VFL: Gary Ayres unsurprised by Port Melbourne’s decision to finish him up

Clubs from all over Victoria have contacted Gary Ayres since confirmation of his departure from VFL club Port Melbourne.

Gary Ayres in the Port Melbourne huddle.

Before the renovations at North Port Oval, there used to be a flag pole near the end of the race.

From the day he accepted the coaching position at Port Melbourne, Gary Ayres would glance at it and imagine a premiership flag at its top.

In his mind there was always just enough of a breeze to make it flutter.

“That was always the vision I had for Port Melbourne, from the time I met Peter Saultry (former president) and Barry Kidd (former general manager) back in October of 2007,’’ Ayres was saying this morning as he reflected on his 14 years at the Borough.

“I used to walk out of the ‘bat cave’ (the portable from which he operated at the back of the Norm Goss grandstand) and go and have a look at the flag pole and think about what it would be like with a flag.’’

Ayres took Port to the grand final in his first season at the club, 2008.

Three years later a flag was flying at North Port after his team went through the season undefeated, a remarkable run of 21 wins capped with an emphatic grand final victory over Williamstown, always the Boroughs’ greatest rival.

Port Melbourne coach Gary Ayres after the 2017 grand final.

It’s 10 years since that perfect season and it promotes “wonderful’’ memories for Ayres as he departs the club.

Two weeks ago Port Melbourne said it would not be reappointing him, ending a tenure that took in 253 matches and the 2017 premiership to go with the 2011 premiers-and-champions gong.

The decision prompted outcry from Port supporters and surprised VFL watchers accustomed to seeing Ayres and the Borough in the thick of finals.

Ayres wanted to keep coaching Port. But he wasn’t surprised when the club decided to finish him up.

“I felt it had been moving that way for two or three years,’’ he said, remembering a succession of one-year contracts.

While he was disappointed, he said he understood the board’s right to make the call.

He said his many years in football had helped him develop a “thick skin’’ to help ward off the lows that inevitably accompanied the highs.

The way Ayres sees it, all clubs have conveyor belts running through them, and people jump on and at some point step off.

“That’s the game. I’ve been in it since I was a 17-year-old skinny kid who walked into Hawthorn in 1978 and now we’re talking 2021,’’ he said.

“So I’ve had 43 years, and it’s been a wonderful ride, a blast.’’

Gary Ayres joined Port Melbourne in 2008.

Ayres has known more triumph than most in football: the five day and five night premierships at Hawthorn, two North Smith medals, the Hawks’ captaincy, membership of the Australian football hall of fame and senior coaching appointments at Geelong and Adelaide.

There won’t be any accolades out of the 2021 VFL season for him.

Covid claimed chunks of it and in the end denied Ayres a farewell game.

His last match was at Arden St, which brought a loss to North Melbourne and kept Port on the bottom of the ladder at 1-8 (with match ratio to be applied, Aspley, at 1-9, will settle last).

Ayres said he would have liked to coach Port one more time and recognise the supporters who had backed him “all the way’’.

He said he was proud of his record at Port Melbourne, but the relationships he had made with many good people were more important to him.

It had been “humbling’’ to read and receive so many messages of thankyou and good luck.

“They’re an amazing group. They’ve supported me and, even more to the point, embraced me since I came into the club,’’ Ayres said.

“They haven’t wavered one iota in their support of the Port Melbourne Football Club and myself. I’ll be forever indebted and thankful. It does mean a lot to me.’’

Adrian Bonaddio will help appoint a replacement for Gary Ayres.

Ayres said the experience of coaching Port had “enriched’’ him and was “one of the best parts of my life, for sure’’.

He had joined the Borough from Essendon, where he served as an assistant to Kevin Sheedy, and could never imagine that an initial two-year deal would turn into such a long stay.

Ayres is comfortably the club’s longest serving coach and stands fifth on the games-coached record in the VFA/VFL.

“Back then I was just wanting to get back into a system of coaching your own team after being involved at Essendon for a couple of years,’’ he said.

“I was 46 and you feel you haven’t fulfilled what you wanted to as a coach. Working under Kevin for those two years, it was a wonderful thing for my education and development as a coach. It fuelled the passion to go back and coach in my own right. It suited where I was in my life at the time, going to such an icon of the competition in Port Melbourne.

“At that time they were stand alone and coming out of the alignments with the Sydney Swans and North Melbourne. And of course people had spelt out that a stand alone team would struggle and battle and may not even win a premiership. It’s in my DNA to take on someone or something that is very difficult to achieve. It just makes me go harder. And I was blessed to walk into that football club with a group of players off that 2007 list. Some were playing in the reserves and just going along. And others were reasonably established senior players. But I did quickly pick up that they wanted to be the best they could be.’’

Ayres had a meeting with them at the top room of The Rex Hotel.

Don’t have any restrictions on what you can achieve, he told them.

In the following years a few of the players went on to become club greats: John Baird, Toby Pinwill, Sam Pleming, Sam Dwyer, Chris Cain, Shooter McMahon and Adrian Bonaddio, as well as Shane Valenti.

The march of time is relentless. Pinwill and Bonaddio are on the subcommittee to select the new coach.

Happily for Ayres, his phone is ringing, with local clubs eager to talk with him about 2022.

They have been from all over the state, but mostly the Eastern and Mornington Peninsula Nepean leagues.

“It has been quite humbling, the phone calls that I’ve had to inquire about what I’d like to do,’’ Ayres said.

“It’s a different level, but that’s fine. Football clubs are a very unique environment, whether at the AFL or VFL or lower. They’re all committed to doing the same thing and that’s to be successful. I’m still up for that sort of challenge.’’

Maybe there is another flag the football great can help to hoist.