Kevin Sheedy open to taking on expanded role at Essendon, including in the Bombers’ football department
As support grows for Essendon legend Kevin Sheedy to make a return to the Bombers, the legendary master coach has responded. What does the great man, himself, think of the idea?
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Four-time premiership coach Kevin Sheedy is prepared to meet with Essendon’s incoming president Paul Brasher and chief executive Xavier Campbell to discuss the possibility of an expanded role at the struggling club.
But he has ruled out making a run to join the Bombers’ board.
Sheedy, 72, currently works in the club’s marketing department but is open to a greater involvement at all levels, including taking a close look at the football operations.
He is disappointed with the club’s on-field fortunes this year, saying he desperately wants Essendon to become one of the AFL’s leading clubs again after more than a decade of pain.
“It is better to be asked (to help) than to interfere, and I won’t do that,” Sheedy told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“I will speak with the new chairman and the chief executive when they come back from the hub.
“I am happy trying to build the club in a lot of different ways.
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“They might want me to be in a position where I can give some advice.”
Sheedy was responding to a call from Herald Sunchief football writer Mark Robinson for the AFL Legend to be elevated to the club’s board in an effort to revitalise the Bombers, who haven’t won a final since 2004.
Sheedy won’t consider a board role, but is keen to assist in other ways, saying: “I had trouble with past players on the board (when coach) … but maybe I could be an advisor in a non-board role”.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ ROBBO’S COLUMN
“I’ll speak to the club when they all get back to Melbourne,” he added.
“I want to help get Essendon right again and I don’t have to be on the board to do that.”
Sheedy has previously been unwilling to have any connection with the football department, but is open to taking a closer look at its operations if he is asked.
“I didn’t want to get slaughtered if we didn’t do well,” Sheedy said about his previous reluctance.
“But if they wanted me to have an advisory role, which means the club could then ask me to look at the footy (operations), I would look into that.”
One of the most revered figures in the club’s history, having coached the Bombers for 27 seasons, Sheedy has been as frustrated as anyone about the club’s lack of recent success, including a disappointing 2020 season.
“We’re in 12th position and we have averaged 11th over the past decade,” he said.
“No one is happy with that.
“We’ve only been to the finals three times (since 2014) and the only time we were competitive (in a recent final) was when ‘Bomber’ Thompson was coach.”
ROBBO: WHY ‘TRASHED’ ESSENDON BRAND NEEDS SHEEDY
— Mark Robinson
It’s time to move #Kevfrommarketing back into football.
Yes, Kevin Sheedy, the man who transported the Bombers from the quagmire 1970s into a powerhouse over the next three decades.
He works in the club’s marketing department, but in this time of identity crisis, he is required in football.
There’s a growing movement, including from within Essendon, to approach Sheedy and ask him to stand for one of two positions at this year’s board election.
Sean Wellman and Kate Lio are up for re-election.
If Sheedy stands, he would be a walk up start.
It would be a political move and, at the same time, a necessary one.
Sheedy would likely resist the invitation, but chief executive Xavier Campbell is aware Essendon needs change, a new dynamic, and apparently Campbell is more than lukewarm to the idea.
He needs Sheedy, too.
Campbell is no dummy. The Essendon brand is trashed. It has no personality. It is a meandering football club, neither a powerhouse nor a bottom dweller, and, from afar, lacks soul and togetherness.
Fans are angry, members apathetic and coterie groups want answers.
More than 17,000 members did not re-sign with the club this year, while over at Carlton they had an increase of 3000 members.
How can one fan base be so bullish and the other so dismayed?
The Bombers will say there are excuses for the fall, but frankly, there seems to be an excuse for everything at Essendon.
In a nutshell, Bombers fans don’t believe anymore.
Campbell was a wartime CEO through the drugs saga and progressed into a footy CEO.
Some of his decisions have been good, some average and, in hindsight, some of them plainly wrong.
He brought Neil Craig and Mark Neeld from Melbourne.
He reappointed John Worsfold.
He hired Dan Richardson from Richmond as football boss.
Together, they concocted the plan to lure Ben Rutten from the Tigers.
They then appointed Rutten in a coaching succession plan — without interviewing any others — and they hired Blake Caracella who has a sparkling football CV.
This is Campbell’s baby and Richardson is the influential backroom uncle.
Clearly, they want to copy Richmond when, really, they should be about building and embracing Essendon.
Unquestionably, this season has been a debacle.
And something has to be done.
Campbell needs Sheedy’s swagger, spirit and intellect.
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Some observers will wonder why the club would turn to its 72-year-old icon, but Campbell should never mind them.
They will look for reasons to find a negative, when Campbell should only adopt the positives.
And it’s about time this football club stopped caring what others think, anyhow.
If Sheedy can be part of the solution, and if Sheedy says ‘yes’, then who cares what others think.
Former Essendon player, assistant coach and life member Robert Shaw is one of the dismayed. He also is more than lukewarm on the idea of Sheedy joining the board.
“Essendon is a big club and we are not ‘playing to our size’,” Shaw said.
“Nowhere near it. On field and off field, we dodge the contests too much.
“The club needs to build/channel Essendon more. Need a challenger, a strong visible leader who fights for better outcomes for Essendon, our players, our fans — not some vague or ill-defined concept of ‘the game’.
“If you want to go somewhere as a club … you have to actually go after someone — Kevin obviously fits that quality, but I think he is content in his lifestyle and with his family.
“But he may have one challenge left in him. I haven’t spoken to him.”
Shaw believes Sheedy would help to rediscover Essendon’s identity.
“There is a school of thought that Kevin is part of the ‘old’ Essendon and we have to move out of the Sheedy Shadow, but Kevin never moved out of the Coleman or Reynolds shadow, as he strongly embraced the culture, the people and the history.
“Kevin understands our identity and that’s why young kids like Solomon, Ramma, Rioli, McVeigh, etc. became great Essendon people, because they understood who they were representing and the responsibility that goes with that jumper.”
Shaw, too, has been sounded out as a board candidate.
“I haven’t spoken to anyone at the club and that would be my first port of call. I believe in the proper process,’’ Shaw said.
“From time to time I have had informal discussions with people that I really respect.
“I’m not sure my current lifestyle would ‘enjoy the emotional commitment that I see as non negotiable’.’’
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Essendon lacks cohesion as 2020 is another disappointing year of no finals, Mark Robinson writes
Sheedy is a paid employee at Essendon, but the club’s constitution does not forbid employees also being board members.
The positives are many: Sheedy is a thinker, spruiker, motivator and has widespread respect. And he wouldn’t allow anyone to trash the place.
In response, for example, to Mick McGuane’s deep-dive criticism of the Bombers on Friday in the Herald Sun, board member Sheedy likely would have subtly reminded everyone that McGuane has not coached a single senior game of AFL.
Subtle, but with a sledgehammer flourish.
How much would Rutten love Sheedy in his corner?
He would be a sounding board and confidante, not so much on modern-day tactics, but on culture, people and performance.
Rutten would grow as a coach.
The political machinations can’t be ignored, either.
Sheedy’s elevation to the board would certainly soothe the agitators, some of whom were contacted this week by the Herald Sun.
Sheedy has that effect.
And Campbell needs to make it happen.
Better still, incoming president Paul Brasher needs to make it happen.