Sam Newman has spent 21 years in the spotlight as a footy buffoon, but still has a few secrets

WHAT don’t we know about Sam Newman, former footballer and self-confessed buffoon mired in controversy on The Footy Show for 21 years? His answer might surprise you.

Newman appears to smoke a bong on The Footy Show in 2012.

What don’t we know about Sam Newman, the self-confessed buffoon mired in controversy on The Footy Show for 21 years?

Ask him, and he’s stumped.

After a time of measured consideration, he says: “I’m a subscriber to a classical music radio station.

“I’m a classical music devotee. I like Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky. It’s calming and while it’s playing in the car, you think ‘what sort of genius would compose that’.”

Newman is indeed a man of various personas, but insists the real Sam Newman is a nice, shy, reserved, introverted and cynical person.

“Someone like Eddie McGuire and myself are absolute opposites,’’ he says. “He is the most optimistic man I have ever met and for good reason, and I’m the most pessimistic man I probably know.”

The only original Footy Show member, Newman, 68, has been counselled eight times over the journey, stood down, suspended, threatened and sued.

Newman in 1980, playing for Geelong.

He attributes a lot of those incidents, particularly when Shane Crawford pulled down his pants and exposed him, to the perils of live television.

He is still perplexed by the reaction to his 1999 stunt when he blackened his face to impersonate indigenous footballer Nicky Winmar.

“The only thing I was really staggered at, and people will say this is because you’re a dinosaur and you live in a different era, but I was staggered that I had so much indignation about painting my face black to pretend I was Nicky Winmar,’’ he said.

“Because racism to me is when you try to defy or degrade people. I wasn’t trying to do that. It was a bit of light repartee and light theatre with Nicky Winmar and I don’t feel regretful about that at all because it’s intent. My intent was not at all to degrade, defile, make fun of. It was just a bit of satire.”

Has he ever been worried about losing his job?

Newman appears to smoke a bong on The Footy Show in 2012.

“No, because if you’re honest, if you’re nobbled by what you think you shouldn’t do, you end up selling your soul and not being legitimate,’’ he said.

“So I’m a little smarter than a lot of people think I am, but I think you can say things even if people regard them as politically incorrect, as quite legitimate things to say.

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“We try to be respectful and we don’t try to be impertinent, but we do try to be edgy and sometimes because it’s live we do the wrong thing. That’s the risk and edginess of live television.”

Newman was broke and living out of the back of a friend’s shop in Ascot Vale when he was first asked to be part of the show by Ian Johnson, who was a senior executive of Channel 9 at the time.

McGuire, who has developed a loyal friendship with Newman, is steadfast about his standing in history.

Newman at his Docklands home, a far cry from his place at the back of an Ascot Vale shop. Picture: Colleen Petch

“I can honestly say, having observed a lot of television over the years, with names like Graham Kennedy, Bert Newton and Paul Hogan, Sam Newman is the most original, successful, talented and generous performer that I’ve ever seen on Australian television, in fact, the world,’’ McGuire said.

“And none of us would be here without Sam Newman.”

Newman, a father of three, is happily in a relationship with long-term partner Amanda Brown and living in his Docklands penthouse. He has his collection of vintage and prestige cars in a warehouse nearby.

One thing we do know about Newman — he has now been the backbone of one of the most successful shows on Australian television.

“We do honestly think we’re a legitimate part of AFL football and if I’m proud of anything, we’ve just survived,’’ he said.

“I’m happy. I’ve never ever asked in any interview that certain questions are off limits.

“You can ask me anything. It’s not the questions you’re asked, it’s the answers you give.”