Full Transcript for Simon Madden

whatever, and that's I think the best six hundred and fifty kids at the school, a fairly big gun primary school, Catholic Primary School and Airport West. I always always laughed. The name was you know, you get these fancy names now. It was a piece of land west of the s at an airport, so they just called it Airport West. Not really creative with it. Anyway. We went to the we went to a school and I had a geelong jumper on it and I reckon I worked out at a six hundred and fifty kids in the school, I was the only kid with a geelong jumper and I went I went home to a moments mountain, my caut gelong jump. I want to some jumper And I was seven, so I said, I want, I want number seven on my back. Who's number seven? And back that it was? I was beautiful because it was what's his number? Wats his name? Number? Seven? Charlie Payne I thought this has got it. Blokes got blokes got palm about him, a palm about him as well, So I sort of got. I still still had a soft pot spot for Jeelome because my dad was a very kege long supporter, but the yeah, the Essendon area sort of got into your blood. 00:06:17 Speaker 1: Charlie Payne came to an Adelaide, played for North Adelaide. That's right, pretty sure he won number five over here. 00:06:23 Speaker 2: But yeah over there with number seven. 00:06:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us about your dad. 00:06:28 Speaker 2: Oh, it was an interest interesting story. He was an excervissman. He'd been in the Second World War. Mum and dad married Lake. He was forty, she was twenty eight. They knew each other before the war. He went to Egypt in infantry and then came back and renlisted and went to New Guinea in the Air Force. Didn't talk much about the war. Was a good dad, but I think you look back and he had a bit of pastematic stress. You don't see it. Most of them did, Yeah, and they showed in a different. 00:06:59 Speaker 3: Way, particularly guys I went to New Guinea. 00:07:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he could you know, not not not it's never bad to us, but you could see him get angry out the little things that weren't worth getting angry about, you know, and things like that. And uh, it's my dark sense to here because he died. He smoked two bags of Vi Canaday craven A turf, real cigarettes back there, not real coffin nails, as I say, And he died in the backyard blowing the lawn. And so you know, I'm older than what he was when he died, so I look after my health. You know, I don't smoke, and I don't know lawns. Just to make sure. You never know what. 00:07:43 Speaker 3: Funny really but it is. 00:07:45 Speaker 2: It's not what it is because you have to you have to handle it. That I remember the funeral. Dad worked for b MC at that stage, British Motor Corporation, which was all Leyland the base, and he was always borrowing a cart from work. And our car didn't go so well and had trouble was anyway at the funeral, the morning car, and the obviously at this stage in the morning car we're going off from the church to the cemetery and it breaks down, and you know, I didn't think I had a place to make a comment, but I thought this is typical one. The car's broken down again. The links to have in those situations to seem was he tall, Yeah, he was, Whether it's a combination, he was. He was six throwe mumbers five to eleven. She was very tall for you know, for her well just that ere she was very tall. And he played a lot of sport. He's good football and good cricket. Came from Mornable Way. But of course, as you know, in the army, that sort of you know, you haven't funny, the army takes over your life. So he was he was. He was sporting, but yeah, sometimes and I think I think it was like at that that stage Mum looked after the kids when they were younger, and when you got any teenage years, your dad started to take her under your wing. And my older brother started it to that that point before he died where I didn't really did things with the kids, come to watch us play footy. But I didn't know him as well as I think my older brother did when he passed away. Did your older brother play, Yes, this is people are very interested. Paul played with the Essendon Under nine engine seventy three. I played in a Grand Final, broke his nose and his cheek in with an elbow in the game. I had a rock and roll band that was very, very interesting. He loved that more than footy. So he's seventy four testudm was the coach. He finished seventy year. He finished that year. End of that year Tuddy came around our place to talk him into playing again in the Amadi Turner and I ment at Simon, would you like to come to training? I'm fifteen and ten months. What do you Reckon? I said, Oh, yeah, of course I'm going to come to training. Beame the thats I've made neever of it. 00:09:47 Speaker 3: Simon Madder is my guess. 00:09:48 Speaker 1: There's so many threads there were Want to talk about your mum? Want to talk about your brother's band because you play in a band. 00:09:55 Speaker 2: Yes, well I have. I've sort of slowed down a bit. We'll talk about that later. 