The soulless and irrelevant Essendon Football Club that drove its captain Zach Merrett out the door
Essendon’s post-drug saga strategy has transformed it into a soulless, irrelevant club. The Bombers lost their identity – and, now, maybe their captain. Here’s what really happened.
David Barham showed courage fronting last week’s multi-club uprising against the AFL’s great schemer, Richard Goyder.
But back in his own camp, it’s clear Barham has zero clue about how to put a broken Essendon back together again.
Like a succession of Bombers presidents since the departure of Paul Little a decade ago, Barham has ignored or outright dismissed the sense of betrayal and injustice many influential Bombers figures – and fans – still feel over the supplements scandal that ripped the club apart.
His seemingly cosy relationship with journalists and industry figures who played a key role in dismembering Essendon during those dark days is case in point.
Lindsay Tanner and Paul Brasher adopted the same ‘don’t look back’ appeasement strategy, no doubt in the misguided belief that it was best to move on and leave the bitter past behind.
But it hasn’t worked. In fact, it has helped transform Essendon into a soulless, irrelevant club that not even Channel 7 could stomach broadcasting in the final round of this season.
Quite simply, in spending years almost apologising for their own existence, Essendon has lost its identity.
Skipper Zach Merrett’s desperation to get out is just the latest consequence of an ongoing failure by the Essendon leadership to understand the root cause of the club’s cultural decay.
A club once revered for its hardness and arrogance is no longer feared by anyone.
Rival supporters make fun of them.
They have become meek and obliging on the merry-go-round of mediocrity and you can’t expect any player to thrive in that environment.
At the heart of the sickness is the treachery of the board and senior club executives in early 2013 when they intentionally distanced themselves from the coaches, players and football officials within hours of the drugs scandal erupting.
Rather than adopting a united front to defend the coming storm – as Cronulla did in the NRL – Bombers chairman David Evans and chief executive Ian Robson sold out to the AFL to save themselves – fully embracing the league’s devastating plan for Essendon to come forward and “self-report” the potential use of inappropriate substances.
Then they watched on as James Hird, beloved club doctor Bruce Reid, Mark “Bomber” Thompson, Danny Corcoran and 34 players were thrown under a bus.
To rub it in, Evans was inexplicably awarded life membership by the Tanner board in 2019.
No-one has ever owned any of it, sending Essendon into the type of death spiral that can take generations to reverse.
Just ask Kevin Bartlett.
In 1991, the five-time Richmond premiership legend was blindsided and sacked as Tigers coach.
He didn’t return to Punt Road for another 16 years.
Bartlett’s self-imposed exile coincided with an almost four-decade run of darkness at Tigerland.
“I was disappointed with the way that they went about it and so I just decided that I’d keep out of their way – and probably did for a bit too long because Richmond had been a big part of my life,” Bartlett reflected this week.
It was Tigers chief executive Brendon Gale and Bartlett’s beloved late wife Denise who ultimately convinced him to bury the hatchet with the club.
“I had a great regard for Brendon and what he was trying to do in rebuilding what was once a great club and a powerful club that had fallen into a position where it was unsuccessful for 37 years,” he said.
“And with Denise’s coaxing I thought, well there are so many people at Richmond that I liked and admired and Brendon was one of them.”
Gale’s masterplan in rebuilding Richmond – feuding factions and all – included the staging of a black-tie dinner at the Punt Rd Oval, hosted by Bartlett, where past players, coaches officials – many who felt wronged during those years in the wilderness – came together in 2012 for the sake of unity.
“I remember saying that night how great it was to see everyone back at the club in the one room, including myself I suppose,” Bartlett said.
“Whether we all agreed with some of the things that had taken place over the years, and I didn’t agree with a lot of them, everyone in that room had tried their absolute best at their particular time – no-one wanted Richmond to be unsuccessful, no matter who the board was or who the coach was.
“I felt that night we had a unification. Everyone got back on the same note and there was good harmony back at the club. That was quite a brilliant idea of Brendon’s … to push forward and see if we could restore the club to become a force again – and it did – because if you’ve got good cohesion in the club and people working together, you can dig yourself out of the hole.”
But Essendon’s top brass have shown no such foresight.
They remain in complete denial, allowing the wound to fester.
In May, when Bombers chiefs caught a whiff of talk about Little and Hird wanting to return to the club, a pre-emptive strike was launched against the pair through the media.
Maybe it had the desired effect of killing something off, but it was the complete opposite of what needs to take place at Essendon.
Another window opened five years ago when it was revealed crucial pieces of evidence used to convict the Essendon 34 had been manipulated, prompting Jobe Watson, who lost his Brownlow Medal because of his drugs suspension, to declare: “As I say to my bulldog Benson, if it smells, keep digging.”
But Tanner, a former federal Labor MP, wasn’t keen to shovel and predictably announced that his board would not be in support of a fresh examination of the saga.
“Any such inquiry will cause significant distress for the people who are most affected … and the club therefore does not support the concept,” he said.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
In fairness, Essendon’s wounds go far deeper than Richmond’s ever did, but not a single leader at The Hangar since Little walked away has shown a true understanding of the problem or a willingness to properly reconcile.
And there will be many more years of pain until they do.
Originally published as The soulless and irrelevant Essendon Football Club that drove its captain Zach Merrett out the door
Swans’ camp gets awkward — thanks to a kid’s innocent question
