Big Mick

Ron Barassi interview at Mick Nolan’s tribute

At the 23 minute mark of final quarter in the 1975 grand final Ron Barassi gave an exhausted Mick Nolan a reprieve and took him from the ground.  The premiership was sorted. North Melbourne led Hawthorn by 48 points. 

 

As Barry Goodingham ran onto the ground Barassi ran down the steps from the coach’s box and embraced Nolan who was sitting on the bench.  It’d been some effort and his coach wanted him to know it was appreciated.

 

‘You can have a few pies tonight,’ Barassi said.

 

Nolan accepted the embrace from his coach and thought about those pies.  He was a monster of a man, standing six-four and weighing 124 kilograms.  Aptly described as the Galloping Gasometer, he was fat for a footballer with average skills.  His lace up jumper, clung to his lumpy body, yet Nolan had gathered nine kicks, four marks and three handpasses.

 

Barassi’s embrace wasn’t about meagre possessions or Nolan’s fitness fading in the last quarter.  The grand final was his greatest moment in football.  Against Don Scott and Barry Jones, Nolan made 21 hit-outs, mostly deft taps into the flight of Barry Cable, John Burns or Keith Greig, giving his team the advantage.

 

Scott had 12 hit-outs, Jones 10.  Nolan will be forever listed as one of North’s best in their inaugural premiership.  On grand final day, 1975 he played possibly his best game, out-bulking and out finessing Scott and Jones, his ruckwork and possessions leading to crucial goals as North surged ahead.

 

On Tuesday night Nolan died at age 58.  A month ago he was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer.  Last week the diagnosis lurched sideways to pancreatic cancer, one of the worst kinds.

 

Five days later he was dead.

 

Yesterday Barassi said Nolan was one of the best ruckmen the game has ever seen.  Barassi, a four time premiership coach, backed up his claims.

 

‘The best man in a position to give you an accurate description of his abilities was his rover Barry Cable.  He said he was the best ruckman he ever roved to.  A rover lives or dies on his ruckman in that area so for him to say that tells you something.’

 

Barassi said Nolan was a great character and a funny man but he worried that Nolan’s appearance might cloud the way he was remembered.

 

‘His features as a footballer might be forgotten,’ Barassi said.  ‘When you’re out there in the middle of a footy match and things are needed and you produce them, that’s character.’

 

Nolan played about a hundred games for the Wangaratta Rovers before he was recruited toNorth Melbourneby Ron Joseph.  For 107 VFL matches he lumped his heavy frame against some of football’s best ruckmen, his stomach hanging over the top of his shorts, legs thick as kegs.

 

In the 1975 grand final his lace up jumper looked like a cutoff trenchcoat.  There’s no doubt he looked fat and slow.  His appearance must’ve left opposition players doubled over with laughter.

 

At the end of the grand final Nolan was laughing. 

 

In the bygone era tradition decreed the changing jumpers with opponents after the grand final.  Some players adhered to tradition, others didn’t.  Following the premiership, Nolan kept his North jumper on, not so much balking at tradition but because he couldn’t fit into another jumper.

 

His weight irked Barassi.  Certainly photo’s of Nolan through 1977-78 showed a ruckman with a belief in his ability and his fitness.  The stomach was trimmer, a ledge over his shorts rather than a balcony.

 

Still, he was heavy and slow with average skills.

 

Big Mick wasn’t a throwback to the amateur days.  He wasn’t a precursor to an encroaching era.  He was singular.  There’s never been a footballer since in the VFL/AFL who carried so much weight into the contest.

 

There never will be.  In football terms he was obese, and in the modern era, fat men don’t play football.

 

They did way back when.  Barassi’s lament, that Nolan’s weight would cloud his past, is clear and apparent.  His worth, in public memory, is measured more by his girth than his contribution to North Melbourne.

 

When Nolan joined the club North was in the middle of a golden age.  The most skillful side of the seventies, they’d win two flags from six grand finals and produce a horde of VFL legends in the process.

