Lingering pain – part one

‘Footy is a fantastic game.  People don’t realise the effort you put in to get there.  The public sees the glossy side.  There’s more to it than that.’

– Shane Bond

 

Robyn Bond traded crude insults with her brother, Paul.  The third child of seven siblings, three girls and four boys, to Kath and Ken Turner, she is surrounded by family, more than thirty people at a function celebrating Paul’s 40^th birthday.  When the Turner family get together it’s a big party, lots of food and drink.  Though there are more kids and teenagers than adults, it’s often hard to discern differences in maturity levels.  Everyone acts like kids, the sibling rivalry funny.  Bad language is a feature.

The party began at four.  When the cake was cut about nine, Robyn, who almost shares the same birthday as Paul, was also honoured.  During the speeches, Paul and Robyn faked tantrums, crying and dobbing on each other to Kath, Paul calling out mum, she hit me.  Those watching lapped up the humour.  Following the speech, 34 people crammed together in Paul’s huge lounge room for a photo.  Of the gathering, just six people in the picture weren’t related by blood or marriage.

Like any celebratory crowd, everyone in the picture is smiling.  Seven people sit on a brown leather coach, the rest standing behind.  At the left hand corner of the couch, Shane Bond sits next to his daughter, Stephanie.  Natalie, his other daughter, is beside Stephanie.  Madeline, Paul’s daughter, sits across their laps.

Bond is smiling, holding onto a set of silver crutches.  His right leg is partially hidden by the wooden chest in front of the couch, but it’s extended straight, the ankle encased in plaster, a black brace snugly fitted.  The smile is a ruse, just a man being polite for the camera.  Weeks earlier he endured a fourth operation on the ankle he broke in 1979.  He’s in pain. 

Following the group photo, people dispersed for beer, cake or to talk.  Bond remained on the couch, his crutches slipping forward, chinking as the steel clashed.  He gathered them, rested them in the nook between the pillow and armrest and shrugged.  Robyn, standing nearby, looked at her husband. 

‘Get the video of that game,’ she said.  ‘You’ll see what happened to him.’

Having been transferred from Collingwood to North Melbourne at the end of 1978, Bond’s first game for North was against the Magpies in round three.  With a point to prove, he played well, kicking two goals.  Malcolm Blight kicked seven, leading the Roos to a 28-point win.  In round four, North defeated Geelong by 50-points.  Bond had played two games for his new club for two wins.

In 1979, Ford, by virtue of having the most money, sponsored the night series.  The Escort Cup, named after a small car, pitted the twelve VFL clubs and several from interstate against each other in a round robin, knockout tournament.  Games were played mid-week, on Tuesdays, and televised on delay on Channel Seven.  Bond’s last senior game for the season was the night match against Hawthorn in May. 

While the players took their positions and the siren rang out, Robyn was getting home after teaching a calisthenics class to teenage girls.  It was about eight-thirty.  She sat in front of the television, hoping for North to win and her husband to play well.  It didn’t happen.  During the second quarter, Robyn saw him go down.  Moments later she wondered what happened, it’d been so quick. Recoiling on the couch, hands to her mouth, she watched her husband’s pain.  Minutes later, she watched in horror as he was chaired off the ground by two trainers.  Bond’s season, the promise of renewed hope under a new coach, was wrecked. 

‘His ankle was flapping about,’ Robyn said at Paul’s 40^th.  ‘He was in agony and they took him off through interchange, just in case he could come back on.’  She looked at her husband.  From the couch, he nodded and shrugged, yeah.  ‘Get the video and you’ll see,’ she said.

Given the match was a minor round of the night series, it isn’t surprising there is no vision of Bond breaking his ankle on the internet.  His profile on all internet sport pages is brief.  None mention his broken ankle.  He is difficult to find in online newspaper sites.  An email sent to the AFL asking for the score the night he broke his ankle went answered for weeks.

The same email was sent to North Melbourne.  A woman called Barb Cullen phoned instead of responding to the email.  She wanted to help.  A historian with a record for flair, Barb designed Essendon’s Hall of Fame in the late nineties.  ‘Perhaps you’ve been there,’ she said.  ‘After Essendon I went to Sydney and helped with their museum and now I’m at North to do the same.’  She had searched North’s archives and couldn’t find the score.  She’d also been unable to find it on the internet.  Who won the game remained unsolved.

‘Why do you want to know the score of that game for?’ she asked.

