Sheahan Ink: Christine Holgate in line to replace Gil as AFL boss
Ex-Australia Post chief Christine Holgate could deliver a major shake-up of the AFL as potential successor to Gillon McLachlan.
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The AFL is preparing for life after Gillon McLachlan with the league supremo entering what is likely to be his final season at the helm of Australia’s number 1 sport.
All eyes will now turn to McLachlan’s successor, who has big shoes to fill in the country’s most in-demand hot seat.
Will the soon-to-be vacant position be filled by an internal candidate, which historically has been the case, or will the AFL Commission look outside the bubble and opt for a left-field option, such as a female.
Former Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate has emerged as a potential candidate being mentioned in football circles as a perfect fit for the role.
Holgate is now the boss of Toll Logistics firm Global Express, is a Collingwood tragic and a strong chance to retain her Magpies board position on the Jeff Browne ticket.
When contacted this week, Holgate didn’t rule out a tilt at the AFL’s top job, but said her current focus is with Global Express.
“I am a diehard Collingwood fan and a massive and proud supporter of the AFL,” Holgate told Sheahan Ink.
“However, I am only one month into my new role as CEO of Global Express, where I am currently focused on growing the business and supporting our customers.”
Holgate’s slight ambiguity could leave the door ajar for the AFL’s big wigs to pounce and anoint the first female chief executive, but she faces stiff competition.
History suggests the league will look within with the AFL’s legal boss turned executive general manager of football Andrew Dillon highly regarded and the most likely successor.
Broadcasting and fixture boss Travis Auld is also a consideration.
From club land, Greater Western Sydney Giants CEO Dave Matthews is highly regarded and in a previous life worked at the AFL.
Richmond CEO Brendon Gale has long been thought of as McLachlan’s heir apparent.
Gale was also boss of the AFL Players’ Association and played 244 games for the Tigers.
The game could do with new eyes and a female perspective.
We have three outstanding female presidents in Richmond’s Peggy O’Neal, Melbourne’s premiership winning Kate Roffey and the Western Bulldogs’ Kylie Watson-Wheeler.
Former AFL boss Ross Oakley says the coveted position should go to the best candidate and if that’s a female, she should be awarded the position.
“I think its always been time, to me it’s a case of finding the right person for the job and if that’s a woman, then well and good,” he said.
“I don’t see that there’s any cumbrance there that is going to stop a women from being CEO or the chairman of the commission.
“We’ve had a number of very good female commissioners.
“We’ve now got very good female presidents so why wouldn’t the AFL be an organisation that puts a female CEO in place if the right person turns up.”
BILLIONAIRES, BRAWLERS, BALLERS AND PASTA
One of Melbourne’s famous institutions officially died two weeks ago.
The restaurant formerly known as Don Camillo’s has been transformed into an Airbnb after its Chinese owners converted the lunchtime venue into a short term accommodation base.
An emotional Dominic Torre who bought the little Italian eatery for just $10,000 back in 1992, turning it into one of Melbourne’s most talked about eateries spoke to Sheahan Ink this week:
“When I took it over no one used to go there.
“Now I’m really upset with the people that bought it. They’ve turned it into an Airbnb.
“I’m retired now, but I miss the people. Do you know how many people I used to talk to that eat there.
“People used to love going there because they didn’t know where to look.”
Sporting stars often frequented the single fronted shop on Victoria St in North Melbourne, as did heads of business and the odd politician.
Gangsters were spotted inside as was well known police officers who happened to find themselves in the same establishment as the very crooks they were investigating.
Torre recalls John Elliott walking in smoking one day just after smoking laws were brought in. Lindsay Fox also ate at the eatery occasionally as well.
Late billionaire Dick Pratt used to pop in for a meal every now and then.
Torre suspected Pratt was a somebody but had no idea of his real identity.
“Dick always used to eat upstairs. So one day when he walked downstairs in his suit, he was always in a suit with his driver waiting out the front, he approached me and said, ‘Son, I’ve been coming here since the early ‘50s and I’ve never seen it so busy and so well run.’
“I had to ask Wes Lofts who he was and he told me owns Visy.”
Torre was a well know user of profanities so it’s completely understandable his response contained a lot of ‘f’s’ and ‘c’s’
“He loved that the plates were full and the food was good,” Torre said of Pratt.
“And I was good friends with Dick’s daughter, Heloise. I knew her as Heloise not Heloise Pratt.
“She walked in one day, kissed my wife Carmel and I told her to sit anywhere she wanted.
“She replied, ‘I’m here to see Dad upstairs’. I never knew she was Dick Pratt’s daughter.
“One day Bruno Grollo came in and he was a little early for a meeting.
“He went to walk up the stairs then suddenly stopped. He was mesmerised. He stood there.
“He looked at the granite in the floor and said, ‘This was my dad’s first job in Melbourne.’
“Mick Gatto is a friend of mine. Mick used to come to the restaurant quite often for lunch.
“He and his team of 12 used to dine upstairs. Then one day the former head of the cops Charlie Bezzina was downstairs while Mick and his boys were upstairs.
