TOE TO TOE WITH THE LEGENDS - Dizzy heights!By David Rhys-Jones
Inside FootballMichael Mitchell is a most loved former Tiger – and not only for his pacy play and spectacular exploits. RHYS: We had a couple of beers together the other week after a game in Melbourne. Do you get over to Victoria very often?
MITCHELL: I come over a bit for work which is good when it coincides with the footy season. And sometimes I come over for Richmond stuff.
RHYS: What are you doing work-wise?
MITCHELL: I'm a program manager of a specialist Aboriginal Mental Health service. I'm based in Perth.
RHYS: Your father was a linesman. Was the family always in Carnarvon?
MITCHELL: Yes, Carnarvon and Shark Bay – that was where I grew up.
RHYS: All we know about Carnarvon is about the satellite tracking station. Tell us a bit about the place.
MITCHELL: For a lifestyle, it is one of the better postcodes on the planet. It's on the 26th parallel which is the equivalent of Rockhampton on the eastern seaboard. It's average temperature is about 23 degrees in winter. You can fish, there's plenty of local produce. It's small in population – a couple of thousand maybe. That's including all the district people.
RHYS: Do you get back there much these days?
MITCHELL: Whenever I can. Peter Wilson reckons I'm a fishing tragic!
RHYS: Phil Krakouer publicly talked up your ability in Melbourne after you won the Sandover Medal in WA. Was that a bit embarrassing and did it put any pressure on?
MITCHELL: I didn't worry too much about it. It was good for me because people give you a bit more time if someone is talking you up. I appreciated it.
RHYS: When the Krakouers left for Victoria there were more openings for little blokes at Claremont.
MITCHELL: Exactly. I was doing an apprenticeship in Carnarvon, and I had had a try-out with East Fremantle about a year or two before. A bloke named Ken Smith was coaching there. After a couple of weeks he said, "Look Mitch, you are a bit small and we are going to let you go." So I went home and made sure I finished my apprenticeship. Then Mossy came along.
RHYS: Your coach at Claremont, Graham Moss, said later that you showed great character in adapting to Melbourne better than most WA players. How did you find the move to Melbourne?
MITCHELL: It was a culture shock in terms of the weather. I remember the Flea (Dale Weightman) saying that he could never find a coat around the place because I was wearing them all!
RHYS: In your first year in 1987, you took a while to come good but I believe a knee injury was a problem.
MITCHELL: It happened in a state game (for WA) in 1986 when I did the meniscus in my knee. I wasn't quite right and it took a while to get it right.
RHYS: New recruits with big reputations always get a lot of press attention. Did you cop much?
MITCHELL: We played the Eagles in the first game and I think I kicked three goals in that game at Subiaco. The next year I had a full pre-season when I started playing well. At first I had a few little bad habits from over here. I wasn't as dedicated as I should have been, but in Victoria the penny dropped and my game went to a new level with fitness and being stronger and a better understanding for the game.
RHYS: You had already signed with Richmond when the Eagles started. I read that you would have signed with the Eagles if that hadn't been the case.
MITCHELL: The bloke who was looking after me and I knew that West Coast was coming and supposedly – I've been told this since – I was one of the first they wanted to sign up. As I alluded to before, I had a few bad habits and was a bit of a social butterfly.
RHYS: So going to Melbourne was good for your footy.
MITCHELL: Most definitely. Two things happened for me: Richmond footy club and my wife. She came over and that was the reason I am what I am today.
RHYS: You were just 66kg when you started at Richmond and were the second lightest behind Ricky Jackson at Melbourne, who was 64kg.
MITCHELL: Well, you only have to make a tackle stick once and they won't do it again.
RHYS: You once said in an interview you'd never thought about your size or weight. It wasn't a hindrance or a defect. You had speed and that was all that mattered.
MITCHELL: That's probably true. At the footy the other week I was talking to Ronnie Burns and I was saying how the modern day players, their awareness of space and how to negotiate space isn't quite there. We talked about touch footy – a game that we both loved and which helped us in Aussie rules – and how it's all about space. You can draw and pass, run the holes.