After listening to a brief history of Shane Bond’s career, the woman wasn’t sure who he was, but promised to pass on the query to Col Hutchison, the AFL’s historian.  ‘If he can’t find it no one can,’ she said.  Weeks went by.  Perhaps Beth didn’t send the email.  It didn’t matter.  According to Hawthorn’s unofficial website, the Hawks won by two points, 7:10:52 to 6:14:50.  Bond, had he not broken his ankle, might’ve kicked a couple of goals and led North to victory, then played the following week in the VFL.

Instead, his career was effectively over.

At Paul’s 40^th birthday party, Robyn wanted access to a copy of the 1979 Escort Cup match.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to exist, having vanished into the depths of history, 31 years of football, more than four thousand games.  It isn’t available on YouTube or in any Google search.  AFL marketing company Name a Game doesn’t have it.

There is no suggestion of a VFL/AFL conspiracy, that they’re withholding copies of the game or removing stories about Shane Bond from the internet because of his broken ankle.  The reality is sound.  It was just a minor game in the VFL’s 1979 Escort Cup, a meaningless, mid-season night series that doesn’t exist anymore, having morphed into the equally meaningless pre-season competition.  Bond played 49 games of football for Collingwood and North Melbourne across six seasons from 1974 to 1980.  By his own admission, he wasn’t a star.

Robyn said things would’ve been different if her husband was a star.  She said things should’ve been different, no matter who her husband was.

Playing for Collingwood

Shane Bond grew up Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.  He played junior football for West Heidelberg Young Christian Workers.  Short and fast, a left-footer, he supported Carlton.  In the 1970s the VFL wasn’t governed by a draft as it is now.  Junior players were bound to clubs by locality.  Club loyalties, as happens today with the draft, counted for nought.  By virtue of address and excellent junior form, Bond was invited to train with Collingwood’s thirds at fourteen years of age, a tough ask for a Blues supporter.  It was 1970.  With players like Peter McKenna, Len Thompson, Ross Dunn and Des Tuddenham, Collingwood dominated the season, finishing on top and taking a 44-point lead over Carlton at half time in the grand final.

Just over an hour later, the Blues were premiers, a remarkable comeback to win by 10-points.  In Bond’s first year at Collingwood, his new club were defeated by his favourite club.  Such is football.

Bond was 19 when he made his debut in 1974 against South Melbourne in round eleven, running onto the Lakeside Oval wearing number 43 on his back.  The Magpies led by 40-points at quarter time and coasted to a 31-point win.  Two days before his second game, the round twelve match against Essendon at Windy Hill, Bond turned 20.  Few footballers in history would’ve been 19 for their debut game and 20 a week later for their second.  As a belated birthday gift, Collingwood won by 33-points.  At Victoria Park, round 13, Bond played his third game, another win, this time by a goal over Hawthorn.  He wouldn’t play again for eighteen months, missing all of 1975.

In the opening round of 1976, the Magpies lost badly to Carlton by 57-points.  Bond kicked his first goal in VFL football.  In round two, South visited Victoria Park and left with an 11-point win.  Bond kicked a goal but was dropped from the team to play Hawthorn at Princes Park.  It was a good game to miss, the Hawks kicking seven goals in the second term and eight in the last to win by 88-points.

Missing six weeks, Bond was recalled against Fitzroy at Victoria Park.  He didn’t trouble the scorers as the Pies won by 28-points.  In round ten he was back in reserves and missed five weeks.  His comeback game in round 15, the return match against Hawthorn, resulted in a two goal loss.  After fifteen rounds, Collingwood was last on percentage, with five wins.

Against St Kilda a week later, Bond had a day out, his first big game, kicking four goals in his eighth match.  It was proof of his ability, despite the 17-point loss.  Against Footscray in round 20, the good form continued with two goals.  His last game for the season was against Essendon in round 21, a 51-point win, Collingwood’s sixth for the year. 

The Magpies finished last.  The club, once proud and mighty, collected their first wooden spoon.  When the season ended coach Murray Weiderman was gone.  His replacement was former Richmond coach Tommy Hafey. 

The first outsider to coach Collingwood, Hafey had pedigree.  With four premierships at Richmond, his methods were proven.  Training was brutal, drill after punishing drill.  The players resented it, but Hafey guided the Tigers to the finals six times in ten years.  Missing out in 1976 led to his sacking.  Collingwood didn’t waste time appointing him as coach.

The pre-season was tough, just one more drill fellas became words the players dreaded, but Hafey quickly convinced the Magpies they were a good side, making it known that mediocrity wasn’t good enough.  ‘He instilled a belief in us,’ Bond said.  The players were fitter and stronger.  Hafey built their confidence and confirmed their ability.  The club’s depth was bolstered by recruiting utility Stan Magro and key defender Kevin Worthington from Western Australia.

