Disenchanted Eddie Betts to quit Crows, leaving city with the blues

Adelaide superstar Eddie Betts will turn his back on South Australia and return to Carlton.

For a city that’s had its fair share of disappoinments, the worst is about to happen. Eddie Betts is returning to Carlton. Pictures: Michael Klein, Darren England (inset)

The footy-mad city of Adelaide will have its heart broken when its magical superstar Eddie Betts turns his back on South Australia at the same time as the state’s two AFL teams bomb out of the finals and its most popular club, the ­Adelaide Crows, implodes.

The Australian can reveal that Port Lincoln-born Betts is desperately unhappy at Adelaide and will return to Victorian club Carlton, which gave the 32-year-old his start in 2005.

In the City of Churches where the dominant religion is AFL, Betts has been a massive drawcard since joining the Crows in 2014, kicking more than 300 goals and winning three Goal of the Year awards with his freakish ability to score from the most improbable angles.

His magic is such that the northeastern Hill end of Adelaide Oval is now known as “Eddie Betts Pocket”, and his popularity helps underpin the sustained and massive crowds for the Crows at home, even in a second successive poor season.

Eddie Betts celebrates a goal for Carlton.

He is such a beloved figure in Adelaide that his popularity transcends the bitter cross-town rivalries between the Crows, often derided as the chardonnay set, and rough-and-ready, ­working-class Port Adelaide. Even Crows-hating Power fans regard Betts as a hero, and many Port players count him as a friend and mentor.

For the past few years, Betts has hosted a regular barbecue event during the footy season at his Adelaide house, known as “Mob Night”, cooking kangaroo steaks over an open fire pit and entertaining young indigenous players from both the Crows and Port.

He has spoken candidly about his wayward youth, when he smoked dope and got in trouble with the law, and how footy got him on the straight and narrow.

He has also released his own children’s books, Eddie’s Little Homies, to raise awareness of ­indigenous culture and give ­Aboriginal children their own role models in literature.

His cult following across Adelaide is such that he can barely leave the house without being mobbed by fans, many of whom will be reduced to tears when his departure is confirmed.

They even include sports broadcasters such as former Crows player Steven Rowe, who said on air this week that he would “deadset tear up” if Betts left town.

It has already been a woeful week for the Crows, which began with club legend and senior board member Mark Ricciuto apologising after telling unhappy fans to barrack for another club.

Eddie Betts reading his book, "My Kind" to kids at Aldinga Library in April. Picture: Matt Loxton.

But for a city that’s had its fair share of disappointments, the worst is about to happen.

Betts confirmed yesterday that he had been approached by other clubs since he was controversially dropped by the Crows in round 19, coincidentally against Carlton.

The side to which he will now return is coached by his great friend David Teague, a former ­assistant coach at the Crows who helped turn around Carlton’s ­fortunes after stepping in mid-season this year. In an interview on Melbourne radio yesterday, Teague openly acknowledged Betts’s unhappiness and said he would love to have him at Carlton.

“Everybody loves Eddie Betts,” he said. “He doesn’t look like he’s having much fun at the moment.”

Betts’s wife, Anna, with whom he has four children, is also from Melbourne and all her family are there.

The pair has had a fractured relationship with the Crows since the club held a widely ridiculed motivational camp early last year run by an organisation called ­Collective Minds, with which the Crows later parted company.

Indigenous players became upset on the camp at some of the mind games used to challenge their thinking, after the club blew its big chance to win the 2017 AFL grand final, losing to underdogs Richmond despite dominating all season.

A despondent and nervous Betts yesterday ran a Princess Diana-style gauntlet of media for his weekly interview with Adelaide radio station FiveAA. He confirmed he had not been delisted by the Crows — a move that would be difficult for the club to manage in a PR sense, given his cult following — but said he had been approached informally by other clubs and was considering options. “I think when you do get dropped from the team as a senior player, the clubs tend to ring up your management saying ‘What’s going on?’ ” Betts said.

“Every player gets it, and I think what people need to know is: I’m contracted to 2020 but everyone’s under scrutiny the whole year.

“You’ve got the media coming out saying no player’s safe. I can say right now there has been no offer. There has been interest, but no offer … That’s where it’s at.”

Aside from Carlton, which is believed to be crafting a two-year deal and mentoring role for Betts, the other big approach has come from league cellar-dwellers Gold Coast, which has the entire Northern Territory as its recruitment zone. That would give Betts a chance to play his leadership role with young indigenous players. Gold Coast is also after Hawthorn legend Shaun Burgoyne, a great friend of Betts, and wanted to get both as a package deal.

In a tough week for the Crows, the club endured a furious fan backlash after Ricciuto, a 1998 premiership hero and Brownlow medallist, blew up at hardline supporters who have been denouncing everything from its list management to recruitment to media strategy and board structure. Crows foundation coach Graham Cornes said there was “no doubt it’s been a bad week” but the biggest change since he started as coach in 1991 was social media. “There was none of this crap in my day, it’s out of control,” he said. “It’s just relentless and it means that everybody, be they sensible or really stupid, can just get stuck in and go their hardest.”