00:09:59 Speaker 1: Simon mad My guess. Expectually, my guest on conversations today is Simon Madden. Legend at the Essendon Footy Club, little legend of Australian footy really throughouting seventy eight games over nineteen seasons. 00:10:11 Speaker 3: But he's a kid growing up in Airport. 00:10:13 Speaker 2: West, Airport West, you know, like west of the airport. Very simple, very simple, and actually airport was developed as a sort of the top end of the airport industrial are and fed into the airport and it had all made raids and sewage and we got the bottom end of it. And it was a new development, not a developments, just pushed up. So we had dirt raids, we had open drains, we had the duneycan man delivering pans. It was. It was a fascinating You had to have an incinerator, you could they collected the beer bottles out in the back of a completely different era. 00:10:45 Speaker 3: If you want to explain that to kids today, Well. 00:10:48

Speaker 2: He's one for it always. I like telling the young people this one because and I said, so we had the you know, the Dunny commune. So he had a pan in the back of the back of the toilet was outside and you'd never look at him start. He was one of those thing's had a big green truck with a red big back was grown a big old sort of dodgy forward type thing at the front red and you're always watching around corners and go and get the pan before one out, put the empty one and put the lid on it carried on his shoulder, on his head, and one day watched his flake and we're cheating around the corner. He's got them on his head and the bottom brakes and the thing just goes all over. And I remember saying to himself, I am never having that job. 00:11:23 Speaker 3: It must have been well paid. 00:11:25 Speaker 2: I don't know. I must have had not many other options. I think at. 00:11:29 Speaker 1: Glenal South and there's little back lanes and that's where I trying to get. 00:11:32 Speaker 2: That's right, very nice, very very nice part of the world Glenelg and the rich people live there is that. 00:11:38 Speaker 1: Right no no, come a few blocks back from the ocean days. So you're showing some aspirations as a young fellow at school, you're year eleven, you get the last three. 00:11:51 Speaker 2: I'm just going to say. The thing I like to tell younger people too, is that at school we have little footy games and I was the last one picked because I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't mark the ball. I was uncoordinated. We had the two best, two best footballers out the front, you know, at lunch time, and we couldn't get on the adle. So we developed this game off the oid boy with the long the long rules of it, but you make your own rules. And in the end there was you know, I'm standing in the group and the blues, I'll have that bloke, and I'll have him, and I'll have it, and I'm up the back sort of waiting for me. And in the end and then they get to and I know that I still know. This blake was by Dennis Musket is about high grasshop, a little multage bloke. We had a lot of multige out there put with and there was many and him and one of them blokes that go, look you have, you have Madden, will have will have Musket. No, no, no, you had Maden, will have muscle, will have both, because muscle will make up for Madden. You know like that. 00:12:46 Speaker 1: Did any of those school boys stars go on to play league? 00:12:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because but it was. It was a case of we didn't have much. You had. You had football and cricket and the main two things alternating between the two seasons. And I couldn't play cricket and I couldn't play foot at that stage, but all my friends did, and I really wanted to be involved in the friends, and of course I started to shoot up a bit was a bit bigger. Well, I was always a bit bigg than everybody else. And it started to get this coordination started to come and then from a year, forty year fivety year six, I really did develop into or Gee. He's the first block we picked under thirteen footy site. So it can happen at any stage. 00:13:26 Speaker 1: So nineteen seventy four year you go out to Usenton, there's tunten them. 00:13:29 Speaker 3: As your coach. Yes, a unique individual. 00:13:35 Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. Is a lovely blake. I still see. He's part of the Life Members Club. He's the present life at AFO Life Members Club. And he is tough. And you know, I said I was sixth and if he said jump, I said how high? How long do you want to stay here? What do you want to do? You know? I just yes, study, that's it. That's it. He had this reputation for being I know he was fierce and I remember I remember one time I reckon it was first he made this because I had him for two years sixteen and seven, he grabbed the to get a players attention. He grabbed him and threw his end into the into one of the lockers. They gained him a pitcher. It was one game and then you know the folklore that I regularly tell people is that in our second season we were lost and he set up the game, and you know, we played that afternoon regularly. Then he said, okay, so we didn't get down a head and knees enough today, we didn't get down on the ground in the packs and get the ball on our hands and there. So we're going to practice today this Sunday morning training, right, he says this, and we think our match practice. So he says, we're going to crawl a lap of windy heel outside the white line on hands and knees, and he did a two his capic heats he did. Now think about a coach saying that to a group of players. Now, how long would he laugh? He wouldn't make the next training, He wouldn't make the next training. 