RHYS: When you were asked in a 1988 interview if you would go back to WA and play with the Eagles, you said you would if it was possible. That would have worried Richmond to read that.
MITCHELL: What happened was that I'd had a very good year but then I had the incident in 1989 that changed the landscape for me.
RHYS: I'll come back to that. Playing in mud in Melbourne was entirely new to you.
MITCHELL: I wasn't used to the mud. The rain over here is different! I played over at the MCG in a corporate fundraiser. The ground is absolutely magnificent now and these modern footballers don't know how good they have got it. I'll tell you a funny story about one day at the Western Oval. I had the ball in the middle and my teammate Craig Lambert tackled me. I said "What happened?" And he said he couldn't see the colours of my jumper! They don't have that Merri Creek turf in the pitches that they used to have.
RHYS: Kevin Bartlett coached you. How did you find him as a coach?
MITCHELL: KB was great for me. He understood my game. He was excellent.
RHYS: Obviously it wasn't a great time for Richmond and he copped a lot.
MITCHELL: It was extremely tough times. I could have come over and played for Geelong or Richmond. It was the same money and I made the choice of Richmond because Maurice Rioli and Phil Egan were there. Twenty years later, I can still go back like I did at the weekend and get treated very well, so I'm more than comfortable with the decision I made.
RHYS: They still regard you as one of the most popular blokes at Punt Road from that era.
MITCHELL: I'm very humbled by how well they have treated me. And I suppose that reinforces what I said before about having no regrets and being part of the Richmond Football Club extended family.
RHYS: You were the chess king at Punt Road and I understand you used to beat Michael Pickering and Darryl Cowie, who fancied themselves at the game.
MITCHELL: They would dispute that, of course. I was talking to Trevor Poole the other day about how we used to go to Pickers' place and play a few games of chess. I guess I had the capacity to move in all circles of the club, because in any club there are little cliques and circles. Darryl Cowie is an interesting one. He did some work for the Sultan of Brunei when he finished playing footy. He was a glass blower. I went out to his factory in Footscray and he gave me a couple of things he did which I've still got to this day. I think he was doing glass work or wrought iron work for the Sultan.
RHYS: You suffered a few concussions early in your career before the worst one against North Melbourne.
MITCHELL: I cringe a bit when I see some of the concussions in the modern game. But I cringe even more when I see them play the next week – that worries me. I'm glad Geelong said that they were resting Jimmy Bartel because it's pretty serious stuff. I know there is lots of pressure to play. When my injury happened I shouldn't have played any games that year. I guess decisions are made at the time.
RHYS: You were kicked in the head in a Richmond-North practice game at Bayswater in 1989. The clubs agreed that it had happened but couldn't agree on who did it. That all petered out with no penalties applied. Were you disappointed?
MITCHELL: I was more disappointed with being injured! I guess people don't comprehend the severity of the injury. I was knocked out for about 20 minutes. Didn't know where I was for about six hours. After the incident I didn't train. It was about two weeks before the start of the season. I went for a run on Friday, jogged around and was declared fit enough to play. It wasn't one of my better moves – to play.
RHYS: Did they do much testing on you?
MITCHELL: They did, but I was bit silly about it. It would be good to get this out now. I was a bit too smart for my own good. What I did was, I tanked the first test. There should have only been an upside technically. We are all a bit vain and get a bit carried away with what goes on. I shouldn't have done that.
RHYS: You played a few games and had been cleared by a neurosurgeon, but still didn't feel right with dizziness and said: "I'm not my normal self, not jumping about the way I usually do." I believe your girlfriend Fiona said you couldn't remember things she had just told you.
