AFL Grand Final West Coast v Hawthorn: How a Batmobile stole the show in 1991

WHY using a Batmobile was a really bad idea and how the 'Dad's Army' Hawks upset the Eagles. The inside story of the 1991 Grand Final.

Angry Anderson belts out Bound for Glory in the middle of Waverley Park. Picture: Darren Tindale

A MOCK Batmobile held centre stage when the Grand Final was played at Waverley for the first and only time in 1991.

Veteran rocker Angry Anderson’s shock performance in the pre-match entertainment is sadly better remembered than the magnificent triumph by Hawthorn’s underdog “Dad’s Army”.

To most of the 75,000-odd who attended, the Rose Tattoo lead singer’s inept act has only been outmatched by Meat Loaf’s woeful wailing in 2011.

With the MCG ruled out during the redevelopment of the Southern Stand, the AFL had asserted its independence and declared it was comfortable to hold the game at its much maligned headquarters.

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But the build-up had been flat with the West Coast Eagles boycotting lead-up events such as the Grand Final parade and imposing a media ban on its players.

Then Anderson, with marathon great Rob De Castella in the vehicle, was wheeled out onto the oval. He blasted out his hit Bound For Glory but it floated away in the breezy, wide open Waverley wasteland.

News_Image_File: Hawthorn v West Coast

While the entertainment failed to excite, the experienced Hawks capped a wonderful era, winning their fifth flag in nine seasons with a team which was said to be "too old and too slow".

And they did it against the favoured invaders from the West who had dominated the season, finishing three games ahead on top of the ladder.

The Eagles had won both home-and-away matches against the Hawks that season including a drubbing in Round 7 by 82 points at Princes Park.

Every Victorian fan’s worst nightmare that the flag would go west seemed about to be realised.

That fear grew when the Eagles jumped to a four-goal lead in the first quarter.

News_Image_File: Hawthorn v West Coast

The premiership-hardened Hawks then steadied with old hands like Michael Tuck, Dermott Brereton, Jason Dunstall, Chris Mew and John Platten showing the way.

Despite wasting goal-scoring chances in the windy conditions, Hawthorn held sway before blowing the Eagles away by 53 points with an eight-goal final term.

ANGRY HAD "A COUPLE OF NIPS OF RUM"

Anderson, who grew up in Melbourne as a Footscray supporter, said his act, in hindsight, should have been done on a stage in the middle of the ground.

"Someone, whether unwisely or wisely, gave me a couple of nips of rum to fortify me against the cold," he said recently.

"It was one of those experiences where there was a collision of circumstances, which were out of everyone's control.

"It was like the gigs in the old days. You could blame the drugs and alcohol, but the great thing about these days you are clear-eyed and clear-headed."

Anderson said it was a funny experience because the Batmobile had a straight-out exhaust that made it nearly impossible for him to hear the backing tracks to which he was supposed to be singing.

News_Image_File: Angry Anderson

And the placement of the bank of speakers along the boundary line didn't help as he could hear himself.

"I wasn't p---ed or anything," he said.

"Don't get me wrong, but it was an interesting experience because I wasn't prepared for the situation.

"Once you started the car, you couldn't hear over it.

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 "The sound of the exhaust was coming up through the floor of the car.

"It was a hard enough task trying to keep up with the track and there was a hell of an echo that went up through the stands and I was hearing myself come back in echo form.

"It was what it was.”

News_Image_File: Batmobile

EAGLE RACIALLY ABUSED

It was a time when racial taunts were commonplace and West Coast’s aboriginal star Chris Lewis a frequent target to curb his brilliance.

The club’s best-and-fairest winner had just six possessions in a game which he was verbally harassed throughout.

In the Final Word documentary on the Grand Final aired three years ago, Dermott Brereton made a shock confession over the abuse.

News_Image_File: Hawthorn v West Coast

He said he apologised to Lewis and regretted his actions.

Brereton said the taunting was a product of that era.

"You did what you had to do and if part of that was hurting somebody deliberately from the opposition, you did it," he said.

"Back in those days, racial vilification ... gee, I don't think the two words had ever been used together. So we went and gave it to Chris Lewis and I reckon it boiled over.

"Only now, in this day and age, do we understand what we've done.

"I've apologised to Chris Lewis since. (I've got a) pretty dark sort of memory of it and (it's) something I'm not proud of."

Lewis said the constant barrage of abuse, which was never held to account, forced him to simply cop it and move on.

News_Image_File: Hawthorn v West Coast

"After getting suspended and not being able to play because of retaliating and all that sort of stuff, you sort of learn to put up with it," he said.

"I was a little bit disappointed that we probably didn't, as a club, push the issue a bit further. But I think it was one of those areas that we all didn't want to go to because it was a bit prickly."

NORM SMITH SURPRISE

Hawthorn journeyman forward Paul Dear is probably the biggest surprise grand final Norm Smith medallist.

Dear, whose career was overshadowed by his triple premiership ruckman brother Greg, said the medal was the last thing on his mind.

He just wanted a premiership medal like his brother who had three and missed the grand final with a serious knee injury.

Dear said recently that coach Alan Joyce had decided to use him as a second centre half-forward to give the Eagles another big man to worry about.

He was selected in a forward pocket alongside Jason Dunstall with Dermott Brereton at centre half-forward.

News_Image_File: Paul Dear

"With our forward line, I was the odd man out and I needed to play well to put West Coast in a very reactive mode," Dear recalled.

"With Dermott and Dunstall, if I played well, that made three marking forwards very hard to cover.''

Dunstall finished with six goals, Brereton four and Dear two.

When the siren went, he gave no thought to winning the Norm Smith Medal.

"It was an utter surprise,'' said Dear who played 123 games for the Hawks.

"But in a way it became an embarrassment during the celebrations because a lot of focus was on me.

"The focus was on an individual when it should have been on the whole team.''

News_Image_File: Hawthorn v West Coast

SCOREBOARD

Hawthorn 3.4 7.12 12.15 20.19 (139)
West Coast 5.1 7.2 12.5 13.8 (86)

BEST
Hawthorn: P. Dear, Lawrence, Morrissey, Platten, Brereton, Condon.
West Coast: McKenna, Pyke, Heady, P. Matera, Mainwaring, Sumich.

GOALS
Hawthorn: Dunstall 6, Brereton 4, P. Dear 2, Pritchard 2, Hudson 2, Hall, Condon, Anderson, Morrissey.
West Coast: Sumich 5, Heady 4, Lewis 2, Wilson, Pyke.

Umpires: J. Russo, B. Sheehan

Crowd: 75,230 at Waverley Park.