00:14:57 Speaker 3: Rais he didn't last that much longer? 00:15:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well he was there before and we had it. Well, we were going not not not this similar, but not as much as this period investment, but we were going through a time when we weren't that good. You know that in which your clubs go through it. And so yeah, I remember doing that and you know, it takes a really long time to crawl a lap of over on the handles. 00:15:22 Speaker 3: It took that long. 00:15:24 Speaker 2: Well, like you know, I think a very long time. I finished Tuesday, I think, but it's just but then we got you know, and I was just a young kid, and I said, Tuddy, seems that we do it. But I think, you know that is some franchise a lot of the older players, of course, And but on the ground he was, you know, he was he was fierce as hell. And I remember, actually I remember that year I was playing in this Wednesday school at football at the school side and I was in an I about, oh yeah, this is this level. Anyway, Tuddy turned up in the I regonated about two kid because I wasn't I said anything, and I'm more interested in Saturday and Tuddy, I saw it looked and Tuddy turned up to watch. Well, I reckon, I got about ten kicks in the leagues five minutes. I'm doing right. 00:16:07

Speaker 1: When you went home and told your mom and you had to crawl around the over did what did she say? 00:16:12 Speaker 2: Numb? Was mum? You know, I said, Mum didn't know one end of the football from the other. But she was fantastic. We grew up near where we played in some obiles were just like lead football is now. I don't know what muddy is. They might know growing up, but and she was always like the things parents do for kids. It doesn't have to be chewing them on or you know, you carrying on like lunatics we like. I remember one one day we got home and there was so much mud on me that she said, right before we go, I'd stand at the back and she got the hose and hosed all the mud off me before I could slip off and go inside and have the shower. That's the type of you know, but it was there was never anything. There was never anything about not playing footy. That was what she did. But I always remember sixty when I came on from training and Tuddy was. I was close to getting selected, I think. And Tuddy just did this training drill a month towards the end of the season. He's testing out, I think. And I was about going about two minutes from just breaking down in tears as a sixteen year old, you know. And and I regarded her if he was lucky or he just picked up. He stopped about two minutes before I did. That. I went home and I said, and I just broke that. Oh my god, do this, he said, I'm going to ring that this time. I'm going to tell him she did. Did you regard for my son? Did she wring you? Yeah? 00:17:26 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:17:26 Speaker 2: Read the next time and he said, I let you miss you know, missing Thelma, and I'll talk about farmer. But yeah, she was a maid. Name was Xantov. So she had a bit of a bit of dutchness, so very serious at times, you know. But she did a fantastic job of the three of us. And that was just an incident of yeah, I'm looking after I'm looking after my boys. 00:17:47 Speaker 1: So three boys who were run a bunch of sort of leads, I imagine. 00:17:54 Speaker 3: And she lost her husband today. 00:17:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:17:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, she was too many and did to many. 00:17:59 Speaker 2: I remember the saying once. I mean I said something like in front of them, I worked poor. What I'm poor? Don't you ever say that again? And you look, now, we weren't poor, I mean, you know, like we won't back and had some money, but we weren't poor. We were well looked after on all accounts. But she would she was doing too She's working during the week, doing jobs on the weekend, so she you know, worked for a doctor and the doctor surgery's receptionists on the During the week she'd work what they'd call the tab the tope back then. She'd do jobs to make sure all the ends. Mate, she'd make sure we were well fed, well closed. We you know, we had to have good manners, we had to behave we weren't alowed to be nasty. So she did a great job. She's fantastic. Vent offers a surname and yeah, so if she married the married the Madden and there's a bit that's an Irish name. Of course, a mixture. Mixture gave us. I think good genes. 00:18:51 Speaker 3: As I said, did she have spailing background? 