Malcolm Blight’s 50 years in league football — the player’s game of dreams, goals and high marks
MALCOLM Blight started his journey in league football 50 years ago, and has left a significant mark on the game. In a four-part series, Michelangelo Rucci looks at Blight’s half-century journey and what has changed in the game, starting with the players.
- Blight: 10 things to love about footy today
- SA legends to join Blight in EJ Whitten coaches’ box
- The Blight Files: Parts 1-6
NO social media. No club website. No wall-to-wall sports radio. But there was television, still in black-and-white — and in 1968 that was enough to give a league footballer star status.
Malcolm Blight made his first appearance on live television on Saturday, July 27, 1968 — a month and four SANFL league games into his senior football career with Woodville.
In the Channel Nine studios at Tynte Street, North Adelaide — for the Mike Peterson Sports Show — Blight appeared as Woodville’s representative for the post-match inquest after the Woodpeckers’ 27-point loss to North Adelaide at Woodville Oval.
“I didn’t get a kick, we lost and I’m wondering, ‘What am I doing here?’ I reckon I said three or four words,” Blight recalls.
Six years later, in the big league of the VFL, the media limelight shone on Blight after just his first game with North Melbourne — in Round 2 against Footscray at Arden Street. A game-high 27 disposals put Blight on the front page of The Sun newspaper — and clipped the lip of Collingwood premiership hero Lou Richards who the previous week declared the Kangaroos would be foolish to spend $50,000 ($400,000 today) for a clearance on “another South Australian”.
North Melbourne boss Ron Joseph flew to Adelaide, with the $50,000 in the famed brown paper bags, after standing on the Lakeside Oval terraces with Blight by his side rather than in his football side watching the Kangaroos lose the opening game of the VFL season to South Melbourne by 20 points.
Joseph never regretted the money spent to secure the clearance for Blight who won the 1978 Brownlow Medal, the 1982 Coleman Medal as the VFL’s leading goalkicker and played a major role in North Melbourne’s first two VFL flags in 1975 and 1977.
In 50 years, the media launching pads for a rising star in Australian football have changed with the digital age. So has the money (Blight started on $14 a week at Woodville in 1968; a first-round AFL draftee today collects a minimum annual wage of $95,000 ($1827 a week). And so has the lifestyle, with Blight working in a bank from Monday to Friday while today’s top-flight players are in full-time training.
In 1968, there were clearances to June 30, such as that $50,000 Woodville demanded from North Melbourne for its first Magarey Medallist. Today, there is the AFL national draft — and the player not able to choose their favourite suitor, not benefit with a signing fee.
In 1968, there was a right of passage from the under-age teams at a football club to its league side — and Blight adamant he would play 100 SANFL league games with his local club Woodville (and get his name on a locker at Oval Avenue) before he moved to the VFL. Today, there are South Australian teenagers making their AFL debuts before they play an SANFL league game.
In 1968, there was no union representing the players who, generally, were answerable to a coach — and a commanding off-field figure, either the club president (such as Ossie O’Grady at West Torrens) or secretary (Bob McLean at Port Adelaide and Wally Miller at Norwood). Today, AFL players — with the AFL Players’ Association — have one of the most-powerful sports unions in Australia that last year negotiated a $1.84 billion pay deal with their collective bargaining agreement.
But for all the change — the media platforms, the money and the power commanded by the players — there is in 2018, as there was with Blight, a kid dreaming to play the game he loved on the biggest stage.
“For me,” said Blight, “I’d be playing with a football until I could not see the ball in the dark.”
For Blight, there was the laundry wall at his Woodville home. He would throw his football against red bricks, jump against the wall, develop the soaring leap that made Blight one of the most exciting exponents of the high mark in Australian football — and he would beware of the concrete path against that wall.
“Good way to learn to keep your balance — and your feet,” said Blight. “And what is the one thing everyone loves in our game — and you can’t get in other sports? The high mark.”
Fifty years on, training techniques might be more sophisticated … but maybe not as effective by what is seen on AFL fields today.
THE PLAYING YEARS
FIRST LEAGUE GAME: Round 12, July 6, 1968 v Glenelg, Glenelg Oval.
SANFL: 152 games, 1968-1973 and 1983-1985 at Woodville.
VFL: 178 games, 1974-1982 at North Melbourne.
STATE: Both SA (nine times) and Victoria (seven times).
THEN AND NOW
PLAYER SALARIES
THEN: $25 a week, $550 a season in VFL (equated to 36 per cent of average weekly wage).
NOW: $371,000 a season in AFL (equates to 450 per cent of average Australian wage).
LANDMARK MOMENT — 1970 VFL pre-season. Collingwood veterans Len Thompson and Des Tuddenham threatened a walkout unless they were handed three-year contract paying to $6000 and $8000 a year respectively ($272 and $364 a match). This compared with the league average yearly salary of $600.
