The day two coaches came to blowsGLENN McFARLANE
Herald Sun
3 September 2016IMAGINE this scenario, it’s quarter-time in the first week of the finals, and the two competing coaches engage in a verbal joust over an official who had transferred from one club to the other.
Suddenly a couple of wayward and inaccurate swipes miss their target before the pair are fortunately pulled apart. Couldn’t happen?
Well, it did, in the 1980 qualifying final at Waverley at a time when the ground was ‘VFL Park’.
And the two men who created the headlines - Carlton’s Percy Jones and Richmond’s Tony Jewell - were back at the ground recently, this time shaking hands instead of shaping up.
Jones recalled: “We played them in ‘72 and won the flag, and then we played them again in ‘73 and Neil Balme went berserk. It has always been an ongoing thing, that anger between the two sides.”
Jewell added: “That all started with Graeme Richmond (Tigers’ powerbroker). Whenever we played Carlton, he used to sit us down and remind us that we were a working class club. Carlton had Prime Ministers, they were the top of the town and had money to splurge and spend. He just wanted to see blood, blue blood, and we tried to give it to him.”
Percy Jones and Tony Jewell almost come to blows.
The enmity between Carlton and Richmond had been simmering away for years before Jones and Jewell - normally two of the more genial men of football - tangled at Waverley.
But for a few moments it threatened to boil 36 years ago when Jones saw former Blues and then Tigers psychologist Rudi Webster laughing in the opposition huddle at a quarter break.
“I thought there was a player for us (Ken Sheldon) who was unfairly handled by a Richmond player,” Jones said.
“I came out on the ground angry and then I looked over at the Richmond huddle and saw (Webster). He was meant to be a Carlton supporter, every year we won a flag, he was out on the ground holding up the cup, and here he was with the enemy in a final.
“He was laughing and I said something I shouldn’t have. And then I could see Tony (Jewell) headed towards me. He could handle himself and he kept coming closer and closer. I thought, surely he wouldn’t hit me in front of all these people.
“There was a lot of pushing and shoving ... but it was all in good fun.”
Jewell recalled seeing Jones “having a go” at Webster: “I tried to ignore him, and I was addressing the players. When I was finished with the players and turned around, there was Percy walking towards me and mouthing off.”
“Fortunately, I can remember (Richmond fitness adviser) Peter Grant yelling “Don’t do it’ (hit him), and (Carlton official) Shane O’Sullivan was trying to stop it, and sanity prevailed.
“Anyway, we went into Channel Seven the next day and we shook hands.”
One state politician raised the dust up in parliament the next week, which still brings a smile to the face of both men.
Jones, who runs the North Fitzroy Arms hotel, and Jewell, who is retired and lives on the Mornington Peninsula, are good mates now, and their moment from 1980 remains a source of amusement.
For the record, the Tigers won the match by 42 points, and went on to win the 1980 premiership - the last time Richmond has won a flag.
Jewell will never forget how cold the ground was - one night he wore a sheepskin coat while opposition coach Tom Hafey wore his trademark T-shirt - nor how difficult it was to find your car after a game.
Both men could still the funny side on their return to the new-look Waverley - now Hawthorn’s training venue complete with luxury homes built around it - it was pouring with rain and chillingly cold.
Some things change; some things remain the same.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/tony-jewel-and-percy-jones-remember-one-of-waverleys-greatest-moments/news-story/3cd420ab333cc0594ddf7fd41b99237c