00:18:54 Speaker 2: No, dad had a dad had a bit of a sporting background. Ane thing. Mom ever really did? 00:19:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, Dad, he would have been more interrupted, of course, much more interrupted. Did you ever get his war records? 00:19:07 Speaker 2: Yeah? I have. I have a lot I've got We've got his medals, we've got his paperwork, a whole lot of stuff that it's very interesting, very little, very nice people, well nice and not a good word, but a very interesting piece of history. 00:19:20 Speaker 1: Simon Maddens my guest Australian Football Hall of Famer and Essendon champion. 00:19:27 Speaker 3: So much to talk about. Back shortly, my. 00:19:30 Speaker 1: Guest on Conversations today is Simon Madden, legend of the Australian game of football. Played three hundred and seventy eight games for Essendon. He kicked five hundred and seventy five goals. Now that was a record until Matthew Lloyd, that young upstart. 00:19:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, funny about that. I was. It's well, I you know, I started as a youngster in the Ford pocket and Graham Moss was the first rack and so he won three Best intres and a Brown Lit. So here I'm in the forward line watching what he's doing, and then you have to, you know, you end up getting I think him a fourth or fifth game. I kicked six goals, so I got some good you know. So they said, oh, he's going to be a writer as a forward. So but after he finished, I ended up being the main first ruck. And so it's funny, funny the things that go through your mind because he'd won three best and first in a row and then I become first ruck and I'm nine, you know, I'm experienced now at nine and haha, and I went, gee, what I've got to win a Best and Fairest, And I did I look back at it. You know that type of statement to yourself is probably good that gee, he's done that, I'll better do so. Yeah, that's what you're owned for. And if you miss it, well you've done well. But actually, but well that's the first ruck. It's got to win a Vest and Fairest. And I did I look back and go the crazy thoughts that you know, you young footballers have that I could actually do that? 00:20:50 Speaker 1: Were you an over confident footballer? Oh no, I don't think I'm a touch of arrogance there. 00:20:55 Speaker 2: No, I don't think it was. It was just that I was a bit scared of I didn't live up to the reputation them. 00:21:05 Speaker 1: You have tuned them for a couple of years and Bill Stevens comes along and they did difficult times for you. 00:21:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:21:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a little known character in essence. 00:21:16 Speaker 2: No, no he's not. He's not, but he was. He developed they talk about the baby bombits. He was the bloke who first started developing the baby bombits. And I thought he was a very good coach. I connected him with him very

well. One of the best and fairest when he was coaching. Some say, you know he was old. He had the very basic training training drills, we do circle work and then somebody said we needed done, so we go the other way, you know that type of But he was great. He was great, and he developed a lot of young players. But it wasn't from you know, the the Yessendon background and had played with men involved with Fitzroy. But I found him to be a very good coach and a very good teacher at the same time too. About footy, Davis comes along like, yeah, darry Daves was fantastic. Turn again, I got along with him. He made me captain at a very young age. Probably wasn't ready for it, but you know that that found out later. He was way ahead of his time, I think as far as tactically and just the way you approached the footall. I thought he was very very good. Again, I want to mess interest under him so and I could. I was well, I was then at teachers College trying to be a teachers because we did have jobs back then, and he was a lecture and a teacher, so I suppose he was connection from there. But you know, he sort of said to his past recently, anybody he sort of made it behind for himself. He said, if we don't win this, this and this game, I'll resign, which you wouldn't hear a coach say these days, but he did. We didn't win the game if you wanted to, and he stuck to his resigned So it's yeah, but both of those are very good developmental coaches. 00:22:52 Speaker 1: I think he intrigues me very I never knew him, but I could observe him. He's such a good looking guy and such a good looking footballer. 00:23:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was part He was part of that. He was part of the group that tried to get more paid in the early days with this and football and then then under the ten year rule, he went over to North Melbourne and they won the premiership and all of a sudden the VFL back then AFL said, oh we kind of this tend ye were all all of a sudden they just put a team together which was a magnificent team. So that's in all the rules and the changes I make. That was when they said no, we better change. 