If there is anyone who can tackle racism in the AFL, it’s Eddie Betts

When he announced his retirement, Eddie Betts said he hoped that he brought smiles to our faces. Job done. Picture: Getty

Earlier this season, the Carlton Football Club website featured one of those strictly for club fans, behind the scenes videos with Eddie Betts at home playing with his kids. Almost without thought he grabbed the footy and threw it on the right foot. The ball sailed in a perfect arc to the basketball hoop in the backyard some twenty metres away. Nothing but net. What else would you expect from Eddie Betts?

Seventeen seasons, 350 games, 638 goals, 259 goal assists and a highlight reel that could keep even the most jaded fan of the game entertained for hours, Eddie Betts brought an unrestrained joy to the game.

Eddie is a small forward. It is one of the great truisms of Australian rules football that it is a game that allows all shapes and sizes, from the monster ruck men, most approaching 210 centimetres and the power forwards, edging over 100 kilograms. Eddie is 174 centimetres and weighs a mere 74 kilogram.

The job of the small forward is to eke out a career on scraps, gathering ground balls, sitting under the pack for the crumbs, or hitting the foot of a marking contest at full speed, front and centre. There is more to be done when they don’t have the ball in hand, laying tackles and applying pressure. For all that, a small forward can go an entire game without having any significant impact.

While midfielders rack up 30 or 40 possessions a game, a small forward might be lucky to have ten. Rather than kicks and handballs, a small forward’s effectiveness is judged by tackles laid, goal assists and goals kicked. The job is to make the most of limited opportunities.

One-on-one, Eddie Betts almost always wins the contest with a freakish ability to operate in confined spaces, evade tackles and body pressure, arc and shape shift before gathering the ball, left foot, right foot, outside of the boot or from the in-step.

Initially overlooked in the 2004 draft, Eddie was drafted to the club via the back door of the pre-season draft. When Carlton made the pick, Eddie had already made plans for his 18th birthday far away from Melbourne.

In his first game in the navy blue, a scratch intra-club warm up match, Eddie become a cult figure to the rusted-on Carlton fans. Picture: Getty

He was told by a Carlton official, you can go to your birthday party. Or you can have a career in the AFL. But you can’t do both. Almost reluctantly, Eddie packed his bags and made his way to Princes Park.

In his first game in the navy blue, a scratch intra-club warm up match, Eddie become a cult figure to the rusted-on Carlton fans, those so obsessed they spend their late summer in the Healy Stand watching games of little moment for anyone other than coaches.

The first of his 638 AFL goals came in the third quarter of his first game. Eddie snatched a loose ground ball and ran to the pocket, kicking the ball across his body with his right foot. It sailed straight through.

I’d argue Eddie kicked the greatest goal ever kicked. And he did it in front of a big crowd at the ‘G’ against the old enemy, Collingwood. Eddie partly smothered a defender’s handball and took off after the loose ball as it rolled towards the boundary. He gathered it and with two Collingwood players on his hammer, kicked a right foot banana which bisected the goalposts a metre off the ground.

Goal of the year. The commentators knew it immediately. No big deal for Eddie. He would win the award for that one and then win it three more times. No one else, no small or tall forward has come close.

Equally precocious and audacious, Eddie this time in Adelaide Crows’ colours, let rip with a left foot torp 50 metres from goal on the boundary, aiming between the goal and point posts, knowing the spiral of the ball would take it left to right. The ball bounced inside the goal square and kept on bouncing over the goal line.

It was seven years ago when Adam Goodes was booed out of the game. It was a shameful moment not just in football but in Australian social history.

Back then, the commentariat reached for every tepid justification they could summon. Only Adam Goodes, it was said and written ad nauseam, was booed and thus the crowd reactions were not racist.

It was a nonsense, of course.

At the same time, I received a link to a hacked Facebook page containing vile, racist slurs aimed at Eddie Betts. Eddie has had to endure that and all manner of indignities for no other reason than the colour of his skin. Shouts over the fence from the ignorant and stupid. Horrific racial abuse on social media.

Eddie Betts took a call from the AFL CEO Gil McLaughlin this week. He made it clear to the AFL boss that he believed the league was not a safe workplace for indigenous footballers who make up fifteen per cent of club playing lists.

This man who has brought so much joy has been left tired, exhausted and frustrated by the racism he has encountered. Why is it that indigenous players have to explain yet again why racism is unacceptable and why it causes so much pain?

All we have to do is listen. Not huddled away in a gaggle of others muttering empty rationalisations. Stand up, look someone in the eye and let them speak. That’s how to listen and learn.

The Carlton Football Club did not offer Eddie a contract for season 2022. He had hoped for one more year. But the cut and thrust of AFL lists and of salary cap pressure would not allow it. I hope the club is smart enough to keep Eddie on as a mentor for young indigenous players at the club.

His latest venture takes him to rural and remote communities promoting driver education.

Indigenous youth often find their first contact with the criminal justice system through traffic offences and for many, sadly, a cycle begins that leads to intellectual poverty, more serious offending, and incarceration.

It’s an easy fix and in some states, successful driver education programs are in place for indigenous youth that effectively break the cycle at its earliest point, but there are not enough of them. When Eddie comes to these communities with his messages of shared experience and hope, it’s standing room only.

Eddie will pull on the boots for the last time tomorrow at a crowdless Marvel Stadium on Saturday afternoon. I’d love him to kick a handful, or maybe, just maybe he can pop up and kick eight like he did against Essendon back in 2011. Then again, he’s a small forward and he might not get a touch. What we will see is that broad smile. What we feel for the last time is the joy Eddie Betts brings to the footy.

When he announced his retirement, Eddie Betts said he hoped that he brought smiles to our faces. Job done.

His journey is just beginning. After kicking goals from nowhere, Eddie Betts wants to stamp out racism in Australia. If there is anyone who can do it, it’s Eddie.