‘Biggest name in Australian football’: How a pub pitch helped struggling Sydney Swans headhunt Ron Barassi
It‘s 30 years since Ron Barassi came out of retirement to help save Sydney from the abyss. SHANNON GILL chats to some key figures to find out how the icon’s arrival really unfolded.
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In the middle of a 26-game losing streak, Sydney Swans players sat in silence wondering what they’d hear from football’s biggest name.
They’d all grown up hearing about the legend of Ron Barassi, the man who put fear in grown men, but there was no ranting or raving as he took charge for the first time.
He was calm.
He told them all to imagine being in a pub in twenty years time and someone remembers you playing for the Swans when they were about to go under.
“Then you won a game in Sydney, and it seemed to turn things around for the club,” Barassi said, playing the part of the stranger and the Swans player in the hypothetical pub conversation.
“Did you play in that game? Yeah I did.
“What was it like? I’ll tell you what it was like,” Barassi built to a crescendo.
“It was fantastic!”
Swans stalwart Neil Cordy tells CODE Sports that it was one of the only pre-game addresses he remembers in all his years of footy.
“He said this club is going to be around for a long time because the AFL is committed to it and people will look back in history at a game like today where you turned the corner.”
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Some 30 years on, it’s hard to comprehend the status of Ron Barassi when he ended an eight-year coaching retirement to take on the Swans. Barassi, with a total of ten premierships as a player and coach, is still the most successful VFL/AFL figure this side of World War II.
In modern terms, imagine four-time premiership mentor Alastair Clarkson retired from coaching after a few years at North Melbourne then eight years later embarked on a return. But add six playing premierships to Clarkson’s resume.
When the Swans sacked Gary Buckenara amid all sorts of playing and financial issues early in 1993, Ron Joseph, who had just been seconded to run the club, sent a memo to the AFL.
Joseph, who passed away in March, told this author in 2018 that many at the club were desperate for Peter Hudson to be made coach, but he had his heart set on the coach he’d worked with at North Melbourne in their 1970s rise.
“He had an aura that Sydney needed,” Joseph said.
“Sydney knew that Barassi was the biggest name in Australian football, and the minute Barassi walked in, the Sydney people started to think ‘They’re fair dinkum for the first time’.”
Joseph knocked on the door of Barassi’s Mountain View Hotel in Richmond and told the legend, then aged 57, that after years of criticising the league for failing Sydney, he had a chance to put up or shut up.
That he was wasting his passion working in radio and his pub and it was the Swans last chance to survive.
Initially sceptical, Barassi warmed to it the more he heard. His wife Cheryl finally made the decision by telling him that if he wanted to go, she’d look after the pub.
The two walked around the corner to AFL CEO Ross Oakley’s house to share their plan. Oakley, in his pyjamas, nearly fell over. But he was soon sold on the idea.
“By the time we walked out at midnight he was going to be coach,” Joseph said.
Back in Sydney there was some diplomacy to take care of to get the rest of the club sold on the idea while Barassi sorted out his pub and his life.
In the meantime, caretaker coach and former Swans player Brett Scott was left holding the baby.
“It wasn’t a pretty sight, not just the playing performance, the club as a whole was in trouble,” Scott tells CODE Sports.
The polar opposite in profile from Barassi, Scott had eked out 59 games for the Swans and was a part-time assistant when he was momentarily made head coach, perhaps the last who was still working a day job.
“I was running a warehouse and getting up at 4.30am to do that, and then at 4.30pm in the afternoon I’d leave to take AFL training. It’s a slightly different scenario these days,” he laughs.
Then there was the bizarre situation where Barassi was seemingly locked into the job, but spent the next Saturday commentating on the Scott-coached Swans on 3AW. He gave away the game by lapsing into calling the Swans “we” at times.
Scott coached two games for two losses and a combined margin of 220 points before Barassi finally took charge.
“I must admit the couple of games I coached wasn’t much fun, it was more of a relief to me,” Scott says.
“When Ron was announced I was pretty pleased.”
The arrival of Barassi added a spring to 34 year-old Cordy’s step. He’d grown up a Carlton supporter and watched in wonder as Barassi coached the Blues to the 1970 premiership.
He kept a diary of the period. It was later published in newspapers that he still has today.
It records the excitement when Barassi first met the players, the institution of 6am training to show how serious he was and the nonplussed looks from players when the supercoach made them complete the most basic of skill drills.
He also found himself back in the senior team for Barassi’s first game in charge, but alas the pre-game speech that so impressed him did not perform a miracle. The Swans lost to the Blues by 44 points.
Scott and Cordy would have their own unique experiences with footy’s biggest name. A few weeks later Scott would take a road trip with Barassi to Brisbane to play the Bears, soaking in all he could while sitting alongside the icon.
By halftime of the game the lowly Bears led the Swans by 120 points.
“I’m sitting in the coaches box with one of the greatest coaches ever, and there was literally nothing we could do,” Scott says.
“It gave me a little bit of solace, my two performances weren’t flash, but here’s Barassi and we hadn’t kicked a goal at halftime.”
Scott enjoyed his time with Barassi but towards the end of the year he decided he could no longer combine work with footy, and left the game.
“It was just too much, I needed to focus on my career and family.”
Cordy would have to savour that speech, it was the only time he was coached by Barassi.
After one game the coach decided he was best placed to play the youngsters from here on in. Cordy was back in the reserves, a week later he and fellow veteran Dennis Carroll retired.
“It was an absolute honour to have my career finished by the great Ronald Dale Barassi,” he laughs.
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Their time at the Swans may have ended with Barassi’s arrival but the club was going on to bigger and better things, finally.
“To have ‘Barass’ come to our club was huge. It was also an endorsement that the Swans were something worth keeping,” Cordy says.
He cites the stability that has been in place ever since as evidence.
“With John Longmire continuing on it will soon be three coaches in 30 years.”
“In 1993 we had three coaches in a month!”
Scott’s old teammates still rib him about the time he warmed the seat for footy’s biggest name, but he treasures it.
“It was great to have that experience with Ron in the box, not many people can say they’ve done that.”
Some 30 years on the Swans are thriving, with two premierships in the cabinet from seven grand final appearances.
He might not have lifted cups like he did at Melbourne, Carlton and North Melbourne, but the now 87 year-old Barassi can be content that in its hour of need he was prepared to put the game he loved above a comfortable retired life.
And that it eventually worked.
The year after he retired for good the Swans reached the 1996 Grand Final.
30 years on, those that lived through the dark times still recall the light at the end of the tunnel that was Barassi’s arrival.
“There was a prize at the end of it all,” Scott aptly puts it.
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