00:23:28 Speaker 1: That day, the same they had the same paper bag that they passed around the Barry Davis was Doug Wade went. 00:23:37 Speaker 2: That's right, there was you look through that team. That North Melbourne team won that year and it was a very very good side. I chase, I'll chase them Blakes from South stay too. 00:23:46 Speaker 3: I heard it Malcolm Blake was pretty handy. 00:23:49 Speaker 2: He would not. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: So okay, So Barry Davis quits. After a couple of years, you finished fifth and seventh. Then Kevin she arrives the well. 00:24:02 Speaker 2: The well wind. Now there is an hour and a half on this justin Kevin Seedy. People like it's it's wonderful, strange, magnificent. There's so many things you can say about him. He was first full time coach, was still very, very very raw as a coach. I'd say I was captain and you know, to be fair, not that we didn't get along, but I think he saw teachers as being soft and he wanted some hard nuts and he wanted some He wants some tradees. So in the end he sacked his captain. I said, I remember a member of the Sat Captain's club, and you know it's hard, but you got next thing. You take it on the chin and then it's an interesting one too. For what you it's not just what you do, it's what you learn along the way. As you do it and I own, you know, sacked as captain. I'd already want like a one two best in first played one hundred and fifty seventy games, by then lost my form, lost my confidence, ended up in the seconds, turn up late at the seconds, and I had start up. I start on the interchange bench for the seconds. So you're twenty five, you start an interchangements for the seconds where you reckon. Most football careers go from there, right, And I was twenty five. I think that twenty five might have been. And I remember thinking of this solf well at the end of the season, and this one sticks in my mind, is that, you know, I said, all right, well, there are people here have a different different view of my ability than what I have. I think I can play, So I said, so what I'm not? You know, what are they going to do? I remember saying what am I going to do about it? And I remember saying, I'm going to win next years best and first again jobs. That's and that's not a case of you know, that's probably the wrong way to put it, but that's what I said to me an actual fact, I'd want a couple before and I said, I'm going to do everything more power. But you know, Trus, I'm going to do anything with power to get fit enough and play good enough football to be possible for the best and fairrest. And that was eighty eighty three because eighty two is when we had the Baddy, because he came out eighty one, eighty three win the Best and fairest, eighty four win the best and fairest in a premiership year, eighty five the nasith meddle in premiership years. So and you know, it's a great pat of the back for me. But what really, you know, I look back and say, well, what it says to me and tell other people is that under adversity you can be in charge of you know, of your own future. You can take control of your own career if you really want to. Now, I could have got injured and what not have happened. But again the resilience of the three hundred gamers. So I look back, so that's a real lesson, was a real less for me, that you're under adversity. 00:26:29 Speaker 3: Well, how did you How did you go about that? Till very well, yes there was how did you go about it? 00:26:35 Speaker 2: I would have been the last one out of the gym or you know, last half a dozen I would have got to training early. I would have I spoke to we had a bit of a sports psychologist, spoke to him, or we always had one. We're different ones, but and sort of said, well, you know, a bit of all show then attitude too. And I think the other thing is that if you've, if you've, it's not as

if it wasn't reinventing the wheel. I'd already already played well and a lesser and in a lesser turn. And I said, well, the team's getting better. I've got to be better too. So you just you make it. You sort of make it one of the main things where you have to you just have to do it. 00:27:11 Speaker 3: So you thought she's had a set against teachers. This is amazing. Neil Curley a similar sort of guy. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: He didn't like teachers either, had I. 00:27:21 Speaker 2: I think he's you know, what he had he had and to be fair that we all do this and some have a narrow view of what the world is. And he came from, you know, the really hard nosed sort of Richmond area and he had some great teachers. He talks about people looking after him, but as a footbrin he thought he wanted some hard nuts and now we said later on he said to me, he said, Simon, if you were a captain now, I wouldn't sack. And I thought, yeah, you're right, because I was probably too young to be captain. Back then, they gave you the job. They didn't do any training, They didn't show you that what to do, as they do now there's no big leadership group to assist. So it's a real case of you got picked because your form was good. But I was twenty one when they named me, which was yet in one season, and then you know, the next season I played captain of twenty two and twenty three. So yeah, really I was too young, and I don't hold any animosity towards because of that, because the coach has to make hard decisions. You've got to make decisions for you, but he's going to make decisions for the team, and sometimes the best decision for you is not the best decision for the team, so he's had to make one of those hard lines. And yeah, so you know, you move on. 00:28:27 Speaker 1: Tell us about the emotion of those premierships, you know, so along without success. 