Still plenty of Tiger in Tommy Hafey
20 September 2005
Herald Sun
Jon Anderson
TOMMY Hafey, 74 years young and in his own words "sensational and getting better", was guest of honour recently at his own lunch.
Hafey was guest of the Tom Hafey Club at the Grand Hyatt and honoured for his involvement in football at various levels since he started playing with the East Malvern juniors 60-odd years ago.
The crowd included many of the men he coached to premiership wins at Richmond in 1967, '69, '73 and '74, but not champion rover and club immortal Kevin Bartlett, who maintains his stance towards the club.
But while Bartlett remains bitter, plenty of others were on hand to be interviewed by MC Rex Hunt on a day that captured what Hafey has been all about: football.
One guest speaker, 1958 St Kilda Brownlow medallist Neil Roberts, brought the house down in typically dry manner when he took his turn behind the microphone.
"It's good to be at a football function without Eddie McGuire being involved. He was actually coming here, but was hit by a motorboat when walking across the Yarra," Roberts said.
"I first met Tom Hafey in 1946 at Melbourne High School and it's fair to say he wasn't an academic. In fact he had a somewhat forgettable education.
"It went so far as Tommy actually hating any students or anyone with an education because in those days he was either giving or getting a blood nose."
Neville Crowe, who played under Hafey in the 1960s and was also Richmond president, remembered the day in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.
"It coincided with a Richmond training session that same day and I remember asking Tommy what he thought of the miraculous achievement of Armstrong to be the first man to walk on the moon," Crowe said.
"He looked at me, turned his head on the side as Tommy did, and asked, `Did they have any good footballers up there?'."
Another former Richmond president, Ian Wilson, who was in charge in 1974, recalled the day when the great coach asked Wilson to pick the team for that weekend.
"I was a good president in that I never offered any football advice to Tommy until that day when my moment came. I spent hours picking my team and had it beautifully typed up before presenting it to Tommy," Wilson said.
"Tommy took one look at it and said, `Geez, that's a good side, Ian, because any team that can leave Francis Bourke out has to be bloody good'."
Wilson never picked a Richmond team again, but he did have a pivotal role on the day late in 1976 when Hafey was sensationally sacked as Richmond coach after 11 seasons.
"I can tell you now the 13-man vote was 11-2 in favour of Tommy being retained, but someone leaked the result of the vote to Tom and straight away he said, `You can stick it up your jumper'," Wilson said.
"I went to his house to try and talk him out of it but he said, `No, if two of them don't want me, I'm going'."
Veteran journalist Scot Palmer spoke of the days when he first met Hafey and his wife, Maureen, when they ran a milk bar in Bridge Rd, Richmond.
Palmer said he had met his own wife, Lorraine, in the same establishment.
And then there was long-time assistant coach John Nix, who acted as the conduit between Hafey and legendary under-19s coach Ray Jordon.
"Ray used to send up his best players to us in the seconds and firsts, but we kept hearing about this kid called Royce Hart and yet `Slug' (Jordon) never sent him up," Nix said.
"So (coach) Len Smith and I went down to see Hart play. And while it was obvious he had plenty of ability, all Len could say was how often Slug swore in front of the young kids. He was shocked by the language."
Perhaps Kevin Sheedy, who remains a close friend of Hafey, summed up the relationship best between the master coach and his pupils.
"We owe him for the rest of our life because he showed us love and taught us how to love our fellow man," Sheedy said.
These days Hafey is the unofficial ambassador for the game in the forgotten areas, the country regions where people feel snubbed as they watch their teams dwindle away.
Just ask Hafey, who can tell you off the top of his head, much to his disappointment, how many clubs have been lost to the game in recent times.
"In the past 20 years, 119 sides have been closed down, including Carrum Downs, Newry and Nambrok this year," said Hafey, who retains his AFL links through his role as a radio commentator with ABC 774.
"I get to 30 country clubs a year and a number of schools where I teach the kids the same things: Don't drink, don't smoke, love your parents and don't accept rejection.
"Four best-and-fairest winners last year, (David) Teague, (Peter) Bell, (James) Clement and (Adam) McPhee, got the sack from clubs, and coaches such as (Grant) Thomas, (Denis) Pagan, (Alastair) Clarkson and (Mark) Williams were sacked as players by AFL clubs.
"You need look no further than Stephen Milne at St Kilda if you want to see what persistence will achieve."
And Hafey knows all about persistence, still maintaining his daily ironman routine along St Kilda beach.
It begins at 5am with an 8km run, 200 push-ups and a swim and finishes with 600 sit-ups at home.
Hafey still loves the game and doesn't want to be seen as some old bloke knocking it for the sake of knocking, but he has genuine fears for football in the bush.
"People in the country are hostile. They don't accept the under-18 competition because they reckon when their players join that system, they rarely get them back, even if they don't get drafted," he said.
"To them the system is against what country football is all about.
"I'm sure they'd love to see some of the AFL people from time to time show an interest in what they're doing."
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