My best footy year: 1980Sunday, November 13, 2011
Source: BigPond Sport
By Nick PlaceThe world was a strange place as the calendar clicked over from the Seventies. Beatle John Lennon was shot and actor Ronald Reagan became US President. In Australia, Baby Azaria Chamberlain would go missing in the desert heartland with a nation divided about whether her parents or the claimed dingo was responsible. Bands like Skyhooks and Sherbet (reformed in 1980 as The Sherbs) were wilting under the attack of a new form of music called 'rap' and even more bizarre international creations like Kiss, which drew a southern hemisphere record of 45,000 fans to VFL Park for a concert in 1980.
On the football field, changes were also everywhere you looked and it was easy for a fan to become confused. Somehow the wooden spoon side, Fitzroy, actually scored more points (2398) than the team that finished on top of the home-and-away ladder, Geelong (2362 points). Time to consider working on defence, Lions. Fitzroy’s other contribution to the season was coach Bill Stephen’s move to fine his players $2000 for their performance, after losing to Richmond by 118 points on Anzac Day.
Showing that no matter what the year, officials can’t help but tinker, 1980 saw a line drawn at the centre bounce, so ruckmen had to start on the defensive side of the line, rather than simply wrestle, and 1980 was also the last year that every VFL coach would also have 'a day job'. (Kevin Sheedy’s appointment as a full-time coach at Essendon in 1981 opened those floodgates.)
I was 15 and this was the season where I endeavoured to get to every game that I could, decked in my Tiger duffle coat, complete with player badges.
The stand-out sides were Geelong, Carlton, my Tigers, North and Collingwood, all making September’s final five.
Of the other teams, Footscray started terribly with 11 straight losses, but then coach Royce Hart moved Kelvin Templeton to centre half-forward and Templeton dominated to the point that he won the Brownlow. A forerunner to Pavlich, Richo and other mobile forwards was born.
South’s magnificently bearded Graham Teasdale took the mark of the year, climbing over Magpie Billy Picken in the atmosphere above the Lakeside Oval, and flying Cat Michael Turner won goal of the year by taking one of his trademark runs, enjoying three bounces and a baulk before dobbing it from outside 50 metres.
Richmond’s Michael Roach was at the height of his powers as a full-forward, booting 112 goals to be the League’s leading goalkicker in the final year before the Coleman Medal was introduced – happily Roach won that medal in 1981. Roach was high leaping, lightning fast on a lead and a deadly kick from miles out. Fittingly his century came after a long lead into the centre square of the MCG, where he calmly lined up and drilled the shot. Richmond was blessed with forwards that year, setting a League record in that all three of the club’s spearheads, in the seniors, reserves and Under 19s, booted a century of goals. The reserves’ full forward? A young Mark Jackson, not quite yet ready to flower into the fully formed Jacko.
FOUR GREAT MOMENTS
The grand finalCollingwood had lost the 1977 replay and then been beaten again in 1979. Somehow, in 1980, Tommy Hafey’s side became the first team to make it to the grand final from the elimination final with three gutsy wins. Surely this would be the year? Well, no. A ferocious and skilled Tiger unit destroyed Collingwood in the big one, leading by 43 points at half time and never taking the foot from the Magpies’ collective throat. The final margin of 81 points was a then-League record for the GF.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVo0Qg-BtTc&feature=player_embeddedThe ageless Kevin Bartlett, a Hall of Fame rover but by now a football Gollum with a combover and a sewed vest guernsey, had been reinvented as a half-forward and dazzled throughout that finals series, including the big one where he kicked seven goals and wove maddeningly around Stan Magro and other despairing Magpie defenders.
Big David Cloke was a perfect foil, kicking six and palming the ball to Bartlett’s crumbing. Geoff Raines, Robert Wiley and a young Dale Weightman controlled the midfield, enjoying the stand-out ruckwork of Mark 'The General' Lee.
In defence, 'The Ghost', Jimmy Jess, and the military discipline of Emmett Dunne and Michael Malthouse shut down the Pies’ attack.
Famously, Richmond’s skipper Bruce Monteath was injured and shouldn’t really have played, so he and Darryl Freame warmed the bench for all but a few minutes of the last quarter. In terms of bench rotations, in today’s parlance, Richmond had less than a handful for the game. Even better, when coach Tony Jewell was considering giving Freame a run, he turned to an assistant coach and worried: “Do you think Collingwood can get up?” It was the 25-minute mark of the last quarter and Richmond’s lead was 69 points and growing.
See Freame in full flight, and the final siren:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1FQ1K50Z7o&feature=player_embeddedSam Newman’s 300th gameMore than 42,500 people crammed into Kardinia Park to watch the Cats play Collingwood, and to salute Newman’s 300th, back in the day when he was an actual footballer instead of a television sideshow act.
The Cats won the day, but couldn’t repeat in the preliminary final a few weeks later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ3c0ShDohw&feature=player_embeddedGeelong v Carlton, round 13A thriller between two of the power sides of the year. They would finish first and second on the ladder, even if they both faltered in September. Watch for the goal from John Newman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vdx_VqW-go&feature=player_embeddedOne Day in SeptemberThese were heady days for football ditties. Still gasping from the genius that was “Up there, Cazaly” the previous year, the Seven Network commissioned another finals anthem from songster Mike Brady for the 1980 finals series. He didn’t disappoint with the now iconic “One Day in September”. As the poet said: There isn’t any doubting, we’ll be in there, shouting.
Sing it, kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6KpyGtSYWg&feature=player_embeddedWHAT HAPPENED NEXTOne newspaper predicted, after Richmond’s win, that this was the side to dominate the entire decade. Wrong. In fact, Richmond perfected the art of implosion, on and off the field, which would lead to the 30 year wilderness, despite one more GF appearance, beaten by Carlton, in 1982.
Kelvin Templeton never regained the kind of form he displayed in 1980. After an injury-hit 1981 and 1982, he was poached by the big-spending Demons but never regained his mojo, playing only 34 games in three years for the Dees.
During a TV interview, members of Kiss were asked who would remember them in 10 years, to which Paul Stanley replied: “I will.” Turns out the world could never get enough and the brand remains strong. Go figure.
Kiss in Melbourne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkCvcjUUDNc&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.bigpondsport.com/my-best-footy-year-1980/tabid/91/newsid/80052/default.aspx