00:28:33 Speaker 2: Well that thing we went back then, it was the longest period I think that I think really inting for me is the mixture of emotions when it happens. It's elation you've done it, a surprise you've done it. There's relief you've done it. There's a real comfort that you've done it because that's what you're aimed for. There's a whole range of mixed emotions and it's great that you've got something in come with a group of blokes that you can never lose, you can never take away. 00:28:58 Speaker 3: Were they a well bunched you? 00:29:01 Speaker 2: Oh? We had you know, we had the mixed that we had the mixture. There's enough. There's another hour. 00:29:08 Speaker 3: Well how well were they? 00:29:11 Speaker 2: Well, what's the best way to put it? I said, I've never seen I've never seen anybody drink like Paul vn't play football like Paul ven Art said Blake's try. But I've never seen anybody drink like Terry Dinner, play like Terry Dinner, and get up and train like Terry Dinner. There's there's two ins inspective. 00:29:26 Speaker 1: Simon mad this is my guess, like Australian Football Hall of Famer legend of the

game back after the break, I guess on conversations today. Is Simon Madden a legend of the Esmond footy club. The record is amazing, three hundred and seventy eight games, five hundred and seventy five goals. 00:29:42 Speaker 3: I have a nineteen seasons. 00:29:44 Speaker 1: There came a time, though, where you were attempted to go to Sydney by doctor Jeffrey. 00:29:50 Speaker 2: I say to sign, I say doctor Frankenstein. I mean Edlson because it was half joking, but they were creating this month. They created this monster up there. There's big footing play and he came chasing everybody and it was interesting basically that I met him already. He was chasing all these footballers. I met him in my manager's office on Corefield Cup meeting morning. There's a limousine sitting out the front. I think, I hope that's the good doctors, because if that's my accountants, I'm paying him too much. He was out after the races. Merv Nagel was already, he'd already spoken other players. Merv Nagel was in the other office. I was in one office. The door was open and got God rest his whole nerve nerve come out. I said, what do you think, Merv? He said, seeing Sydney straight out the door. But the good doctor comes in and he's all dressed up for the race. He's got the pink comber band, the pink boy tie, the white shirt and white coat. And he says, you know, he says, nice place, and I said, oh, you know, office needs a bit. He works said, no, Sydney, Sidney, nice place to play footing. I said, oh, that's really good. He's selling it well. And then he made his go through. He said, oh, this is greatly sending. This is great. All these footballs are choose from. I feel like a little boy in a toy store with all these teddy bears to pick from. Went you know, don't call a football. Don't call a football or a teddy bear. Anyway, there's a lot of conversation and the best part, which is true, which and he I remember he said, I didn't say this. There was only three people and Peter, just my manager and him, and two of us said yes he did, but he's gonna speaking to so many people. And I done. You know, it was in a very good go shutting period because I was out of contact and we just had the success at this and I said, look, there's a a few issues and he said what issues. I said, Look, I've just bought a new house, i just got a new family, a new member, and I've just got a new job, which was a teacher job. And he said what are you doing. I said, I I'm a teacher and he said, I'll get your job. I'll get your job. I'll buy your school. 00:31:49 Speaker 3: You can't buy a school. 00:31:50 Speaker 2: Well that's what this is. This is like Hollywood. He loved he loved them. 00:31:54 Speaker 3: So why didn't you go India? 