Jonathan Brown coughs up massive coaching secret he’s hidden for months

Footy legend Jonathan Brown has begrudgingly come clean on a new AFL coaching job he has tried to keep hidden for months.

Jonathan Brown is a busy man. Picture: Mark Stewart.

Footy legend Jonathan Brown has begrudgingly revealed he has secretly been helping to coach North Melbourne.

The shock revelation came from completely out of the blue in the latest episode of the Browny Podcast, featuring the Lions icon, Hawthorn great Campbell Brown and radio personality Dean Thomas.

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The popular breakfast radio host now admits he has been working in a casual role with the North Melbourne forward line, alongside the club’s forwards coach Leigh Adams.

The Fox Footy analyst says Kangaroos coach Alastair Clarkson reached out to him and was persistent in his attempts to recruit him to join the team’s coaching staff.

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Brown, who played 256 games for the Lions from 2000 to 2014, said he is not getting paid by the club and holds no official title, but is consulting with the forward line “out of love”.

After being repeatedly asked by co-host Campbell Brown to name the club he was working with, Jonathan Brown eventually said he had “always wanted to be a Shinboner”.

“I’m doing it out of loving it. I’ll just turn up and just every now and again I just turn up and give a bit of confidence the young lads,” he said.

Brown revealed it took a lot of persuasion from Clarkson to get him to enter the world of coaching at the elite level.

“Well, to be honest, as you know, you can testify he just annoys the s*** out of me,” Brown said to Campbell, who won a premiership with the former Hawthorn coach in 2008.

“Eventually you just give in.”

Browny and Buckley on Fox footy in 2023. Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images for Fox Footy.

The Kangaroos have been the biggest surprise of the 2023 season with the wooden-spooners starting their campaign unbeaten in the first two rounds of the season.

Campbell Brown joked the Nova radio personality is the real reason North Melbourne has exploded out of the blocks this year — not the arrival of four-time premiership coach Clarkson.

Brown also joked Brown is the reason North Melbourne forwards Nick Larkey and Cam Zurhaar have found their mojo.

“I’ll just come in and just pass a bit of advice on to the lads and just give him a bit of a confidence,” Brown said.

“I’m not working in football. I’m just giving a bit of advice.”

He admitted he has been trying to keep the situation secret.

“I didn’t want to break confidences you know, but it’s obviously... Dog (Campbell Brown) knows everything in this f***ing town so it was just like a little test case,” he said.

“How long should we go before Dog finds out about this?”

Alastair Clarkson has assembled a helluva brains trust. Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images.

“Clarko’s doing an amazing job and Patchy (Adams) is doing an amazing job with the boys down there in the forward line.”

Brown joins a star-studded coaching staff at North Melbourne with Clarkson recently adding Kangaroos great Josh Gibson to the club’s staff.

Gibson is working with defensive line coach John Blakey

Former St Kilda coach Brett Ratten, club icon Brent Harvey, Gavin Brown, Tom Lynch, Jordan Russell and Damian Monkhorst — Clarkson’s former ruck coach at Hawthorn — are also on the books.

Brown has for several years been helping out coaching local junior teams in Melbourne, but has never previously made the move to return to the AFL.

He has been helping to coach son Jack and daughter Olivia, who play football with the Camberwell Sharks Junior Football Club in the Yarra Junior Football League.

“It’s all care, no responsibility for me,” Browny told Game Face in 2020.

“I rock up, get handed the team sheet and yell out a few directions.

“I do have an interest in coaching, so where it leads down the track, I’m not sure. I might get sick of the early mornings at some stage and decide to put the coaches hat on (in the AFL).”

It’s a slippery slide into the vortex of coaching in the AFL.