Training was held three times a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Games on Saturday were followed by a light recovery session on Sunday.  With most players having fulltime jobs, training became an added chore to an otherwise full schedule.  Hafey, a big believer in match practice, constantly preached the virtues of smothering, tackling, winning the contested ball and looking after your teammates.  It didn’t matter if his men were tired when they got to training.

‘Tommy was pretty full on,’ Bond said.

Hafey was also the first coach in VFL history to take a club from last to first in one year.  During one of the coldest and wettest winters in Victoria’s recorded history, Collingwood found their form and finished on top.  Bond had a breakout year, playing 13 games, his best season since making his debut.  Selected in the opening round, an 11-point win over Footscray, he missed the nine-point win in round two over North Melbourne.  Back in the team in round three, he went goalless in the 51-point victory against Essendon.

The following week, round four, Collingwood defeated Richmond at the MCG by 26-points.  Bond, with four goals, was Collingwood’s leading goal-kicker.  The good form continued against Geelong, one goal in a 15-point victory.

Round six, 64,256 people crammed into VFL Park.  The Magpies thrashed Carlton by 102-points, but playing on the expanses of Waverley didn’t do Bond’s hamstring any good.  A tear kept him out for three weeks, until round ten.  In round thirteen he kicked two goals against North.  Playing in the forward pocket, Bond watched as Phil Carmen, Collingwood’s full forward, grew increasingly frustrated with the defensive skills of North’s Stephen Icke.  At half time, with the Magpies leading by 14-points, Bond had a chat with Carmen.

‘None of the defenders at North wanted to play on Carmen,’ Bond recalled.  ‘He was the only player at Collingwood they were scared of.’  During the long break, Bond settled Carmen down, telling the volatile forward a story he’d heard.  At a mid-week team meeting, North’s coach Ron Barassi asked his defenders who wanted to play on Carmen.  No one wanted to.  The embarrassing, lingering silence prompted Icke to volunteer.

‘They’re scared of you,’ Bond told Carmen.  ‘They can’t touch you.’  Carmen kicked four goals in the second half.  Collingwood won by 41-points.

Out for rounds fifteen and sixteen, Bond came back against Carlton at Princes Park.  Collingwood won by 32-points but another hamstring tear, a bad one, threatened to wreck his season.  After missing three weeks he lined up for the reserves in round 21 and played well.  ‘I was jumping on blokes shoulders, taking speccies,’ he said.

There was frustration though, and plenty of worry.  After winning the wooden spoon in 1976, Collingwood won the minor premiership.  The club seemed destined for the grand final.  Good form in the reserves, given the depth the Magpies had, meant little.  At training Bond upped the pressure, did everything possible to get selected.

Carmen might’ve been a great footballer but unpredictability wrecked his career.  In the semi final against Hawthorn, without any provocation, Carmen belted Michael Tuck off the ball and was suspended for two weeks.  He would miss the grand final.

With Carmen out, Bond trained hard in the week leading up to the preliminary final between North and Hawthorn.  With Ian Cooper also a chance at selection, Bond spent hours away from the club in nervous hope.  He was fit, the hamstring strong, doing everything Hafey wanted, getting selected on the bench for the grand final.   He hadn’t played a senior game for nine weeks.

The grand final between North Melbourne and Collingwood is regarded as a modern day classic, furious, fumbled football, brutality and inaccuracy, a game that should’ve been won getting squandered so many different ways.  Collingwood’s 27-point lead at three quarter time is an infamous part of football mythology and folklore.  Twenty minutes into the final term, North led by seven points.  Exhausted players continually pitched themselves into frantic contests as the seconds swept by, the ball in possession or in dispute, tiny moments of grand final history.

At the 32-minute mark, Collingwood’s Ross Dunne, jammed in the middle of a pack, took a famous mark and kicked a goal to level the scores.  At the 34-minute mark, Stan Alves drove the ball deep into North’s forward line.  Andrew Ireland took an elegant defensive mark in the back pocket.  His sloppy torpedo landed at half back.  Bond, standing exactly where a rover should, gathered the ball off the ground at the bottom of the pack.  Having sat on interchange almost the entire match, he was fresh and quick.  From half back he sped forward, taking a bounce.  North’s Bill Nettlefold protected space on the inside, ensuring Bond stayed close to the boundary.  Rene Kink put a crude shepherd on Peter Keenan to give Bond clear passage.  The siren sounded an instant before Bond took his second bounce.

