Brad Green opens up on Melbourne’s grand gesture for his two children after his wife’s passing
Brad Green played 254 games for the Demons and says he’ll always be indebted for what they gave him. But what they did for his boys in May, 2019, was something else and it’s why he’ll always love his footy club, writes Mark Robinson.
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Brad Green might love the Melbourne Football Club more now than what he did when he played his 254 games.
Not because of what the club gave him over his 13-year career, and he'll never forget that, but what it did for his two sons, which he will absolutely never forget.
Tragically, Green's wife Anna died of cardiac arrest in late May last year.
Two weeks after, the Demons invited the boys — Oliver who is 10 and Wilba who is seven — to run out with the players ahead of the Queen's Birthday clash against Collingwood at the MCG.
In a moment which transcended unimaginable sorrow, Green wrapped himself in the sustenance of a football club and the power of a smile.
'It was a tough day,'' he says. ''For a couple of boys who had just lost their mum and have them run on to the MCG with the players, and put a smile on their faces for a short while, it was something I won't forget.
''I'll love the footy club, not only for that, but what they did at that time and for the people in it.
''That's what footy clubs are, they connect people and connect the community and they support people.
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''I couldn't and will never forget the support the footy club gave me.
''I had Goody send me message straight away, Nathan Jones, players sending messages, former teammates, everyone connected with the club.
''When you're at a footy club for 13 or 14 years, whenever there's a loss, people get around people and the footy club was like that for me.''
Green, 39, has now found love with Channel 10 sports presenter Caty Price.
Green’s adult life spent immersed in playing and coaching — he was assistant at Carlton and then North Melbourne from 2013-15 — but he is now a regular footy fan, with benefits.
As former captain of the Demons, he is often invited to match-day functions, but mostly on game days he can be found with Oliver and Wilba behind the goals in the grandstand.
If not there, and as will be appropriate on Saturday because of COVID-19, in front of the box in the lounge room.
Green doesn't wear his No.18 jumper anymore, but the lads will don their No.18 jumpers.
The jumpers were given to them for the Queen's Birthday occasion.
''Ollie is a mad Demon and Wilba loves them as well,'' he says.
''Ollie will sit there and chant Petracca and Gawny, and Jonesy talks with them when he comes over and has a kick with them. They are in awe.''
The Green family attended eight home games last year, and despite the lean year, never gave up on the Demons.
''I watch the boys at the footy, they love it. They take a flag, and you get a pie and a bucket of chips at half-time, those things are great.,'' Green said.
''You know, when you've grown up and love sport and when footy was your life, where you're basically a young adult going into a footy club and then you leave with kids and a wife, it's massive part of your life.
''Footy becomes a part of you, it never leaves you.''
Green today, similar to probably every Melbourne supporter, will wonder what his team will deliver.
They play Carlton at Marvel Stadium.
On paper, they have the talent, while the Blues have holes in their line up, via injuries and players yet to fulfil their potential.
A defeat is simply unacceptable.
Asked what he's hoping rather than expecting this season, Green says: ''We should be expecting to win every week.
“Do I think that will happen? No. As a supporter will I be confident going into most games this year? Yes.
''For me, you just don't want to be a supporter, where you turn your TV off at half-time or three-quarter time. I love being in games all the way through. If you're beaten by a better side on the day, that happens and I know that too well. I want sustained effort, competitiveness, you want your team to go out and bleed for the jumper and do whatever they can to get the job done.
''Footy has changed from years gone by, but footy's still a simple game if it's played properly. You've got to win the ball, that's the main thing, get your head in there and win it, and kick it down to the forward line. We sometimes overcomplicate it with game plans and structures, but we've got to simplify it sometimes. Get your hands dirty and once you do that you're going to be all right.''
Green is coaching Melbourne Grammar's First XVIII after stints as an assistant at the Blues under Mick Malthouse and at the Kangaroos under Brad Scott.
His devotion to the Demons waned in those years, meaning wins and losses for the red and blue were largely irrelevant.
The past two years as a fan, however, has mimicked his footy career as a player — terrific highs one year, dispirited efforts the next.
There was the Grand Final in 2000, the five-win and 17-loss season of 2003, the preliminary final in 2004, and just 12 wins from 66 games through 2007-09.
In the current climate, the joy of 2018 was devoured by the despondency of 2019, which was de javu for fans.
Green compared the hurt for a player and for the fan.
''Being a past player you know the hurt the players are feeling,'' he said.
''It's a different hurt to that of a supporter. It's easy sitting the grandstand watching, being critical of a player or brand or style or the way things are unfolding. As a player, once you're on that ride, you just try to keep it going, and I was part of some finals series, but when you're the same wave and it's going the other way, it's not nice.
''We as supporters forget the players do hurt and if they don't hurt they don't deserve to be there. But it's soul destroying sometimes, no doubt, when you go through loss after a loss.''
All of Melbourne experienced that in 2019.
Following the preliminary final defeat to West Coast in '18, the Demons capitulated in '19, winning only five games.
Pointedly, the question has been asked: Which is the real Melbourne? The side which beat powerhouses Geelong and Hawthorn in consecutive finals or the team which lost to Geelong by 80 points in Round 2 the year after.
''I went to the Geelong and Hawthorn finals, sat in the grandstand and I felt the passion of the Melbourne fans like when I was playing finals footy,'' Green says. ''I thought, wow, we're a footy club again. The Demons are on the right path and now it's time to get back and have success.
''The we got to West Coast and we were soundly beaten. West Coast took them apart. They looked young, inexperienced ... they got bullied.
''But in the Hawthorn and Geelong games, they had a brand. The brand was contested footy and I reckon they beat up Geelong and Hawthorn. And then they were shadows in that West Coast game.
'Then you look to '19, and you look for a response. I went Round 1 against Port, I sat behind the goals with the boys and I thought we were unfit, it looked like we hadn't done a pre-season. We turned up, and if I'm to be honest, I think we got a little bit confident and thought things were just going to roll on and '19 would be another finals campaign.''
They lost Port Adelaide by 26 points. Thy would lose five of their first six matches.
''Once you lose your first, second or third game of footy, your confidence gets shot, and it does with a footy club like Melbourne when you have a lot of players who having been in losing sides and losing games, once you start to go on that slippery slope it's hard to get back.'
Green doesn't accept excuses, either. The Demons lost key forward Jesse Hogan to Fremantle at the end of 2018, had a bundle of injuries through 2019, and played catch-up from the start. ''They are only excuses,'' he said. ''Good clubs and big clubs don't use surgeries and things as an excuse, they get on with it. They make something happen.''
So, when the 2020 season resumes against the Blues on Saturday, Green will be on the couch with Oliver and Wilba, who will be wearing their footy jumpers with No.18 on their backs, and all of them will be cheering for the red and the blue.
''It's a huge game for our footy club,''Green said. ''I feel Melbourne is my footy cub. It doesn't matter that I coached at Carlton, it's my footy club and I want my footy club to win. So, yeah, it;s a huge game.''
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