00:31:56 Speaker 2: In the this is in in the India, he said, I lave it. I said what we'd already talked about and he said, well, you know, Jesse goes So started and he said, you don't have to tell him. What do you want? And he said you know where you come off? He said, what about one hundred thousand dollars up front cash to sign a four and fifty thousand over three years. So back then I told that would have made me the highest paid football So now you just added Melburn Norton. Maybe it at a half again and it was just sort of surreal again and I ranged they had to contact the club if you made a player and off and the next morning a coupy rang me and he said, you know, you know I'm ringing because no mobile phones on the old handheld. He said, you know I'm reading. I said, yes, you do. There he goes his voice broke a bigger right. I said, yes they are. And he said we can't match them. And I said, look, show me you want me and they did, and so I stayed and my mother was My mother said you can take the boy out of this and be kind of out of the boy. I'm not sure about that, but it was, yeah, it was. It was, you know, just with the new family, new house. We just went to premiership, so you think it's still going to still get a chance to win another or not? That we did and maybe if I was twenty four it might have been different, you know, if we hadn't had success, maybe it had been different. But and the club club looked after me very well. You know. 00:33:19 Speaker 3: But do you regret you didn't go? 00:33:21 Speaker 2: No, No, I don't think so. Shared heally says. You know, it's a nice thing to say. He said, if we were missing you, if you had if you had to come along, we run a premiership back then, that's a nice thing to say. I'm not sure if that's true, but now I think there's and you know, you know, you know how the game works, theref people come and go, people get injured, you retire, there's things always to change. But and some big blokes played for four so you know, for four clubs. I'm just I'm sort of happy that I played for the one club. It's just a nice thing that sits with me, that doesn't ever have to sit with anybody else. But that was something that, you know, I'm proud that I said, I was able to hang around for that long in one club. 00:33:57 Speaker 3: What was it like playing against your brother? 00:33:59 Speaker 2: I was as a ruckman, another another another hour and a half, justin. 00:34:04 Speaker 3: He started at this and then obviously he started. 00:34:06 Speaker 2: He played forty five going with us. He didn't like the way she was because remember he was thirteen when I started at sixteen. His first game was at nineteen, so six years he saw the reality of football, the harshness of it. And so when he started and he didn't like the way she was playing us off against each other. He thought it was hard to fit two big blades in the site. And I think he said again Jesse, our manager, he said, I want to leave this in a five minute club that will pay me the most money. Very business like people forget he was three hundred, very good ruckman, captain, Victoria Premiership player, best and first player. He was at his biggest I had to combat. He was six foot ten and one hundred and twenty

five kiss massive, the biggest slides in the world, and we had a bit of fun and film. You know, mum, people say who do you Who are you barracking for? He banged for listening a banking for Carton and she said, I'm just as long as my two sons don't get hurt, I'm happy to watch the game. And then she'd say, unofficially, off the res actually I'm actually banking for Carton because they said a bit of shard mate the lunches. But now, look, it was I think we'd sort of played within the rules. It wasn't the case I'm going to belp my younger brother, I'm going to bulp my molder brother. I said, I'm going to beat you in the normal rules of the game. So you can't say anything. You know, you can't say, oh you cheated. So it was it was a fair contest. 00:35:28 Speaker 3: What are family reunions like these days. 00:35:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was one of the there's footage of he was trying to rip the shorts off to the game. I just kept pulling on the shorts and they kicked the ball out. They kicked the ball out, and I thought, well, we can both do that, so I ran around and grab his shorts at the same time tipped over. Both our feet fell on the ground and I grabbed for anything, and I got everything, and the un fire runs over and gets a free kick for me on the ground and I've got my hand before they go right, And it was that's a dental but I kept it and and justin stairs to the problem you keep out of family dispute. Very funny there and so very very very dicent to human. But it was I think, like we're both we're both president of the Players Association, both sort of development of that side of the of the footy. And I think you know, and you've you've been in footy a long time, grame you understand too. I think that there's a lot of people have an opinion about football but don't really know the inside of the game. You know, once you don't have to be a play a lot of games, but you have to be a trainer, a player, a coach, assistant coach, or a combination of all the above to know what the inside of the game's like. We consider in the stands and point and judge and and make all our comments. But it's hard gaming. It's getting harder in lots of reasons. And you understand it more if you've been inside. 00:36:57 Speaker 3: You're that you're not a teacher anymore. Where You've got your own consultancy. 00:37:00 Speaker 2: Yes, excuse me, signing madame dot com dot auto. I do love speaking, facilitation, coaching, training, leadership development. I've hit the ripe of age of sixty eight. Got a beautiful problem to have. How much work do I want to do? How much work done I want to do? We're currently downsizing. Our kids are grown up, we've got grandkids. Yeah, it's a nice problem to have. 00:37:19 Speaker 3: Did the kids go with the pressure of having a famous father? 