Coaches have been axed in every conceivable manner and location over the decades, but Neil Balme might be the only one effectively sacked at halftime of an AFL match.

He didn’t know it at the time as he was addressing his Melbourne players deep in the bowels of the Waverley Park change rooms as club president Joe Gutnick took part in an explosive radio interview forecasting the demise of the popular coach.

What transpired in that Triple M halftime interview during the Round 6, 1997 clash between an ailing Melbourne and resurgent St Kilda at Waverley Park proved one of the most sensational moments in AFL coaching history.

The Demons trailed by 45 points at the long break and were anchored on the bottom of the ladder, just eight months after a merger bid with Hawthorn had spectacularly collapsed.

Sitting in one of the exclusive Super Boxes, Gutnick told Eddie McGuire – who himself would become a club president within 18 months – that “unpopular decisions” had to be made. He said heads would roll, which everyone knew meant Balme’s demise as coach.

It was as brutal as it was clinical.

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“Mike Sheahan wrote something in Friday’s (Herald Sun), saying whoever coaches the losing team today needs to get the sack,” Balme told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast.

“Joe must have read it and he spoke to Ed … at halftime, (saying) ‘we are going to sack the coach’.”

Twenty five years on, Balme still shakes his head at what the then-mining magnate and footy novice Gutnick said.

“After the game someone came in and said it had happened,” Balme recalled. “I wouldn’t expect anything more from him (Gutnick), he had no idea of what he was doing.”

Balme coached out three more games before he was officially sacked after a 51-point loss to Port Adelaide.

“I can’t remember it vividly, but I think they just said ‘it’s not going to last’,” he said of the moment he was officially sacked. “I tried not to take it too personally.

“KB (Kevin Bartlett) was very emotional (when he was sacked at Richmond) … ‘bugger this, I played 400 games with this club and I lose a couple of games as a coach and they sack me, what a pack of bastards’.

“I tried not to look at it in those terms.”

But Balme acknowledged the difficulties during Gutnick’s time as president.

“As it turned out, I go into footy admin and that probably suits me more,” he said.

“There is a bit more logic and sentimentality and simplicity rather than just having the mentality of win, win, win.

“I’ve been lucky to survive in the game (long) after that (Gutnick sacking).”

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

Balme the coach couldn’t have been any different to Balme the player, as evidenced by his 11 seasons and two flags with Norwood and two years at Woodville-West Torrens in the SANFL.

“I might have been slightly ahead of my time in that I (tried to) empower people,” he said.

“My way was to encourage people to buy in, which by and large they did.”

“Maybe I was a little less dictatorial than some of the others. But I needed the players to believe in what we were doing, and that’s what they did.

“I went to Norwood to coach. The South Australian way is slightly different to ours. and it does take into account skill acquisition and using the ball a bit better and thinking about it.”

Having previously been in the mix for coaching roles at Richmond and Sydney, he relished the opportunity to take on the Demons in 1993.

Melbourne finished 10th in 1993, with 10 wins, before a spectacular 1994 season took them to within a game of playing off in a Grand Final.

The roadblock was West Coast, with the Demons copping a preliminary final flogging.

“West Coast was wonderful,” he said. “You go over to Perth and play them. They were a very good side and well coached. They were too tough for us that day, but we were pretty proud.”

FAILED MERGER

Balme will never forget the day someone came into the club during the 1996 season and told the players that the oldest football club in Australia was going to merge with Hawthorn.

Was it a distraction for the rest of the season?

“It wasn’t ideal,” he said.

“When you play, you have got to not be distracted by those things, but it was relatively distracting because straight away you go ‘Where the hell do we all fit?’ ‘Will we all have a job?’ ‘Who are they going to keep and who are they not going to keep’.”

Balme was given no guarantees he would have coached the Melbourne Hawks.

“There had been no direct discussion, but my gut feel was I wouldn’t have been doing it,” he said.

Then came the merger match in the last round of 1996, which Hawthorn narrowly won.

The Hawthorn members voted against the merger and Melbourne was left like a spurned partner at the end of the dance without a date.

Balme felt there was trouble coming: “For Gutnick to come in and be president … he knew absolutely nothing about footy … it probably just showed what a terrible position Melbourne were in at the time.

“It was a really challenging time for (the club) … horribly challenging for me.”

IRE OF THE TIGER

Balme was a Hollywood High School (the Perth version) kid seemingly destined for the bright lights.

He made a big impression in four games with Subiaco in 1968, attracting interstate interest.

His dad was transferred to Melbourne for business and Richmond won the race for Neil’s services, sending legendary Tiger Jack Dyer to meet him at Essendon Airport.

“There wasn’t an enormous amount of money involved,” Balme recalled. “But I do vividly remember … (Richmond official) Schwabby (Alan Schwab) saying: ‘We’re going to the Gold Coast next week for a pre-season trip. If you sign, you can come.”

The normally affable new recruit walked into a football club that boasted a ruthless, almost win-at-all-costs mentality. He felt he had to adapt to the same mindset.

Across 10 seasons, two premierships and 159 games in yellow and black, Balme developed a fearsome reputation as one of the most aggressive tough guys in the game, including knocking out Carlton defender Geoff Southby in the 1973 Grand Final.

“When I look back at myself as a player … I was mad and aggressive, and personality-wise, that’s not really me,” Balme said.