MITCHELL: They wanted you to play and I'm glad they've changed that a bit. No disrespect to the medical and sports science people of the time, but the decision was generally yours to make as a player. If you said you were OK, generally you played. Unless it was blatantly obvious that you weren't right. I wasn't right because I'd go for a mark and hit the ground and everything would be blurry and bouncy. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, was a nurse and she came down to the fence and had a crack at the medical staff, who promptly sent her away. But she's a highly trained nurse. And subsequently I didn't play for a year after that.
RHYS: Was that the game against Carlton when you took yourself off the ground?
MITCHELL: That was it.
RHYS: Apparently at home a lot of people said you should give the game away.
MITCHELL: Oh look, I've got no regrets about what happened. I had the year off and came good from that time on. The club makes you an incredible offer and you can't refuse it. You aren't going to make that income ever again. They kind of paid me to turn up.
RHYS: Were you ever the same on a footy field again?
MITCHELL: Probably not but I played some more games. I played in the international rules series for Australia. I won the mark of the year and later on I won the Richmond goal of the century, which is what people kind of remember me by. That's kind of special – well, special in a big way.
RHYS: You had played 50 consecutive games until then.
MITCHELL: That's right. I didn't play too many more games but the good news, as I said at a function I was talking to the other week, when I came back to Perth I had nothing to do at first, then I went to uni and got a degree and I'm doing stuff in this role. Cognitively, I'm fine.
RHYS: Did you need regular check-ups?
MITCHELL: Not really, there was no annual one after that. But as I said, when it happened I tanked that first test. My thought processes were "was that right to do that?" And I chose to do it.
RHYS: Because all you had to do is match or beat that.
MITCHELL They are called psychometric tests. You just take a little bit longer to do it, even when you know it's there, so next time you do it quicker and they say you are better.
RHYS: Nathan Burke wrote in Inside Football that he did the same thing. Did you ever wear a helmet?
MITCHELL: No, if ever I had to wear a helmet, that would have been it.
RHYS: You went back to WA. Did you play any football at all after that?
MITCHELL: No, I was down Richmond one day and Peter Schwab called me in and said "We are going to delist you" and I said "OK". He said they had let a couple of clubs who were interested in me know. I said, "Look, don't worry about it, I'll go home." I'd had 10 years of football at WAFL and AFL level and I'd had a reasonable career. Then I went back and got tricked into coaching my country town! I played a couple of games and popped my shoulder in an obscure incident and had to have a reconstruction of my shoulder.
RHYS: How old were you by then?
MITCHELL: About 36.
RHYS: After two Richmond teammates were stretchered off in a 1989 game you spoke openly in the newspaper and said "Blokes will do anything these days. I can see why some parents stop their kids playing footy."
MITCHELL: It's good that the rules are such that the thuggery has gone out of it. But I think it's a bit disappointing to see things like blokes getting three weeks for the sling tackle. The onus has to be on the person with the ball. He has to make sure he is OK too. You can prepare yourself for a tackle where you collapse your legs and just go to ground and they can't sling you.
RHYS: I reckon you are right. They go limp and hope they are going to get a free from a push in the back.
MITCHELL: That's right, they are not trying to control the tackle that is happening to them, and potentially they are going to get hurt.
RHYS: One of the other issues that came up last week was the Justin Sherman racism incident. Did you suffer from that in the 1980s because that was a time when Aboriginal players were virtually told just to cop it.
MITCHELL: We all copped our share, but it was whether you ignored it or not. The great JK (Jimmy Krakouer) had zero tolerance. He'd respond with both barrels and let them have it. I was different. I thought it meant I was getting inside his head and I'm not letting him get inside mine. I'd just play the game.
RHYS: We've come a long way since the Nicky Winmar case and the Michael Long thing.
MITCHELL: It disappoints me (that it still occurs) but that's indicative of society. The AFL's zero tolerance is very good and it is good that you can't behave like this because it is morally wrong. If offenders have to miss three or four weeks, you hope there's a financial consequence too.
RHYS: The reaction to the Sherman incident shows that people don't accept it these days.
MITCHELL: It's fantastic. At the end of the day there is a member of the legal profession driving the organisation (Adrian Anderson). The AFL enjoys exposure like no other organisation in the country so it's good that they set high standards.
