Footy Show reboot rekindles bromance between Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman

A PRICEY Toorak pepper steak was the catalyst for the great friendship between a pair of ‘very different’ blokes, Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman.

A PRICEY Toorak pepper steak, well out of the financial reach of a teenager still relying on pocket money from his parents, was the catalyst for the great friendship between Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman.

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With the pair reuniting on the new-look Footy Show this Thursday after a 12-year break, both acknowledge they are very different people.

Newman describes himself as a “dinosaur”, a “troglodyte” and a “career cynic”, while McGuire sees the TV headline magnet as a loyal and generous friend.

Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman on the ‘Footy Show’ in 1997. Picture: Channel 9

The pair met three weeks after McGuire turned 18 in 1982 and was working part-time at Channel 10.

Newman, 71, already an experienced media performer, was taking part in an electronic media night at AFL House and the pair were introduced by Drew Morphett.

“There they all are, Lou Richards, Sam Newman, Jack Dyer, Ron Casey, Neil Roberts, Ted Whitten, Ian Major, Harry Beitzel, Tommy Lahiff; all my heroes who I had never seen in the flesh before” McGuire, 52, said.

An invitation to join Newman and Morphett for dinner at a restaurant in Toorak after the media event was quickly accepted.

Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman are back together on the ‘Footy Show’.

“Sam said, ‘Now Ed, you have to have the pepper steak’, and he has twigged (that I had no money) and said, ‘Drew, I owe you dinner, so it is my shout tonight’. He knew,” McGuire said.

“We finished up and Sam said are you going to join us across the road?

“I said what’s across the road? It was Silver’s nightclub.

“We walk up the front of the queue, straight through the door. Three weeks earlier I would not have got in.”

They became friends from that night on. “When our house burnt down (in 2001), Sam rang up everybody and asked if they had any photos of us (his family),” McGuire said.

The new-look ‘Footy Show’ is hosted by Rebecca Maddern, Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman. Picture: Alex Coppel

“He invited Carla and I around for dinner and he presented me with a bottle of Grange to restart my wine collection and he presented us with these photos because we were living in a hotel room and he wanted to make it feel like home. Carla was so touched.

“I was in that operating room (in 2008) when Sam had his prostate removed (after being diagnosed with cancer) and we were very fearful at that stage, so we have been through a lot together.”

Newman described McGuire as an “unconditional” friend.

“It would not be too extravagant to say I Iike Eddie,” Newman said.

“He is a loyal friend. It is all right to be loyal when things are going well, but in times of conflict and adversity he stands by you. He is an unconditional friend and there are very few of them around.”

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