Top 20 weird and wonderful Kevin Sheedy moments from a lifetime of love for the game
HE is footy’s crazy genius and in a playing and coaching career littered with premierships and personal accomplishments there have also been some hilarious and downright bizarre moments. GLENN McFARLANE names the top 20 Sheedy moments.
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HE’S long been considered a legend of the AFL and now it’s official after Kevin Sheedy was elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.
KEVIN SHEEDY: RUTHLESS DRIVE BEHIND FOOTY’S CRAZY GENIUS
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He is footy’s crazy genius and in a playing and coaching career littered with premierships and individual accomplishments there have also been some hilarious and downright bizarre moments.
GLENN McFARLANE looks back at the top 20 weird and wonderful Kevin Sheedy moments from a lifetime of love for the game.
1. FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE BOMBERS
Kevin Sheedy fell in love with Essendon as a kid and Windy Hill became a second home to him.
“We would go out there every second weekend, nine times a year,” Sheedy said of his childhood. “I’d sit under the clock in the old stand, which unfortunately isn’t there now, and we’d have to leave halfway through the last quarter because I had to get back and sell the paper (Sporting Globe).”
2. OVERLOOKED BY MELBOURNE, BANNED BY THE VFA
Sheedy was zoned to Melbourne, and tried out there, but never felt comfortable. As a 16-year-old he was playing in Prahran’s VFA senior side. In crossing to Richmond the year after, he incurred a five-year VFA suspension owing to the war between the league and the association over transfer fees.
3. TIGER TOUGH
Sheedy fell in love with Richmond the club, and was moulded by Richmond the man (ruthless Tigers administrator Graeme Richmond, that is) almost from the moment he arrived in 1967. He missed the club’s flag that year after injuring his knee earlier in the season but established himself as a key player for the club, and was a member of the Tigers’ 1969 premiership side.
4. ‘BLOODY BACK POCKET PLUMBER’
His coaching mentor Tom Hafey once described him as “a bloody back pocket plumber” who was at his best when he wasn’t “finessin’”. But he was a much better footballer — especially on the big stage — than the description suggests. He played different roles in the 1973-74 back-to-back flags. If there had been Norm Smith Medals handed out in either year, he would have been a worthy winner. “The funny thing is that Tom Hafey keeps saying I was a back pocket plumber, but I actually kicked eight goals in those Grand Finals,” he said.
5. TEARS FOR TOMMY
As hard as he naturally was, Sheedy could be a softie, thanks to his Irish Catholic heritage. When Hafey left Richmond to coach Collingwood, Sheeds didn’t handle it well. The first time he played against a Hafey-led team was Anzac Day, 1977, and for one of the only times in his life, he was so flustered he kicked the ball the wrong way. Some said there was tears in his eye. The man himself jokes: “I was ahead of my time, they all kick backwards these days.”
6. ALMOST A COMEBACK
Sheedy was appointed non-playing coach of Essendon in 1981, but after five losses in the first five rounds, he threatened to don the boots and make a comeback. It never eventuated as the Bombers went on a winning streak of 15 games to make the finals. He still rates those 1981-82 Essendon teams as among the unlucky sides to have missed out on flags
7. THE POST-GRAND FINAL SPRAY
Sheedy took Essendon to the 1983 Grand Final, but the Bombers lost by 83 points. The coach gave the team an almighty spray at the post-game function, and it set a template for long Grand Final coaches into the future. “I don’t want you to enjoy tonight,” he said. “If it never hurts tonight, then Essendon will never win another premiership.”
8. THE FEUD WITH ALLAN JEANS
Sheedy got into hot water and his feud with Hawthorn coach Allan Jeans escalated when he called for a probe on photos showing Hawks players sniffing from containers given to them by the trainers. He even wanted Victoria Police to investigate. It turned out the substance was only eucalyptus, and Jeans — himself a policeman — never forgave his rival coach, and the Hawks-Bombers war intensified.
9. SHEEDY’S PREMIERSHIPS
Sheedy changed football forever when he switched his team around during the 1984 Grand Final. Essendon was 23 points behind at three-quarter time but stormed home with a nine-goal final quarter to win by 24 points. Lou dubbed it: “This is Sheedys’ premiership, with all these tremendous moves he has made.” The following year’s win over Hawthorn was even more emphatic. Sheedy loved the ruthless streak his team had: “`The thing I will never forget about ‘84 and ‘85 is the fact we kicked nine goals in the last quarter of one game and 11 in the last quarter of the other. They were teams trained to run out the last quarter of the last game of the year.”
10. INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
Few have done as much for the indigenous cause in terms of football than Kevin Sheedy. His trip north with recruiting officer Noel Judkins to convince a somewhat reluctant and shy Michael Long to come to Essendon was the turning point for him in ensuring the indigenous game embraced its indigenous people. In the almost 30 years since, the indigenous footprint on the game has been extraordinary.
