Roos champion Brent Harvey says 2002 Wayne Carey scandal set North Melbourne back ‘five years’

Roos champ Brent Harvey has opened up on the “mind-blowing” 2002 Wayne Carey cheating scandal, saying it set the club back five years.

North Melbourne champion Brent Harvey has praised his former teammate Anthony Stevens for being the bigger man after the 2002 Wayne Carey affair scandal rocked the club.

Reflecting on the “mind blowing” fallout when it was uncovered that Carey was having an affair with Stevens’ wife Kelli, Harvey said it divided the group and set the team back four or five years.

“Big would probably be an understatement,’’ Harvey told TAB’s Inside 50 podcast with Crawf and Quinny.

“It put our football club back four or five years. Not in terms of just Wayne leaving, but just everything. Anthony Stevens became the captain, he didn’t need to be captain with everything going on, there was a big divide with the group.

Anthony Stevens with his wife Kelli.

Carey and Harvey for North Melbourne in 2000.

“My initial thought was it’s not true but once you find out something happened it’s like wow.

“We lost not only our best player but our captain, probably one of the greatest players to ever play our game. That’s hard to digest as a young kid that’s trying to win flags and do everything. It was big, the press conference, there was people on top of cars, there was people in trees taking photos of a group that did nothing wrong.

“It was mind blowing. When you think about it, I heard someone tell a story not too long ago actually. When 9/11 happened the first 17 pages of the Herald Sun was about 9/11 (and) when that happened I think the first 19 pages were about that.

“At the time it was huge and you look back and that was a time you probably don’t want to go through again as a football club.”

Harvey said it was all a blur immediately after it happened. In his book released in 2016 Harvey wrote that he couldn’t accept that a club captain and superstar player could betray his best mate in the most despicable of ways.

But he said relations had soothed and praised Stevens for the way he continues to handle the situation with his premiership teammate.

Mick Martyn with Wayne Carey and Anthony Stevens in the locker room in 1998, four years before the scandal broke.

“We still speak, I do a little bit of radio on match day with ABC so we cross paths,’’ Harvey said of commentator Carey.

“We’re not best mates but I’m not best mates with some of the older guys anyway because I had my own clique group that I was with.

“I see him and say g’day. I’m also a massive Anthony Stevens fan, absolutely love the bloke, probably my favourite teammate I’ve ever played with so it was tough.

“The 10 year reunion wasn’t great, but then the 20 year reunion was OK.

“This is why I love Stevo so much because he’s about everybody else. He’ll shake Wayne’s hand and say g’day to him at the function because he doesn’t want the 16 other blokes sitting in the corner thinking ‘have a look at this’.

“I don’t think they’re ever going to be best mates, that’s my opinion, I actually don’t know if Stevo speaks to him or not, but he’s a bigger man than I would ever be.”