Five senior Essendon players also refused to play in the initial home-and-away match as a protest against the level of match payments.
FIRST $1 MILLION DEAL — Wayne Carey (North Melbourne) 1999.
TRAINING
THEN: Tuesday and Thursday nights, Sunday morning after matches
NOW: Full-time training with union-guaranteed holiday period of eight weeks at end of each season.
RECRUITING RULES
THEN: Each player locked to a club by a residential zone.
NOW: Would-be AFL players nominate for draft.
LANDMARK MOMENT — Ten-year rule introduced allowing experienced players to change clubs — the equivalent of “free agency” today. North Melbourne made the major strike with this short-lived rule by signing Barry Davis (Essendon), John Rantall (South Melbourne) and Doug Wade (Geelong).
BEFORE DRAFT — Each of the 12 VFL clubs worked with a “Form Four” system. They could sign up to two non-Victorian recruits each year on a Form Four. These were wiped out in October 1981 with the first VFL draft — West Australian Alan Johnson (Melbourne) was the No. 1 pick followed by South Australian Neil Craig (Footscray).
TRANSFERS
THEN: Clubs had to “buy” the release of players with a clearance fee with a June 30 deadline each season.
NOW: Players are “swapped” in the AFL trade period in October for either other players and/or draft picks.
LANDMARK MOMENT — Silvio Foschini successfully arguing in the Supreme Court in 1983 — after being denied a clearance from Sydney to St Kilda — that the VFL rules were a restraint of trade. Justice Crockett judged all VFL rules on zones and clearances were illegal.
BLIGHT CASE — North Melbourne demanded a $50,000 clearance fee from Woodville when Blight returned to the SANFL in 1983. An American mining magnate, who considered it “unjust” to deny Blight free passage to his home club, put up the money — until North Melbourne relented.
UNION
THEN: Players’ union first mooted in 1955. Finally established in 1974 by the leadership of Geoff Pryor (Essendon), Gareth Andrews (Geelong), Des Meagher (Hawthorn) and David McKay (Carlton) with annual fee of $35.
NOW: One of the most-powerful sports-related unions in Australia that acts for all players in negotiating salaries, conditions and funding for player-related programs by a “collective bargaining agreement”.
BLIGHT’S HALL OF FAME — PLAYER GALLERY
1968 in SANFL
BOB SIMUNSEN (145 SANFL games with Woodville, 1964-1971)
“High marks, long drop kicks on his left foot — and quick at the play. Bob knew football — and it showed in the way he played the game. To make the State squad before he had played a league game (while tied to Woodville’s reserves team in the early 1960s) is remarkable.”
BARRIE ROBRAN (201 SANFL games with North Adelaide, 1967-1980)
“My fourth game was against North Adelaide at Woodville Oval, standing at full forward on Don Lindner. It wasn’t a great game for me, but I did get to see Barrie Robran as he was collecting votes for his first Magarey Medal. The record speaks for itself.”
PAUL BAGSHAW (360 SANFL games with Sturt, 1964-1980)
“My cousin, George, was playing at West Torrens. One day I went to Thebarton Oval with Dad to see George play Sturt. From a kick-in, the No. 8 for Sturt took a soaring mark … Paul Bagshaw. I did enjoy blokes who could take a mark — the most exciting thing in our game.”
RUSSELL EBERT (391 SANFL games with Port Adelaide, 1968-1978 and 1980-1985)
“It was quite an era … Robran, Bagshaw and Russell Ebert. Russell was just building his name starting in the same year as I did in 1968 — and at full forward too. He made a pretty good name for himself.”
1970-80s in VFL
KEVIN BARTLETT (403 VFL games with Richmond, 1965-1983)
“We (North Melbourne) had quite a rivalry with Richmond as they were the premiership team we were out to replace in the 1970s — and Kevin Bartlett was outstanding.”
PETER KNIGHTS (264 VFL games with Hawthorn, 1969-1985)
“Peter was great to watch for his marking.”
LEIGH MATTHEWS (332 VFL games with Hawthorn, 1969-1985)
“I saw Leigh Matthews before he became Leigh Matthews and before he became Leigh Matthews.”
TODAY in AFL
JACK RIEWOLDT (Richmond)
“Just to see Jack Riewoldt take a mark against two or three opponents …”
LANCE FRANKLIN (Sydney)
“Sometimes I just clap when he gets on that left foot …”
JEREMY and MITCH McGOVERN (West Coast/Adelaide)
“I love players who just have a go at grabbing a high mark without a second thought.”
JEREMY HOWE (Collingwood)
“The human highlights reel.”
CHARLIE CURNOW (Carlton)
“He jumps. And any player who grabs the ball and kicks goals gets my attention. That is my lot in life.”
NEXT WEEK: The coaching game
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au