11. A PUNCH, AND THE PUNCHLINE TO A BAD JOKE
Collingwood ended its 32-year premiership drought and Essendon became the punchline to a bad joke — who kicked five goals in the 1990 Grand Final? As bad a day as it was for him, Sheeds threw a punch of his own during what was a wild quarter-time brawl. As the players went for it on one side of the ground, the officials clashed on the other. As the man himself recalled: “I saw a person knock out my runner Peter Power and I had no idea who that person was. In the end, I just gave him a clip over the ears and, you would not believe it, it turned out to be ‘Gubby’ (Allan).”
12. WINDSOCK HI JINX
Before a game against West Coast at the appropriately named Windy Hill, Sheedy ordered that the ground’s windsock be tied down so that the visiting side wouldn’t know precisely where the wind was blowing. The Eagles fumed, and the football world smirked at the Essendon coach’s different methods. “They (West Coast) hadn’t paid their dues,” he recalled. “I didn’t realise what a fuss would be made of it.”
13. THE JACKET WAVE
One of Sheedy’s most iconic moments came just moments after Paul Salmon kicked a late goal to win the Round 16 1993 match against West Coast. In coming down to the ground, he stopped for a moment and waved his jacket wildly to the roar of the crowd. The late Drew Morphett would say: “Look at Kevin Sheedy, I have never seen Sheedy like that, except for those premierships in the ‘80s.” It became a tradition for Essendon and West Coast for years to come.
14. BABY BOMBER MARK II
Sheedy won his third flag as coach with some seasoned stars and a bunch of unheralded kids dubbed “the Baby Bombers Mark II” when Essendon won the 1993 Grand Final against Carlton. Controversially, he left Derek Kickett out of the game, sparking a feud that has only just simmered 25 years later. The 1993 flag came in the Year of the indigenous People, and it was fitting Gavin Wanganeen won the Brownlow that year and Michael Long won the Norm Smith Medal.
15. CREATING ANZAC DAY
Sheedy was the catalyst behind creating the now traditional Essendon-Collingwood ANZAC Day game in 1995, which has become such an important part of the Australian football calendar. The first match ended in a famous draw. “I still think the AFL, Collingwood, Essendon and the RSL should thank Nathan Buckley for what he did in that first Anzac Day match (in 1995),’’ Sheedy would recall. “He had the chance to kick a score and win the game, but opted to do the unselfish thing and kick towards a teammate. And then the siren went and it was a draw.” Sheedy also helped devise Dreamtime, the Country game, and the less successful Eureka Game.
16. THE MARSHMALLOWS WAR
Sheedy once called North Melbourne officials Greg Miller and Mark Dawson “marshmallows”, saying the two were “softies”. It led to great rivalry and even greater mirth between the two clubs during those competitive years in the late 1990s. It also led to Sheedy being pelted with marshmallows by Kangaroos supporters after the Bombers lost the 1998 qualifying final. Sheeds loved the theatre of it all, and swears it increased crowds in games between the clubs for a period.
17. SEAGULLS AND MARTIANS
He always stood up for his players, even if he felt “the martians” (as he dubbed the umpires) didn’t always. It famously — some might say infamously — happened at Docklands in 2000 when he stormed onto the ground at half time and gave a “throat-slitting” gesture aimed at Eagle Mitchell White. White had had a run-in with Bomber Mark Johnson shortly before the siren had sounded. Sheedy would later claim a “seagull” had flown into Johnson’s eye. He would be fined $7500 by the AFL.
18. FLAG FOUR
After losing what was deemed “the unlosable” preliminary final to Carlton in 1999, Sheedy lifted the Bombers to a premiership in 2000, taking his own tally of flags as a coach to four — the same number as his mentor in Hafey. He couldn’t quite make it five, losing to Brisbane in the 2001 Grand Final.
19. ‘SHOOTING BAMBI’
“Who shot Bambi?” was the question Essendon chairman Ray Horsburgh was asked the day after Essendon voted 8-2 to end Sheedy’s extraordinary 27-season coaching tenure in 2007. After 27 seasons at the helm, the club decided not to renew Sheedy’s contact — effectively sacking him. Details of the meeting were embarrassingly leaked to the media — unsavoury when it concerned a club legend — but through it all Sheedy maintained his dignity and his sense of humour.
20. A GIANT COMEBACK
Sheedy made a comeback as Greater Western Sydney’s first coach and spruiker. When he took on the job, he joked: “Only two people got 27 years, the great Nelson Mandela and myself. He became president of South Africa, and I got sent up the Parramatta River (to coach Greater Western Sydney).”
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