More than 110,000 people watched, squirmed and screamed, their noise drowning out the siren.  Unable to hear the elongated blast, Bond dodged Keenan, took a third bounce and kicked forward.  Frank Gumbleton attempted to smother the kick.  The football fell at the feet of North’s Gary Cowton about forty metres out from Collingwood’s goal.  The umpires, Ian Robinson and John Sutcliffe, heard the siren and blew their whistles, ending the game.

Decades later, debate revolves around that third bounce, a hapless argument that Bond should’ve kicked instead of bouncing.  Debate hardly matters.  The siren can be heard before he took his second bounce, when he was ten metres inside the boundary on the wing.  His third bounce and last kick of the grand final were irrelevant.  Simply, he was too far out with the siren too close when he gathered the ball from the ground at half back.  The match was over seconds later, ending in a tie, the second drawn grand final in VFL history.

With the siren still sounding, exhausted players slumped to the turf.  Keenan and Kink decided to punch on at centre half back.  Bond wasn’t exhausted.  He wasn’t throwing punches.  In 1977 under the old interchange rule, a player taken from the field couldn’t come back on.  Given Bond’s hamstring problems and his lack of senior football, Hafey sat him on the bench almost the whole game.  As he left the ground, shaken by adrenalin and the hushed crowd, he was thinking it’d be tough to win the replay.

‘When I walked into the rooms I thought we were in trouble,’ he said.  Fifteen minutes earlier, as the tension built in the last quarter, with the lead slipping away, Bond had run onto the MCG believing the club could win the flag.  As he sat in the rooms, with the scores level, that belief had evaporated.

The players were slumped, fatigued, stunned by North’s comeback and those final, frantic minutes.  Giving up a 27-point lead left them shattered.  In the rooms, Hafey was interviewed and said playing another game would be good for the club.  Another game would become a mental and physical burden the Magpies couldn’t overcome.

During the lead up to the replay, Bond said Hafey wasn’t worried about North’s skills or their remarkable comeback.  He was more concerned with Collingwood playing at their peak.  Typically, training was tough, as it had been all year.  Hafey thought the players tired late in the game and needed the work.  ‘He got into us a bit,’ Bond said.  That Hafey trained his players hard has been confirmed by many of Bond’s former team-mates, who claim the brutal drills during the week exhausted the players.

North dominated the replay, leading by five goals at three-quarter time and winning by 27-points.  Hafey sat Bond on bench until three-quarter time.  Starting in the middle, Bond immediately ignited the Magpies with his pace and raking left foot.  ‘Hasn’t he lifted Collingwood,’ Lou Richards said on Channel Seven as the Magpies closed the deficit to two goals.  Bond’s last quarter dynamic was in vain.  The premiership was lost.

Bond remains adamant that the absence of Phil Carmen, Collingwood’s star forward, was the reason the Magpies lost.  ‘If Carmen played in 1977 we would’ve won,’ Bond said.  ‘People don’t realise how much Carmen meant to Collingwood.  North was more scared of him than anyone else in the competition.’

If Carmen played, there is a chance Bond wouldn’t have.  He replaced Carmen, the man he says is the best footballer he’s ever seen.  Collingwood, with Carmen, might’ve won the premiership, but Bond might never have played in a grand final.  That’s the luck of football.  Carmen missed out on the devastation.  ‘You don’t realise how bad it feels to lose,’ Bond said.  ‘It is soul destroying.  People don’t realise what you go through to get there.’

Both teams had a second chance.  Only the Magpies blew it.  More than thirty years later though he admits North Melbourne had more talent than the Magpies, Bond still rues good and bad luck, missed shots at goal in the intense last quarter during the drawn match.  He also believes he should’ve been put on the ground earlier.

In the aftermath of the shattering grand final defeat Hafey called Bond’s parents and apologised, for not putting your boy on earlier in both grand finals.  Bond isn’t sure if Hafey made the decision to apologise on his own or if he’d been instructed to by club officials, but it was appreciated.  ‘Tommy was good to me,’ he said.  ‘I played good footy under him.  Tommy did a magnificent job at Collingwood and was unfortunate not to win a flag.’

In 1978, Bond missed the first two games, coming back against South Melbourne and kicking three goals in a 17-point loss.  He kicked a goal against Hawthorn, went goalless against North and booted three in a 52-point win over Fitzroy.  After four consecutive games, he was left out of the round eleven clash against Melbourne, a 60-point win.  At round’s end, Collingwood was third, behind Hawthorn and North.  He came back against Fitzroy in round 17, played in round 18 then missed round’s 19 and 20.  Hafey bought him back for the final two rounds, but didn’t play him in the qualifying final against Hawthorn.