“But that’s what I felt they needed me to do. I didn’t mind it and I enjoyed it and knew where I fit in. It was win-at-all-costs.”
While he was very different in personality to legendary coach Tom Hafey, he greatly admired the Tigers coach.

“Tommy looked after me, encouraged me and cared for me. He always had my back.”

Balme retired from the Tigers at the end of the 1979 season, aged only 27, embarking on a coaching and football administration career that is still active more than four decades on.

MR FIX IT, COLLINGWOOD

Balme’s coaching experience taught him one thing – his personality traits suited footy administration more than coaching.

A phone call from McGuire, who was then Collingwood president, confirmed it.

“I was approached by a club who said ‘why don’t you come and help us do this’,” Balme recalled. “It all made sense to me. It took me five minutes and I felt like part of the furniture.

“He (McGuire) recalled that when he was interviewing Joe (in 1997), and when Ed saw me after the game, I think he thought: ‘He (Balme) has reacted pretty well to this’.

“That’s what led him to think (later), ‘well, he’s not a complete dickhead, this bloke can deal with those things’.

“I really enjoyed it. We didn’t actually win a flag there (two losing Grand Finals in 2002 and 2003), but we came pretty close.”

Mick Malthouse joined the Magpies as coach in late 1999 after Tony Shaw’s exit.

“(Eddie) virtually came to ask Juddy (Noel Judkins) and myself, ‘we need a new coach, would Malthouse be any good?’

“I said I reckon that would be fantastic, we should have a go at that. That’s the last we heard of that, and all of a sudden they appointed him.

“It was OK, but it makes it hard for controls to be in place because Mick is totally in charge, Ed appointed him. All of us who had to run the show had no say, we had no levers to pull.

“We agreed with the decision totally, but we might have had a little bit more to do with it.”

MR FIX IT, GEELONG

Balme parted company with Collingwood which led him down the Highway to Geelong in late 2006, which proved a fortuitous move.

He felt it was a fertile environment, even if a searching club review almost cost coach Mark Thompson his job.

Balme played a huge role in helping to reconnect the club, putting his arm around Thompson, still smarting at the review, and developing relationships with the players, including Steve Johnson who was banished from the club for a period in the pre-season.

“You always have a few larrikins, but that’s the game,” he said of Johnson.

“They have got to trust you that you will trust them when they commit to you. That’s the challenge.

“They don’t have to be someone who does everything right. But they have got to commit to doing the right things and behaving the right way.”

Geelong became almost unbeatable in 2007, winning its first flag in 44 years.

In a complete shock, they lost the Grand Final to Hawthorn 12 months later, but fought back to win two more flags in 2009 and 2011.

“You can’t win them all, we probably did stuff it up (in 2008), but you can’t dismiss what Hawthorn did. They were mad (that day),” he said.

“It (the revenge factor) is powerful. That’s what we did (with Richmond) in ‘73.”

MR FIX IT, COLLINGWOOD PART 2

Balme returned briefly to Collingwood in 2014, but it didn’t work out.

“A few mad things started to happen that weren’t all that good, so I am glad I was able to find something else to do,” he said.

“It has been written somewhere where they thought I was too soft … that I wasn’t prepared to make enough hard decisions.

“At that time Gubby (Allan) had become available and he was a Collingwood guy and he always had lots of ideas. Without talking to me about it, I think they – whoever they were – were into trying to get him to do something.

“It was pretty clear (they wanted to change).

“I didn’t think it was the right thing to do, it was a bit uncomfortable.”

MR FIX IT, RICHMOND

Just when it looked like Balme would step away from footy, a group challenging the Richmond board approached him for some advice.

In the end, the current board came to him, offering him the footy boss position.

It was a perfect union.

“I think they could see that as an old Richmond person and having had some football experience, I might be able to help them,” he said.

“They were in a pretty good place, I thought.

“I think we did get around to finding out what made us tick and what’s important … we had some good people helping us.

“I think the coach (Damien Hardwick) sat back and said ‘What am I going to be?’ My feeling is he realised rather than saying to a bloke ‘you were shithouse’, he could say ‘ we need to fix this, how can I help you?’”

The wheel was turning and fast.

POWER STANCE UNPLUGGED

Richmond went into the 2017 Grand Final against favourites Adelaide, who had adopted a ‘Power Stance’ during the national anthem throughout the finals series.

Five years on, Balme said the tactic backfired spectacularly.

“I did feel sorry for them (Adelaide players) doing that, it gave them no hope, that’s what I reckon,” he said.

“It is making something up that’s not real. If I were made to do it, as a player, I would think it was ridiculous.”

Adelaide kicked the first two goals but only six more for the rest of the match, as the Tigers set about smashing a 37-year premiership drought in front of a sea of yellow and black.

Richmond also won the 2019 and 2020 premiership, with Balme continuing to bring a sense of calm to some of the most challenging of situations.

Having played with a host of Tiger greats in the early 1970s, Balme has had front row seats to the Richmond greats of the next generation.

He says Dustin Martin sits highly in the Punt Rd pantheon.

“If you were picking a team to play for your family’s life, I reckon he is in,” he said. “He is just next to Royce (Hart), I think, and KB probably gets a game.”

As for his own future at Richmond, Balme remains committed to helping drive the club’s 2022 campaign, despite a recent health scare, knocking back a potential move to Adelaide.