00:37:24 Speaker 2: Look, it's the kids are great, They are very good. Josh mildst Now, my wife's very short. You know, people say had as a tour boat, marry the short bloke. I has a tour bloake, marry a short lady. And I've said a lot of times and Mary sivern now. But I said this after I said we met sitting down, fell in love, stood up. Was all too late, and I said, Josh got my thigh bones and her hand shrinks. And so he played in the VFL for Estadent for a season and trained with it. But he's in between our two heights. But he did actually bruce read again someone as he passed a great great man, great man. He said, the biggest handspring care he'd ever seen. The twenty three cinemas frosted. So he was up at land training and he kept getting injured, and I remember having a conversation with him. He said, well, I just want to play. I said, go and place in mate. It's about enjoyment for you, that's the first thing. So he yeah, but he was very good playing the amateurs. Our second child, a daughter, was not interested in footy at all. A third one, she played footy a high level basketball, you know, not state lead, but Rep league, and played footy later in life, one season before she went to New Zealand. If they had to start at ten years either, she probably would have. She was probably the most sporty, and Isaac had Isaac had the attitude, but you know, just the youngest one had the attitude, but it was a good average football. 00:38:43 Speaker 1: You were able to observe the drama, the trauma of the supplement saga. 00:38:51 Speaker 3: There's so many of us think that the Essendon was shafted. 00:38:54 Speaker 2: I think and people are going to say I'm bias because you know I'll obsessed them. But we've given the sports people have given a lot away. If that had happened, if that had happened in the building industry and thirty four people were suspended without falling drug test, the industry would have would have stopped. We've given our right to representation within the Australian courts. Players take their players take their a grievances to the Court of Arbitration of Sport, which is outside of Australia. Nobody failed, nobody failed the drug test, and I'm interested. I'm always interested in the bigger picture. Just watch there's a show on Netflix called Icarus where Vada was trying to get the Russians when they had systematic doping and just funny at the same time they couldn't get them, but funny enough, they got a little footy team down down in Australia who puts no money into their no money into their income, and doesn't sit at the table when they have a meeting. So I think it's one of the greatest injustices in sport. And that's from me as being head of a players association. So they and there's there's a book. There's a book in that one. 00:40:02 Speaker 1: Well, there's been a bo Mike Warner wrote a book about it. And I just did that. There must be a way of getting Joe Watson's a little bit. 00:40:12 Speaker 2: I think that if we, if we were really serious about it, we'd say the whole the whole system at that stage, remember that the initial the initial judgment was not guilty. Yeah, other then why might I stepped out of the Thompson No, we can't. We don't want that. And if you look at the whole system was flaught and you're guilty until proven innocent. For Australians, that's not something we like. So I still think that there must be a way to do it because I think, you know, basically as you said, I think it was a shafted. 00:40:41 Speaker 3: Well that's a project for another time. 00:40:43 Speaker 2: That's the project for another time. Exactly right, we've run out of time. 00:40:47 Speaker 1: Simon, great to chat, good just just quickly, you're sitting in the Australian Football Hall of Fame selection committee, tell us about your attitude. 00:40:55 Speaker 3: And your sense of responsibility in that role. 00:40:58 Speaker 2: Another and you're at the cross of Tablo said, not too many South Talones. Well, I think I think it's it is. I mean, you know, I'm very privileged to be in that group, and it's it's lovely, it's very nice when people do it. But the idea is to celebrate sport and to celebrate football and to celebrate celebrate people who've added to the game. And I think that's the judge. I look at longevity, I look of influence, I look of success, I look at a whole lot of things to say that, you know, people, people who are a shining light at our sport. And I think that's not raining for aren't we Whether it was one hundred years ago or last Well, you can't do it last year, five years ago. I think five years is the time limit. Who's who's added to our game and you know, as a shining light a game that says this is what we should be like. I think that's a really important role to have. Great to chat Simon got on New Graham corns, Graham's nice. Your mum calls you that, Gornsey. Thanks very much, all the best. 00:41:58 Speaker 3: Simon Madman's my guest, folks, thank you so much for joining us.