In this week’s instalment of Glenn’s 10, Glenn McFarlane looks at 10 famous secret footy meetings
JAMES Hird’s meeting with Essendon players at a South Melbourne restaurant prompted Glenn’s 10 to look back at some of footy’s other secret meetings.
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The Herald Sun this week revealed suspended Essendon coach James Hird met with Bombers’ players at a South Melbourne restaurant recently.
It prompted us to look back at some of the great secret meetings associated with the game, many of which resulted in massive footy news when they finally broke in the public arena.
SECRET MEETING: HIRD RALLIES TROOPS
1. THE ESSENDON SAGA ... THE HIRD MEETING
Never has one single football issue had more secret meetings and backroom dealings than the Essendon sports supplements saga.
Take the one involving Essendon’s key playmakers on the night before the club self-reported. Never mind for a minute what the phone call from Andrew Demetriou did or did not detail, the gathering that took place last February was nothing short of extraordinary.
Then last August — on the day before James Hird begrudgingly accepted the AFL’s penalty, he had been locked in a secret meeting with his lawyers and AFL powerbrokers at Gill McLachlan’s home.
That meeting took place on Sunday, August 25, and two nights later, after more debate, Hird copped his year’s suspension — a punishment he now clearly regrets accepting.
And recently Hird had his own secret meeting with Essendon players at a South Melbourne restaurant, detailing his return to coaching next year.
2. BUDDY MEETS THE SWANS — 10 MONTHS BEFORE HE LEFT
Neighbours of Sydney chief Andrew Ireland missed out a scoop in January 2013 when one of football’s highest profile players came to visit.
Well, let’s be honest, it was more than just a visit.
Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin was coming to speak to the Swans about moving north — 10 months before he was due to become a free agent.
The secret meeting was attended by Franklin, his then manager Liam Pickering, as well as Swans coach John Longmire, who just so happened to mates and former teammates with Buddy’s coach, Alastair Clarkson.
When the meeting was finally revealed, after Franklin had signed with the Swans in October, Ireland said: “We didn’t deliberately try to sell the club ... we really wanted to hear from Lance why he wanted to come.”
Franklin said: “I was a free agent and I wanted to have a look around and there’s nothing wrong with that,’’ he said. ’It’s what the players voted for and we got, so I thought, -Why not?’
The biggest contract in football — $10 million over nine years — was the result.
3. THE MERGER WARS
The seemingly endless secret merger meetings of the 1980s and 1990s took up plenty of discussion.
There were the clandestine “pow wows” between Fitzroy and Footscray in the lead-up to the failed 1989 merger; Melbourne and Fitzroy looking at a possible union; then North Melbourne became the club most likely to link with Fitzoy until the AFL came in and ruled the Lions had no option but to accept Brisbane.
And famously there were the secret meetings between Melbourne and Hawthorn in a merger that almost happened, but was scuttled by the Hawks at the death knell.
4. BARASSI TO CARLTON ... AND NORTH MELBOURNE
Ron Barassi’s move from Melbourne was one of the biggest football stories in VFL-AFL history.
It came about when the Demons champion was approached by Carlton officials in late 1964, asking if he wanted to take over as playing coach.
Barassi recalled: “I had a lunch with two committeemen near the corner of Exhibition and Lonsdale Streets. I told them I would think about it.”
But he did at least alert Melbourne to the fact, although the secret meeting was eventually revealed in the next day’s paper, which infuriated Barassi.
For a time, it almost stopped him from going to Princes Park, annoyed that someone had leaked the details to the press.
But ultimately he would rock the football landscape by agreeing to leave his adopted home and head to Carlton.
Then, after two flags at the Blues in 1968 and 1970, he quit the club after the 1971 season.
Then, in 1973, he was approached by North Melbourne at a secret meeting at the Old Melbourne Motor Inn, where he met with Allen Aylett, Albert Mantello and Ron Joseph, and he pledged to join the Kangaroos.
He signed a deal on the day — on the back of a serviette, which still exists to this day.
5. THE START OF THE VFL
Buxton’s Art Gallery was hardly the right sounding location for a mutinous occasion, but that’s what happened one late Friday night in October 1896.
On the night before the VFA grand final between Collingwood and South Melbourne, six powerful but disgruntled VFA clubs came together at the venue to resolve a breakaway competition and leave the VFA.
And so the original VFL competition was born.
It came on the same night as the VFA were meeting, and the absence of the power clubs gave the game away.