“Mick called me upstairs and said, ‘Can you get me a bottle of wine and give it to Bezzina from me’.
“Charlie said, ‘Say thank you but not today.’
“Alphonse (Gangitano) used to come there, the Moran brothers (Mark and Jason). Jason used to come in all the time and pick up pasta for his wife and kids.
“But there was only one bloke I kicked out of that restaurant; the guy with no ears. Chopper Read.
“Chopper walked in one Friday and I didn’t notice him. He went and sat down the back.
“We were flat out.
“All these people kept coming in and getting photos.
“I said to Carmel, ‘What’s going on causing this commotion’? She replied, ‘Chopper Read is down the back’.
“I said, ‘I can’t have Chopper Read in here. What if Mick Gatto walks in? It’ll be World War III’.
“I said to the guy who came in with Chopper, ‘You’ve got to get him out of here. If Mick walks in ….’
“So he left.
“Within 10 minutes I get a call from Mick saying he’d heard I told Chopper Read to leave the restaurant.”
Greg Norman, the late David Hookes, boxing great Jeff Fenech, Wayne Carey & Corey McKernan, Matthew Richardson, Danny Frawley and Leigh Matthews were all regularly seen dining there for Dom’s $15 all you can eat lunchtime special.
Quite incredible for a restaurant that was frequently busy with four women in the kitchen and not a chef in sight.
“Kim Beazley came in one day the week when the West Coast Eagles were playing the Sydney Swans in the Grand Final.
“He has his limo out the front and he walks in and starts walking up stairs.
“I said, ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going? This is a Victorian restaurant, not a Western Australian restaurant’ and he started laughing.
Torre’s popularity was unparalleled.
His small restaurant was famous for supplying Melbourne’s biggest names with their carbohydrates.
‘Dom’ as he’s affectionately known personally delivered pasta to the boys appearing on the Thursday night Footy Show in Nine’s old Richmond studios.
Most Thursdays he would feed the North Melbourne, Essendon and Collingwood football club’s playing group.
Now, he spends most of his time looking after his mother.
“My mum has dementia now so I look after her. She is now in a nursing home.
“There’s a lot more to life than playing golf for 4-5 hours when I could be with my mum.
“I was a member at Kew and the National golf courses, I gave it all away, my golf clubs, everything. I’m not interested. I spend most of my time with my grandkids now.
COUSINS KICKING GOALS
Sobriety is a rare feat these days in this Covid crazy world of ours.
But Ben Cousins is the new poster boy for staying clean right now.
The AFL champion has just been presented with an achievement award from Rigsafe Western Australia for employee of the month.
Cousins was commended for his work ethic, attitude and team first values, making him a very reliable member of the company.
The 2009 Brownlow medallist returned to the public spotlight a few weeks ago attending the medal count in Perth with new love Kelley Fergus.
AFL M & W DEBATE
Debate over whether the AFL should add an ‘M’ for male to its title reared its head again last week.
So we reached out to the man who created the AFL for his take on the suggestion designed to decipher between the male and female competitions.
“I don’t think you need to call it AFLM,” former AFL boss Ross Oakley said.
“There’s AFL and that’s the way it’s been and we’ve added the women which is fantastic and they’ve added the W, but I don’t see a problem.
“I don’t see any confusion.
“Cricket doesn’t put an M in relation to the men players, they certainly have the W Big Bash and just the Big Bash.
“It would only to be remove any confusion and I don’t think there’s any confusion.
Oakley transformed the then VFL back in 1989 to the AFL from 1990.
We asked him if he ever envisaged a women’s AFL league.
“We had too much on our mind sorting out the mens at the time to worry about women at that time,” Oakley said.
“It was always inevitable and it was a case of when is the right time to put the right resources into it.
“Back in those days, the AFL didn’t have the resources.
“We were trying to build the resources, which is why we went to a national competition to try and increase the national resource base.
“Now they are able to support clubs better than we were able to and they are now able to put money into the women’s game.
“We as the commission wanted the game to survive and it wasn’t going to survive if it remained the VFL.
“We wanted the game to not only survive but thrive and going to national format has caused the game to thrive.”
SHEAHAN INK’s SECRET SHORTS
*The mafia, bikies and all around bad guys kept this AFL player engaged on his recent trip across the border to Sydney.
The player was ensconced in the Herald Sun’s Life & Crimes with Andrew Rule podcast listening to 6 episodes back to back, in what the player described as the milk run, apparently in relation to drinking milk from Melbourne to Goulburn.
“It was good listening as I knew some of the stories and some of the people involved,” he said.
*Reports linking Hawthorn midfielder Jaeger O’Meara to Port Adelaide has been dismissed by the club as rubbish.
A Port Adelaide person told Sheahan Ink: “We have absolutely no interest in anyone from Hawthorn let alone Jaeger O’Meara.”
As the Hawks look to enter a rebuild, our Carlton spy tells us O’Meara’s teammate Tom Mitchell is still on Carlton’s radar.
It would be a great fit for Mitchell playing out his days at the Blues where his father Barry played 38 games.
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