Tributes flow for John Devine after death

A premiership player and former coach at Geelong and a giant of the Tasmanian game, John Devine has been honoured as ‘one of the most likeable blokes in football’ after his death.

Geelong and North Hobart great John Devine has died. Picture: Bob Gartland Collective.

As he would get up to leave the Geelong players either celebrating or commiserating a home game at nearby pub Lord of the Isles, Cats coach John Devine would have a loving but stern warning.

Ever the showman, Devine would wag his finger and impart a lighthearted lesson to the Cats players to not enjoy their Saturday night too much after that afternoon’s match at Kardinia Park.

John Devine addresses his players. Picture: Advertiser Geelong

“He would just warn us on the way out by saying ‘don’t you be out too late’ and poke his finger at you,” player Andrew Bews recalled.

“He knew we were young kids trying to find our way. I think they called him Father Devine, that was what Bobby Davis called him, and to us he was one of our fathers.”

A legendary football figure in Geelong and Tasmania, Cats premiership player and former coach Devine has been remembered as “unbelievably passionate” after he died on Sunday, aged 82.

Devine supports Geelong ahead of the 1992 grand final. Picture: Advertiser Geelong

A fearless defender from Colac who was a key plank of the 1963 premiership side, Devine played 118 VFL games before he became a giant of the Tasmanian game by leading North Hobart to three flags.

Devine returned to Geelong in 1986 to take over from Tom Hafey as coach of the Cats for three seasons before he was replaced by Malcolm Blight before the 1989 campaign.

Bews, who played under Devine during his coaching stint from 1986-88, said the coach was “one of the most likeable blokes in football”.

John Devine on the move for Geelong.

And with North Hobart in 1971.

“In all honesty, he was a great man of great values, a great family man,” Bews said.

“He had white-line fever, JD. He would turn into a different beast on game day.

“Any time there was a crowd he had the ability to fire up. If there was a last-ditch training drill we would do, he would always take us over to the fence if there was a crowd and he would put on a song and dance routine of yelling. He was a true showman.”

Devine famously sat his players down on the Princes Park turf during one match before launching into a sermon, yelling and imploring more effort.

While he was fiery in front of the cameras, Devine was a father figure to the young Cats players as they built up towards the team that would play in four grand finals in the six seasons after he left.

John Devine shows the North Hobart crowd the 1974 premiership. Picture Barry Winburn

“He set the concrete down for Malcolm Blight to come on board,” Bews said.

“He was unbelievably passionate. He was the most passionate guy in football for me.”

Bews recalled a meeting early in Devine’s tenure, where he invited key players to his house to sit down and talk through his game plan and share ideas, a precursor to modern football where the player has as much say as the coach.

At North Hobart Oval in 2013.

A hard, team-first defender, Devine came down from Colac after a promise from his sister that she would help the family milk their cows in his stead.

He was twice runner-up in the club’s best-and-fairest (in 1960 and 1965) and was vice-captain from 1961-66.

Devine was made a Geelong life member in 1993, was added to the club’s Hall of Fame in 2002 and handed the R.J. Hickey Award for services to football in 2021.

John Devine poses at training in 1963. Picture: Bob Gartland Collective

“He was as hard at the ball as anyone who ever played the game,” teammate Colin Rice said of Devine in 2021.

The Geelong Football Club said “Devine will be remembered as a fearless player and a passionate Geelong man, loved by all his teammates and will be sadly missed”.

A publican for nearly four decades, Devine also represented the electorate of Denison in the Tasmanian parliament as a Labor MP from 1979-84.

He shifted down to coach North Hobart in late 1966, while on VFL suspension and stuck around at the Demons, leading the wooden-spooners to the flag in 1967, starting a champion run on the Apple Isle that saw him added to the state’s football Hall of Fame and made a legend in 2014.

John Devine as publican at the Waggon and Horses in Hobart in 1967.

North Hobart said Devine “arguably had the most profoundly positive influence on North Hobart as anyone in the club’s history and embodied the club’s famous ‘Never Say Die’ ethos”.

He and wife Marie had six children and 15 grandchildren.

Originally published as Tributes flow for John Devine after death