Journalists found out about the meeting and details emerged in the following day’s paper, but the secret meeting remains one of the most momentous in the history of football.
6. GAZZA’S GOLD COAST CATCH-UP
A meeting between Geelong star Gary Ablett and the Gold Coast in a Broadbeach apartment in late 2009 was meant to be a clandestine one — until a few Port Adelaide players stumbled across it.
Incredibly, the Cats found out about the hook-up between its champion and the AFL’s fledgling side via its connections to Port Adelaide.
Ablett was contracted until the end of the 2010 season, but was contemplating a multi-million shift to the Gold Coast to become the captain of the new start-up AFL club.
The Power players happened to be in Broadbeach at the time and spotted the Brownlow medallist talking to the key executives from the Gold Coast at an apartment.
The secret was out. So it was not a massive surprise when Ablett eventually announced that he was heading north.
7. ROSS LYON AND THE DOCKERS
As far as modern football coaching shocks go, Ross Lyon’s defection to Fremantle was an absolute doozy.
While St Kilda believed Lyon was edging towards signing a new deal in 2011, the Dockers were launching an audacious bid to claim the Grand Final coach.
It started with a secret phone from Dockers CEO Steve Rosich to gain his interest — even though Mark Harvey was still coaching Fremantle.
Then Rosich boarded a plane to Melbourne “on business”, which was all about meeting Lyon and convincing him he was the right man to coach the WA side.
A “slick Powerpoint presentation” later, and Lyon had realised it was too good an opportunity to miss out on and he agreed to join the Dockers.
When the secret dealings emerged on a dramatic day in football, and when news emerged of Harvey’s sacking, Lyon and the Dockers defended their responses and said their integrity should not be questioned.
8. ELLIOTT AND THE MACEDON MEETING
Carlton president John Elliott held a “secret” meeting with a handful of the power VFL clubs in 1984 to discuss a potential breakaway competition.
In his recent book, then VFL chairman Ross Oakley recalled: “He was planning a breakaway league of 10 clubs that would include the five most powerful Victorian clubs — Collingwood, Essendon, Richmond, Geelong and, of course, his beloved Carlton — and would introduce non-Victorian teams (two from NSW, two from SA) with the potential of abandoning a parade of underperforming Victorian clubs.”
“The Elliott plan was grand: a mix of purging and restructuring, all leading towards a new national competition. It was economic rationalism at its finest.”
The meeting took place at his retreat at Macedon, and was a forerunner to the VFL opting to go national.
And the AFL was guilty of its own secret dealings in 1990 when it emerged it had been negotiating with SANFL club Port Adelaide before the exposure led to Port being frozen out and the SANFL coming in with the Adelaide Crows option.
9. LOCKETT AND THE MAGPIES
Former Collingwood president Allan McAlister said his greatest regret during his reign was the fact he could not convince fellow board members to sign St Kilda champion Tony Lockett.
McAlister had a series of behind-closed-doors meetings — at least one believed to be at his hotel — with Lockett and/or the star’s management as it became clear the Saints star wanted out of Moorabbin.
The deal was “all but finalised”, according to McAlister, saying “Lockett told me in no uncertain terms that he would like to play with Collingwood ... and assured me ... he would give the Magpies value for money.”
Another secret meeting took place with a St Kilda official who suggested that the club knew Lockett was leaving and was prepared to make a deal.
McAlister later said: “(Leigh) Matthews desperately wanted Lockett. Ron Richards and Bob Rose also wanted Lockett and I believed if the coach wanted a particular player, it was my job as club president to try and fulfil that request.”
Sadly, for McAlister, when the matter went to the board, a group of them voted against the move.
McAlister was overruled; Lockett went to Sydney; and the rest is history.
10. DEMETRIOU AND THE NORTH SHAREHOLDERS
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou and a few league heavyweights met with North Melbourne shareholders about a possible move to the Gold Coast in 2007.
The meeting took place at Crown Casino and looked at a potential takeover that would have seen the Kangaroos take up a permanent residence in Queensland.
The secret gathering took more than an hour, examining whether a buyout was a possibility, although a few shareholders were not invited to the chat.
While Demetriou said it was simply an information session, one of the angry shareholders excluded, Peter De Rauch, said it was the AFL trying to buy out a club.
In the end, the Kangaroos resisted a move north, and James Brayshaw and a new board came in to keep the Kangaroos at Arden St.
And so the Gold Coast Suns were born.
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