The return of the Big FourJake Niall
June 2, 2011 IT has been 30 years since Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond truly constituted "the big four". In the pivotal season of 1981, Carlton and Collingwood played off in one of their storied grand finals, while the Bombers began their revival under a determined ex-Richmond back pocket.
Richmond was the reigning premier that year, yet somehow missed the finals — triggering the sacking of 1980 premiership coach Tony Jewell. The Tigers would rebound to reach the grand final in 1982, but a self-destructive impulse was in train; by the time Jewell was exhumed to coach the Tigers in 1986, they had buried a further three coaches.
Today, Collingwood is the title-holder, having finally become the behemoth everyone feared. Carlton and Essendon are taking flight after uncharacteristic stints in the ladder's lower reaches. Even the Tigers are on the road to respectability after the best part of three decades in the gutter.
"In the end, I think Collingwood have set a real benchmark for the other clubs," said AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, when asked about his old club Carlton's brand strength. "I think all the other clubs basically have fallen a bit behind them, and they've all got to look at that and say you know, 'why aren't I in that position. What do I have to do to get there?"'
Fitzpatrick captained the Blues in the 1981 and 1982 premierships; his Carlton teams conquered Collingwood in grand finals twice and Richmond once. The AFL chief knows first-hand what the competition feels like when the bigger clubs rumble, albeit he played in an era of packed suburban grounds and standing room. "And they hadn't limited the drinking at that stage either [for spectators]," he said of his formative years.
But Carlton did have a specific drinking prohibition, as the then young ruckman and Rhodes Scholar discovered in his first season. "When I got there in '75, the team to beat that year was really the Tigers ... the policy then was not to drink with them after the game, because of the [Neil] Balme incident a couple of years before. And that was the only club we didn't drink with, and which I found out because I got hauled out of the drinks with the Richmond guys. One of the blokes came and got me and said 'we don't drink with them.'
"All the other clubs [were] not a problem but the Balme incident had really sort of impacted on them, because [Geoff] Southby was held in such a high regard at Carlton." The relevant incident was the felling of champion full-back Southby by Balme, now a genial football operations manager at Geelong, in the 1973 grand final, won by a revved-up Richmond.
In Fitzpatrick's 150-game career at Carlton, the Blues never missed the finals. The Bombers, underwhelming in the '70s, began their transformation into an '80s superpower under Kevin Sheedy in '81. Fittingly, it is a tough ex-Bomber back pocket and Sheedy graduate who has been commissioned with the Richmond revival project.
After failing with outsiders as coaches, both Essendon and Carlton have looked inward, the Blues to Brett Ratten, an ex-teammate of president Stephen Kernahan. The Bombers managed to persuade a dual premiership coach (Mark Thompson) to accept a supporting role to James Hird, plunging millions into their coaching panel in the club's version of a fiscal stimulus package. Sean Wellman, Dean Wallis and Danny Corcoran were others with Essendon pedigrees enlisted by Hird.
"It wasn't just a matter of bringing Essendon people back," observed club great Tim Watson, a Hird and Thompson confidant whose son Jobe has been instrumental in Essendon's restoration. "It was bringing the right people back."
Essendon, the last big four club to be humbled by football's socialism, has played finals just once since 2004. Carlton fell on far harder times in the noughties, severely weakened by a third-world debt and draft penalties, while the Tigers have twice risen like a souffle to prelim finals in 1995 and 2001, but otherwise been mired in ineptitude since an '80s recruiting war with Collingwood sent them (and the Pies) broke.
Despite these recent struggles, Fitzpatrick says he never lost confidence in the capacity of the big Melbourne clubs. "I think there's always been a confidence in the bigger clubs, that if they get their coaching and their admin right, that they'll come through.
"You'd have to say in a couple of cases, it's been longer than one might have expected. But they're big clubs with a lot of support and in the end there's enough good people who are supporters and so on who in the end are going to help drive the club to improve.
"So, I've got to say, they tend to be less of a problem for us than the poorly supported clubs."
Fitzpatrick's alma mater became a serious problem for the AFL in the mid-2000s. History's judgement is that the AFL commission's 2002 decision to strip them of draft picks — starting with Brendon Goddard and Daniel Wells — for salary-cap cheating set them back years. Fitzpatrick, who was not on the commission when the tough call was made, was not surprised the Blues were slow to recover.
"I thought given the scale of the penalties, it was going to take a long time," said the chairman.
In a sense, the Big Four is a false construct, since it based only upon the perceived size of clubs' supporter bases, rather than results. The Blues, Pies, Dons and Tigers have not participated in the same finals series since 1973. Hawthorn, which has 50,000-plus members (8500 or so in Tasmania), has won 10 flags in 50 years and can bring decent crowds to the MCG, has strong grounds for inclusion in the big four.
That said, that the Tigers have managed to retain box office appeal, despite seeing only five minutes of September sunshine over 29 years, is testament to their underlying support.
Watson has detected more excitement and interest in SEN talkback this year, as the bigger clubs stir. "It seems to have risen to another level." He felt that it was Richmond, the long dormant volcano, that had cranked up the callers most. "I'm astounded by the support that they have."
Had Damien Hardwick's team beaten Port Adelaide in Darwin, then each of the four foes would have held a position in the eight at the end of round 10. While the Tigers couldn't keep their part of the bargain, their victory over Essendon seven days earlier before 83,000 was a potent portent of what happens when all of the big four are up and about.
The AFL, certainly, won't have to worry about ticket sales or ratings this September, given that Collingwood is a lock for the top four, the Blues look likely to join them and the Bombers are well positioned just behind Carlton. The less mature Tigers mightn't make it, but if they could bring the yellow and black "beehive" to the stands this Spring, Melbourne truly would buzz.
On present trends — and little can be taken for granted in an equalised competition — Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond should be in the top half of the ladder simultaneously soon. This should be a boon for the league's coffers and welcomed by the television networks that paid such exorbitant sums.
Eddie McGuire reckons the success of the Melbourne's bigger clubs could not have been better timed, since it will help bankroll the AFL's expansion in Queensland and New South Wales.
"The knock-on effect of the big clubs turning up with big crowds is absolutely enormous and for the long-term future of the competition," said McGuire, whose Magpies have generated $13 million in membership revenue alone this year. "For the next five years that the Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney are bedding down, it just gives the AFL almost another fund to be able to keep the rest of the competition going. The media rights and the ratings all going through the roof — in the right direction at the very least — and, you know, underwrite the competition.
McGuire said "you can chuck Hawthorn in as the fifth Beatle in recent times" with Geelong and St Kilda also enabling strong crowds. He observed that when "all the big sides are going and attendances are up", the stadium returns improve and then "there's a drink for everybody."
Well, not necessarily everybody. If the cycle favours the better-supported Melbourne clubs, the pressure for equalisation — for the Doggies, Demons, North and Port in particular to receive greater assistance — will only intensify. Fixturing becomes increasingly political.
Just five years ago, Andrew Demetriou voiced a fear that what ailed Victorian clubs might not be just cyclical. "When I first came on the commission, a couple of years in, there were virtually no Victorian sides in the top four," said Fitzpatrick. "Victoria had only two or three in the eight. I do think it's quite cyclical. I think the moment Andrew said that we were starting to get worried about that unevenness, from really that moment on the Victorian sides started to perform well. It's just a matter of looking at it at a point in time."
At this point, in year one of the Suns, it is the Victorians giants — roused or rampaging — that are having their moment in the sun.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-return-of-the-big-four-20110601-1fgto.html#ixzz1O2ZV8ojg
