Stephen Milne was set to be traded to Essendon or Port Adelaide until Grant Thomas was sacked
He retired as a one club player and favourite son at the Saints. But it was so close to being so different for Stephen Milne, who was nearly shipped off to play for one of the greatest coaches of all time.
St Kilda
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Stephen Milne says Grant Thomas’ sensational sacking in 2006 saved him from a shock trade to Essendon or Port Adelaide.
The brilliant St Kilda goal-sneak had been told he would be traded and even met with Kevin Sheedy during the 2006 trade period after only seven seasons at the Saints.
Thomas was sacked due to a power struggle with president Rod Butterss, with new coach Ross Lyon extending Milne a lifeline when he signed on.
Thomas and Milne are now firm friends but the Saints senior coach had believed Milne did not play well enough in interstate contests.
LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S SACKED PODCAST WITH STEPHEN MILNE AND STEVEN BAKER FROM 6PM FRIDAY NIGHT
Milne would play another seven seasons and 156 games for St Kilda including five years with 46 or more goals and finished his career with 574 goals from 275 games.
He revealed in the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast he was forced into retirement at the end of 2013 but says he could have been gone so much earlier.
“I hadn’t been told face-to-face, but I kind of read the writing on the wall that I would probably get put up for trade,” he said.
“Obviously during that year I was kind of on and off the ground as a forward pocket and kind of not performing in certain games and I knew something was coming. Obviously I had a little bit of interest from a couple of other clubs which I was pretty happy with, so I kind of met with them, but it took us a while for Ross Lyon to get appointed.
“I knew I would get somewhere but I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to be a one-club player and I lived around the corner but for your dream of playing AFL footy you would go anywhere.
“Kevin Sheedy was senior coach of Essendon at the time and played a year under him in the reserves with Adam Ramanauskas, and I met Sheeds at the Hilton and he went through all my stats and averages and he was very, very keen. I said I am keen also. Through my manager Tom Petroro (I knew) Mark Williams was pretty keen at Port Adelaide and I said if the worst came to the worst I would love to move over there.
“Now I treat Rossy as a second father and I remember walking upstairs to the office. He said, ‘I believe you can play good footy for this club and I will give you a three-year contract. Just chase and tackle and we will go from there.’
“The next thing I had another 150 games under Ross.
“I look back and have a bit of a laugh about it. I still speak to Thommo and there are no grudges there. We have a chat and a beer now and again, he is all good.”
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Milne has strong relationships with both Lyon and Thomas and believes combining the skill sets of both would have made for the perfect coach.
“Going back to Thommo, it was the camaraderie that we had. After every game we would go back for a BBQ and a catch up. We really played for each other and had a really had a close bond.
“Rossy is very methodical in his approach and structured, I think a mixture of the two would have been bloody brilliant. One was one edge of the scale and the other was at the other. They are both different and I am great mates with them both.”