AFL legend Garry Lyon spills beans on secret plot to rip Footy Show apart

An AFL legend has spilled the beans for the first time on a secret move by a rival TV network to blow up the Footy Show.

Eddie McGuire, Sam Newman and Trevor Marmalade survived for longer than most. Picture: Supplied/Channel 9

Football legend Garry Lyon has for the first time revealed a secret plot hatched by rival network Channel 7 to tear the Footy Show apart.

The iconic series lasted 26 years before it’s unceremonious death in 2019.

At its height, the larrikin, football panel show was an all-conquering giant and obliterated anything Seven could throw at it as a potential rival.

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Lyon has now revealed Seven’s desperate attempt to tear its rival apart by pinching half of the program’s talent, including himself.

The Melbourne Demons great told SEN’s Rabbit Hole Podcast this week Seven attempted to steal five stars from the Channel 9 show in 1998.

Lyon, who went on to host the Footy Show alongside James Brayshaw following Eddie McGuire’s decision to take a step back, revealed Seven’s executive producer Harvey Silver made a pitch to lure himself, Billy Brownless, Jason Dunstall and Doug Hawkins away from Nine.

Brendan Fevola, Sam Newman, Eddie McGuire, Rebecca Maddern, Billy Brownless, Shane Crawford and Trevor Marmalade at the 2019 Footy Show Grand Final special. Picture: Supplied/Channel 9 .

Lyon was even offered the position as host, but wasn’t interested as he finished up the final seasons of his career before his retirement in 1999.

Lyon said the offer came as a shock.

“The Footy Show is a wild success, I suppose it is a bit of a stone, a pebble, in the shoe of Channel 7 so they were (thinking) ‘we have to throw a punch, we have to get our own show up’,’’ Lyon said on the Rabbit Hole podcast.

“Harvey says to us one day ‘come around for lunch’. Jason Dunstall, Doug, Bill and myself go to Harvey’s place in Caulfield. He sits us down and says ‘right boys, this is what I want to put to you. There is this opportunity, I want to do a new show called Live and Kicking and we are going to take it to Channel 7 and take on The Footy Show’.’’

“I don’t know about the others, but I am going ‘what?’,’’ he said.

Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman at the Grand Final Footy Show 2018. Picture: Channel 9

The pitch was for Lyon and Dunstall to host and Brownless and Hawkins to be the funny sidekicks on the new Seven offering that was designed to sink the boot into The Footy Show.

“We had been in television for three minutes, we sit on the panel, we do bugger all, and you want us to go and host? That is the way I thought,’’ he said.

“So he did the whole pitch of how it was going to work. We were not contracted to Nine, we got $700 per show or something.

“There was a contract and it would have been a lot of money back in the day. I am not joking, I left there shaking my head thinking ‘I am not doing that.’

“I did not give it one second of thought because I was not ready to host a show. There was no way known I was able, capable or wanted to host my own show (at that stage). I wanted to keep playing footy and keep exploring the media stuff. Bill was the same.”

Seven was ultimately only able to snare Dunstall and Hawkins — and the pair were unable to bring the Footy Show’s success across with them as Seven’s Live and Kicking program lasted just two seasons.

Seven produced several more footy programs in the years that followed, but none were able to challenge the Footy Show as a ratings hit.

Garry Lyon and James Brayshaw host the Footy Show.

The show was beyond saving. Sam Newman, Rebecca Maddern and Eddie McGuire.

In the end it took the Footy Show itself to blow up the iconic series with Seven’s only success coming at the same time as the Footy Show began its death spiral.

Seven’s Front Bar has been a smash hit with Mick Molloy, Sam Pang and Andy Maher hitting the right notes with its light-hearted footy chatter.

The Footy Show had been gripped in a long, drawn-out death as the show underwent several line-up changes and revamps in a bid to bring new life to the tired, blokey format.

The Footy Show first aired in 1994 and was Australia’s longest-running sports entertainment program during prime time as it produced 735 shows. However, it lasted only eight episodes in 2019 before Nine pulled the plug.

In its final season, the show underwent a drastic shake-up to reverse its alarming ratings slide but fewer viewers tuned in than ever before. New hosts Neroli Meadows and Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann, along with Aussie wheelchair tennis star Dylan Alcott, were inserted as longtime Footy Show staples Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman left the program. The show was beyond saving.

Lyon at the time described the show’s end as an “execution” with reports cast members found out just minutes after the final show had aired that they no longer had jobs.

The show famously finished with co-host Neroli Meadows signing off with the phrase “see you next week”.

Originally published as AFL legend Garry Lyon spills beans on secret plot to rip Footy Show apart