Mark Thompson tells Mark Robinson he nearly walked away from football but the Essendon coach is back in love with the game

MARK Thompson was set to walk away from football. But then he realised if his anger at the drugs saga would kill him, if he let it.

Mark Thompson being announced as the new coach with Neil Craig.

WHEN an infuriated Mark “Bomber” Thompson marched out of AFL House in August last year, $30,000 lighter and his reputation dishonoured, it wasn’t a matter of whether he would replace James Hird as Essendon’s coach.

No, Thompson, a player and coach for 33 years, was walking away from football.

Not even a couple of cold beers with his wife, Jana, could calm him after an extraordinary two days at AFL headquarters, which came after seven extraordinary months the likes of which the game will never see again.

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Two beers led to five — and Thompson’s anger was absolute.

It was spitting out of him. The game he loved, the club he captained to a premiership, the AFL, chief executive Andrew Demetriou, chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, biochemist Stephen Dank, ASADA ... well, they could all get stuffed.

SCROLL DOWN FOR BOMBER’S VIEWS ON DEMETRIOU, HIRD AND DANIHER

But five months later, Thompson was back in love with the game again.

He reasoned that the anger would kill him if he let it.

“It took a while, but time heals,” he said last week.

“You just sit down, look at yourself and say, ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to be in that frame of mind for a longer period than we already had?’ No, I didn’t. Once I was going to do the job, and to do it in the way I wanted to do it, I had no resentment. I can’t afford to have any. I can’t have one bit of it.’’

Thompson was appointed coach on October 10, a one-year assignment until Hird returns from his AFL-imposed ban.

Four days later, Thompson and Jana flew to Vietnam, further healing for the mind.

“We went for 17 days to a beautiful country,” he said. “Every time I relaxed I fell asleep. I was a bit boring to go away with because I caught up with a year’s sleep.

“Last year, I used to wake up at 1am and check the internet most nights because all the newspaper stories would be online. It was ridiculous. It was like an alarm clock went off in my head and every day was a surprise.

Bomber Thompson.

“But we met some incredible people in Vietnam, got to understand a little bit about their country and what happened 40 years ago. We saw how industrious they are as a nation, resilient, they don’t waste anything. They haven’t great wealth, but they are happy. It was good perspective.’’

There were considered doubts about whether Thompson could do the job at Essendon.

Even skipper Jobe Watson had to be convinced.

Coaching was one thing, but what about the countless commitments to sponsors, members, coteries and to the media? Thompson had parked them when he departed Geelong and his role at Essendon, as Hird’s commander-in-chief, was a bit of all care, half responsibility.

The transformation has been completed.

Thompson is full-time coach again. Coaching everything, he said. The players. The club. The staff.

It’s as though The Book of Bomber, shelved for three years, has once again become a bestseller.

Always quirky, he talks of challenges, of culture, of daily improvement.

He knows coaching isn’t about just coaching players. He wants players to be better people, he wants the club to be strong, like a Hawthorn, co-operative and having an aura. And he wants fans to embrace the club, to unearth the passion, have mums and dads proud to bring their kids to Bombers games.

It’s critically important, he said.

A terrific game-day coach, Thompson is bursting with football philosophies and new-game strategies.

So much so, he said, it’s hurting his head.

“It’s a big challenge. Jumping back into the seat, you think you know what to and you’ll be able to do it, but there’s a lot to fix up, and the work rate has gone up. After the first game, even though we didn’t do much against Gold Coast, I was really tired and went back to the room and fell asleep. The head was tired. I have to train my head up again and that will come by just doing it.

“It’s not as daunting as going to Geelong as a first-year coach, going into the town, on the back of couple of interviews and making a gut-feel decision based on people and character. Compared to now, I know what to do, it’s just whether I can do it or not.’’

Thompson during the loss to Port Adelaide.

He has doubts?

“I just know that unless the whole club is going in the one direction and there’s no issues, we’ve got more a chance. You know that good clubs look like they know what they’re doing, they know how to handle crises, they look after people, the players look like they love playing with each other. Good clubs are quite symbolic.

“They’ve got a culture, it’s present everywhere, and I’m not sure if we’ve actually crunched our culture, you know, how we want to play, whether we’re prepared to do everything we possibly can, all of us in the whole business, to achieve that.

“I have to bring people together. It wasn’t fractured, but I don’t think it was seen to be important that we understand each other. We do rely on every department to help each other so much.

“Boards, executive teams, marketing, the media department, community ... you just can’t ask for something without something being delivered in return, either party. We (football department) just can’t keep saying no and they just can’t keep requesting, thinking they will get it.

“At some point there has got to be negotiation and that usually works off the back of good relationships.

“We’ve broken down a lot of barriers by being in the same building, that’s best start we’ve had.

“And it makes a massive difference if your club is set up the right way. If you can go in and concentrate on coaching the players and the staff, and get them in a place that lets them be as good as they can be, well, that’s principally your role.”