RHYS: Back when you were playing there weren't too many Aboriginal players in the AFL but now there's a big influx.
MITCHELL: When Ronnie Burns and I were talking to Syd Jackson the other week, I told him that he was the reason, along with Polly Farmer and Barry Cable, that blokes like me played. And now I hope some young blokes were inspired by me and that there are young blokes being inspired by Junior Rioli and Lance Franklin. That's why we look after Syddy!
RHYS: What's your advice to blokes getting concussed these days? Do they have to look beyond just next week's game?
MITCHELL: I spoke to young Graham Polak who had that injury when he was struck by the tram. I said I had a pretty serious injury and that I had gone back and toughed it out but it was never quite the same. I think deep down you have to go back and try for, I don't know what the word is but it's a testosterone-driven, adrenalin-driven environment and you can't do without it. You can't leave your career hanging and you want to know whether you can still do it, put it all on the line and have a crack.
RHYS: Do you have any problems now?
MITCHELL: No, my health is pretty good, I play touch footy and go away and play in the nationals with my age group – I'm in the 50s this year. My job is pretty responsible with lots of pressure and stress but the fact that I went to uni and I'm doing this shows I'm OK.
RHYS: Do you think you would have taken this path if you hadn't finished footy early?
MITCHELL: Well I got into the sector by default. I took the pathway to ensure that aboriginal people get an opportunity in a paid role. I guess the part that irks me and is a bit of a bugbear is that people, and not just indigenous folk, can come through the AFL and not engage back with the community. I know the AFL is working on that. It's not a matter of money being the answer as it can actually be the evil. Young Corey McGrath at the AFL Players Association says that in America the statistics are horrific and the big money is bringing a lot of issues – health and now bankruptcies. The players don't understand that the average career in the NFL is three years. What is important is that in life after football you have to engage back into normal community life without that adrenalin rush and that hero worship. It's a problem across the board and it depends on who you are as an individual and whether you've got good support and you are grounded. The way I get treated at Richmond is great and what I realised early on – after coming from a good family background – there were people down watching us training at Richmond every day. The penny dropped for me that this was their life. So I would always talk to them, say hello. A lot of blokes don't.
RHYS: Which probably explains why you can go back there now and they are so happy to see you.
MITCHELL: When I played in that fundraiser the bootstudder was the same man who had been there when I first went to Richmond. He asked whether the boots I had were going to be right. He said he had a pair I could try – they were pretty flash boots. They fitted all right and he said "Just keep them." The reason he did that was that when I played my last game, I took my jumper off and gave it to him and said, "Here you are brother, you can have this." He said to me he still had my jumper – framed. He looked after me because I looked after him. I don't think some modern blokes understand that stuff – it's all "I" and "me".
RHYS: We haven't even talked about that famous mark in WA when you stood on a bloke's head. You loved going for a high mark.
MITCHELL: I always had a crack and I got lucky a few times. I was talking to Peter Higgins who played at Carlton and Claremont, and I said "it's funny, people talk about football and premierships, but if you have got in your profile some goal or some mark, they remember it. When people outside the game see it, that visual effect is greater than playing in a premiership." That's spoken like someone who hasn't played in a premiership!
RHYS: And to have that recognition even years later like when you were honoured with kicking the Richmond goal of the century when you ran from centre half back.
MITCHELL: As I said I'm pretty grounded and come from a good background – it was good for me to take my three daughters back to Richmond, and my gorgeous wife. It was good to go back and they could see this other part of their dad's identity. For them to go to that night and see some pretty legendary people there – there were only 10 Tiger Treasures of the Century. They might Google me and see it on YouTube and they had heard about it, but to go to that night was something different. Richmond treated them very well and it was great for me to see my daughters experience that.
RHYS: When my kids Google me they just say "Dad, you were a thug!"
MITCHELL: They all remember the negatives. You were a good player, don't worry about that.
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