On 16 September, Bond played well, kicking a goal in the 15-point semi-final win over Carlton at the MCG.  The next week, in front of 73,354 fans, he played in the preliminary final against North at VFL Park.

VFL Park resembled a meteor crater, an expansive stadium built in a notorious rain belt, often referred to as Arctic Park.  In the seventies, two long kicks down the middle from full back on most suburban grounds was enough to put a team in attack.  Waverley was 200 metres long and 160 metres wide.  It took three kicks down the middle to get beyond the centre square.  Hugging the boundary was the scenic route.  Going down the middle wasn’t much different.  It was always too big for football, and though it didn’t impact on countless classic encounters, teams often struggled the week following a match at VFL Park.

The game was close throughout, North leading by nine points at quarter time, extending the margin at half time to 15-points.  Waverley might’ve been a big ground, but both teams played attacking football, each scoring three goals in the third term.  Collingwood rallied and could’ve taken the lead, but Craig Stewart hit the post twice, once from a bouncing snap, the other from 45 metres out directly in front.  Ron Wearmouth’s long kick from deep in the forward pocket curled left to right and slammed into timber.  By three quarter time, North led by 16-points.

With a grand final beckoning, it is amazing how many players, notably North’s Arnold Briedis and Phil Carmen, threw punches, elbows and forearms throughout that fierce third quarter.  Carmen was flirting with danger.  Missing the 1977 grand final hadn’t been lesson enough.  Viewing the highlights, it is staggering no one was reported.  Wearmouth hit Stephen McCann with a forearm in ruck contest and the umpire didn’t pay a free kick.  The little rover got squared up though, and played through the pain of a broken jaw, his right eye slammed shut by swelling with a quarter to play.

Both teams kicked four goals in the last quarter.  North didn’t relinquish the lead, winning by twelve points.  It was Bond’s last final and his final game for Collingwood.  He’d played thirteen games for the season, including two finals, kicking ten goals.  Hamstring strains, as they did in 1977, reduced his output.  The preliminary final defeat shattered the season.  Watching Hawthorn win the premiership was gut wrenching. 

In the seventies North Melbourne was arguably the most skilful team.  What they lacked were a couple of enforcers, men who were capable of intimidating the opposition just by getting selected.  Given they lost two grand finals to Hawthorn, in 1976 and 1978, the perception among some opposition clubs that North was soft seems to have ample proof.  Hawthorn was filled with tough men like Leigh Matthews, Don Scott and Allan Martello.  North couldn’t cope, twice when it meant everything.

‘We thought so,’ Bond said of North’s perceived softness.  The Magpies were always disappointed to lose to North, believing they were harder at the ball and the man.  Thoughts and reality, though, are often different.  Softness was just a perception.  Any team can be perceived as soft but if they play to their ability, at their absolute best, then being thought of as soft is meaningless.  Bond insists North were a great side.

‘Soft teams don’t win premierships,’ he said.

Weeks after Hawthorn won the grand final, Bond met with Tommy Hafey for a chat, a difficult conversation, one that just about broke his heart.  He was being traded.  The news was devastating, but the intent behind the decision was worse.

‘There are people here who think you’re scared,’ Hafey said.  It didn’t matter he’d picked Bond to play in the preliminary final or apologised to his parents after the 1977 grand finals.  Playing football was tough in the seventies, where players routinely knocked each other cold, on and off the ball, often without being reported.  After 39 games and 29 goals for the Magpies, Hafey told Bond he wasn’t tough enough to continue. 

Football, in the seventies often regressed into thuggery.  There was no trial by video.  Umpires made reports if they saw an obvious reportable offence.  Too often they ignored glancing or speculative blows by elbow or forearm that left players prone and bleeding.  Umpires don’t have eyes in the backs of their heads, so many reputed tough guys belted opponents off the ball.  Playing football thirty years ago was to flirt with fighting, because a player never could tell when a fist or elbow would flash in, deserved or not.

Most players didn’t want to fight, yet the media heralded tough men like Leigh Matthews and Neale Balme who took their opponents out of the game with unseen cheap shots.  Every club had tough men who could fight, but few had players willing to belt someone from behind, out of spite.  Bond wouldn’t admit if he was scared or not.  It isn’t necessary.  That he made it to VFL level is testament to his courage and ability.  He was never reported, and he figured there was more to Hafey’s decision than his ability to hit and get hit.

‘I think people in the background wanted me gone,’ Bond said of club officials.  ‘Hafey just delivered the message.’  He is probably right about club officials lurking in the background.  If Hafey believed any of his men were scared, it’s doubtful he would’ve selected them to play any game, and Bond’s last game for Collingwood was the 1978 preliminary final.

Comments