILL SANDERS (Woodville-Adelaide)
“THE boardroom seemed so distant as a young coach while Bill was handling everything off the field, either as a team manager (at Woodville) or chief executive (at Adelaide). I had watched Bill from his under-19s days at Woodville. I knew away from football when both worked in banking. And he lived just four streets away. He was a local identity.
“Bill’s great quality as a football administrator was being organised. Perhaps that was from his banking background where everything has to be in order. But as a person, Bill has a great sense of humour and a great outlook on life. He is greatto be around.”
BOB HAMMOND (Adelaide)
“IS there a more respected person in SA football? Bob worked the four corners of the football game before me as a great premiership player with North Adelaide, a premiership coach with Norwood, a man answering the game’s need in Sydney too, a superb commentator and a Hall of Fame administrator.
“Bob ticked every box. And he cut to the chase in dealing with any challenge. He would make decisions - and good decisions.”
RON HOVEY (Geelong)
“RON was the club president of an era now well gone. He was the former player, the premiership player. He was the successfullocal businessman. He was the soul of the Geelong Football Club because he always had the club’s best interests at heart. He was a great football person who never panicked - he held the line to do what was best for Geelong.
“In may ways, Geelong - as the last outpost as a regional club in a national competition - reminded me of Woodville as a clubstrongly connected to the local community.”
COLIN CARTER (Geelong)
“COLIN had a fascination with football that took him all the way to the AFL Commission and now back to Geelong as club president. We would share car rides to and from games in Melbourne picking each other’s brains. Colin wanted to learn football from me; I wanted to learn business from Colin while I was running a national transport company.
“I love Colin’s company. He is always working that inquiring mind on the art of football. He wants to learn.”
RON JOSEPH (North Melbourne)
“RON was part of a great four-man administrative team that made North Melbourne great. Ron Joseph was the great administrator and recruiter. Alby Mantello pulled all the strings at the VFL table where he pushed up the 10-year rule that allowed North Melbourne to sign Doug Wade, Barry Davis and John Rantall. Allen Aylett was the great figurehead. And (former player) Barry Cheatley was the marketing genius, the man who put sponsorship logos on the back of player dressing gowns in 1972 to openthe way to bringing big money to the club.
“Here is the proof of how success comes from people working together to make a club great.”
ROD BUTTERSS (St Kilda)
“WHEN Rod and his people came to me with a challenge and a financial incentive to take up that challenge, they were certain to get attention. I took on St Kilda after they had won two games in 2000. It was going to take time to build that list atSt Kilda with draft picks and developing players.
“But after 15 games - with three wins - Rod Butterss and his board felt they knew more than I did from 15 years of coaching. It was as simple as that.
“Now we learn from Rod Butterss’ appearance on the Footy Show that he was a substance abuser when he made that call. But (former St Kilda player) Danny Frawley asks a good question: What was the rest of the board doing? How did they allow such an irrational person to stay in charge of their club?
“And then they handed the coaching job to (Grant Thomas) a man who had not been in charge of a team - and an amateur team at that - for 10 years? I don’t waste my time reflecting on how these people ran a board of a football club. But I do note that I am still in the game in a meaningful way. Where are they?”
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au