He talks with a crazy intensity, Thompson. All coaches do when it’s about the nitty-gritty. And Thompson has had a crazy intensity from day one.

Everyone you talk to involved with Essendon says “he’s back”. Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, a former assistant of Thompson’s at Geelong, said he had heard the same thing — that Thompson was hungry, obsessed and demanding.

Thompson agreed. “I like to train with intensity,’’ he said. “That everything we do on the track has some purpose. They are training to play. And if we train poorly and have bad habits or do the wrong drills, which doesn’t help the way we want to play, that disturbs me.”

For Thompson, the moment he knew he would have to rediscover his senior coaching instincts came at Essendon’s best-and-fairest count in early October. Called to the stage, Thompson was given a standing ovation by a crowd pleading for a guiding light.

“It was embarrassingly humbling,” Thompson said. “It made me think, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to do this, I had to get off my arse off and do it, do it to help them out.

Bomber has a laugh.

“I did it for the players, the club and the fans and I also did it for myself, because I think we’ve done some incredible work without being a united club, a good club.

“I knew the club, I knew what we’ve been trying to do, I’ve been a big part of recruiting, development, setting up a lot of stuff.

“The way we play is considerably different to the way we used to play. We are using a specific set of guidelines that work, and they are ours, and we don’t care what other clubs do, it’s the way we do it, it’s the Essendon way.”

The Thompson journey means it is, in fact, the Essendon-Geelong-Essendon way.

“It’s about your experiences, what’s worked and what hasn’t, and by studying the game, and making mistakes and learning from them, and doing things right and keep doing them, and I felt like if someone else had come in and reinvented the wheel, then maybe a lot of what we trained the players to do (could be lost) in a new style if there was one.

“And I could carry on the legacy, I could carry it on until Hirdy got back.

“You’ve got realise things are built slowly. If this team plays in a premiership — what’s it been three years, this is our fourth — it takes clubs six years.

“We’ve kept older players we think are capable of playing our style, we’ve brought in young people every year, young (Martin) Gleeson can play, Zach Merrett can play, Joe Daniher can play, there’s a lot of players who can play.

“But now we have to get them to play together and going to a standard they’ve never ever seen before in terms of their fitness, their teamwork, their care, their competitiveness, and that comes from playing together.’’

Thompson is big on culture. He talked of improving the club, but more specifically about building a culture of success. For too long, he said, Essendon had been trampled on.

“The club hasn’t had a top-six finish since 2005, almost a decade,’’ he said.

“I know we are a big club and we’ve got lots of supporters, but at some stage, if you don’t play finals, don’t get into the top four, top two and win a premierships, fathers and mothers aren’t as often going to push their kids to barrack for the club.

“Kids will say, ‘Hang on, Dad, why would I like them? They don’t play finals, they’re no good. I’m going to Hawthorn’.

“At the moment, you see parents bringing their kids and they’ve still got Essendon jumpers on, but have we got the same number of mums and dads putting Essendon jumpers on kids as we had 10 years ago?

“Speeds built this massive club, but our membership isn’t massive compared to others and we’re not playing finals.

“That’s a huge responsibility, that we get back to playing finals and have a winning culture.’’

And that is The Book of Bomber.

BOMBER DIPS HIS WING ON ….

Andrew Demetriou

“I haven’t spoken to Andrew. He was at the club the other day and they said he was going to be there at two or 2.15pm. I hadn’t had lunch and I waited until 2.40 and he wasn’t there so I said, ‘Stuff him.’ I was hungry. But we’ll talk. It’s important for all us to move on.”

James Hird

“The AFL and Essendon have told me we shouldn’t get to the point where we have to defend any aspect of our relationships. We are great friends and it’s difficult. And we miss him. But we understand the situation and we don’t want to compromise the football club or the game. We still talk. There’s a level of communication that is updated, but it’s not, you know, ‘’what do you want to do here, James?’’ It’s more about how things are done and I think we’re allowed to do that.”

Neil Craig

“I didn’t know him. I knew him from watching him on TV and thinking, he’s a grumpy bum. I told him that, but he’s not. He’s relaxed, he’s detailed and he’s thorough. And he’s a people’s person, he’s engaging. He’s one of my pillars, I already know I can trust him to do the job.”

Mark Thompson being announced as the new coach with Neil Craig.

Nathan Bassett

“He’s a pillar. He’s got a bit to learn because of the intensity of AFL, the workloads, but he knows footy and he knows people. People are already engaging him. He’s got a nice way. He’s tells people the truth in a way that’s not confronting, or intimidating or personal. You can see why he was able to run his own club and be successful.”

Joe Daniher

“I hope he hasn’t lifted everyone’s expectation because we know from history they start well, then they have a lapse because they’re tired, and when you’re tired you can’t perform. There will be moments where he won’t look any good, but we’re still going to try to play him. You would have to say the way he played, if he could replicate that, the early signs are he’s going to be a very good player.’’

Joe Daniher looks exciting.