I enjoy little moments where history is captured, often when it isn’t looking. This is such a moment
Ron Barassi, Jim Stynes and the MCG
I had the great experience of watching a game recently with two great Melbourne people, both of whom have had a profound influence on my life.
Has our game produced any greater stories than Ron Barassi and Jim Stynes?
I wrote the following in the weeks after I started back as CEO of Melbourne in late 2008. Whilst clearly progress has been made since I penned this, and this season reinforced the direction we are taking to build our team, importantly we are also creating a seamlessness between past, present and future. Heritage as it relates to hope, a constant for 152 years.
This is what I wrote in October 2008…
A few weeks ago I had reason to entertain an overseas guest at the MCG. It was the Monday after the Grand Final, and our guest who had never been to the MCG nor seen a live game of AFL football, remarked how he was amazed that the streets of Melbourne had been so empty that previous Saturday afternoon.
He watched the game on the television, and was smitten.
Our game does that, and has been doing so for a century and a half.
As we wandered around the cathedral of sport, we came across the Jamie Cooper painting depicting the Melbourne Team of the Century that hangs in the MCC members.
We explained to our guest that the man who stands in the front of the young players is Norm Smith. Not only was Norm coach of the Melbourne Team of the Century, he was also coach of the AFL team of the Century. He is the greatest coach our game as produced.
Norm Smith also sits amongst the players. So great were his coaching exploits, it often forgotten he was a champion player before he became a champion coach.
As a player, Norm formed a close friendship with Ron Barassi. I am sure they would have celebrated the birth of his son, Ronald Dale Barassi in 1936, the year that Ron Snr debuted for the Demons. Tragically Ron Barassi Senior was killed in Tobruk in 1941, the first VFL footballer to lose his life in WWII. Ron Junior was left fatherless as a young child. It is now part of football folklore that Norm Smith helped fill this breach and young Ron lived with the Smith family in his formative teenage years.
Ron Barassi Jnr sits near the young Norm Smith in the Team of Century painting, for he was to become arguably Melbourne’s greatest player in the Norm Smith coached teams. He was also the first man to wear the moniker ‘Super Coach’ so great were his exploits as a mentor of Premiership teams. Is there a more famous name in the game?
As a player, Ron toured Ireland with a team famously named the Galahs. He was taken by the talent of the Gaelic footballers, and in particular their ability to transition to our game. As is Ron’s want, he simply asked “Why couldn’t they?”.
He returned to Ireland fifteen years later and returned with a tall skinny youngster who could run like Forrest Gump. That youngster went on to win a Brownlow and play a remarkable 244 games in a row. Jim Stynes sits in the back row in the painting, respectful, in the same team as a young Norm Smith and Ron Barassi.
Today Jim Stynes stands before you as President of the Melbourne Football Club.
Our overseas guest was captured by this story, the same way as generations of Melbourne supporters have. Norm Smith first stepped nervously into the Melbourne changerooms in the mid 1930’s and Jim Stynes assumes the role of President over 70 years later, at a time of absolute need. Three great men who established three great legacies - and with more to come.
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