 

Amidst the pageantry, Nolan played every match for North in 1975, 26 games in all including the premiership, where he was chosen as first ruck.  He played 12 matches in 1976, one of which was the losing grand final to Hawthorn.

 

In 1977 he played 19 games but was left out of the drawn grand final and replay.  There were suggestions of a shoulder injury.  Eighteen year old Steve McCann, just five games into his career, kept Nolan out of the team.

 

North finished on top of the ladder in 1978.  Nolan played 19 games.  With Keenan suspended, he assumed first ruck duties in the losing grand final against Hawthorn.

 

By 1979 North had punted Keenan to Essendon and recruited Gary Dempsey.  Nolan played six games, a disappointing season, though he did play in the reserves premiership.

 

The combination of age, excess weight and the brilliance of Dempsey restricted Nolan to three games in 1980 and he was gone at season’s end.

 

Nolan played 107 games and kicked 40 goals.  He played in an unrestrained era, on and off the field, with and against football legends.  His coach was coached by Barassi, who eschewed failure and imperfection.

 

Through it all, he played at 124 kilograms, which makes his achievements greater, and shows just how much faith Barassi had in Big Mick.

 

The first time I saw Nolan play live was in 1978.  North were playing Footscray at Arden Street.  Barassi put Nolan at fullback, opposed to Kelvin Templeton.

 

Templeton kept kicking goals and Nolan soon stood in the ruck.

 

When veiwing footage of the 1975 grand final, as Nolan palmed the ball into Cable’s hands, it’s easy to wonder how good he could’ve been had he been fitter.  To carry 124 kilograms onto the football field is enough to invite derision and taunts of being a fatboy.

 

It’s enough to shorten careers, to make spectators wonder how he played in a premiership.  It was easy to guess Nolan didn’t make much of an effort to lose weight or take things like diet and alcohol seriously.

 

Certainly Barassi must’ve wondered how Nolan found the stamina to ruck all day in an era where the interchange rule was rigid.  Once a player was dragged he wasn’t allowed back on.  Nolan couldn’t rest on the bench.  He had to ruck all day.

 

Barassi kept persisting because Nolan kept presenting at the contest, using his bulk at the bounce to hold the opposing ruckman out and reach over the contest to palm the ball down.  He’d sprint fifty metres on the heels of his opponent to reach a boundary throw-in and bring the ball to the rover.  If the ball was on the ground Nolan pounced like an athlete, holding it in or pressuring the man with the ball with an outstretched arm or heavy tackle.

 

He could mark in a pack, find a man with a short pass and kick sixty metres.  Most of all he helped North win a flag, doing enough to be considered one of the best.

 

As Cable said, Nolan was the best tap ruckman he ever roved to.

 

After leaving North, Nolan moved to Brisbane and played in the Queensland Australian Football League.  He became a promoter of Australian Rules when few in Queensland cared about the game.

 

He wrote for the newspapers, appeared on television and did everything he could to help lift the game’s profile.

 

ABC journalist Glen Palmer described Nolan fondly.  ‘One of the greatest blokes I ever met,’ Palmer said.  ‘I worked with him for nine years.’

 

Now Nolan is dead, the first premiership player North has ever lost.  It’s a sad moment.

 

Ron Joseph said Nolan understood, last week, that the diagnosis wasn’t good. 

 

‘He was hoping he’d be able to get home for a period of time for some palliative care but he never got out of hospital.’

 

Joseph said the diagnosis had been dire and accurate.  ‘Really, went downhill from the weekend.  From the family’s point of view it was a very peaceful passing and Mick being the proud bloke he was would have loved having his family around him.’

 

On Sunday, a testimonial to Nolan is being held at the Gabba with all proceeds going to his family.  Organisers hope the remaining 19 members of the 1975 premiership team will be there.

 

Barassi is said to be making a speech.

 

Deservedly Nolan will be feted by his teammates, his coach and a gathering of fans.  Considering the man it’ll be a big occasion.

 

Undoubtedly Nolan will be remembered for his heroics.  He was the first man Barassi cuddled when the club’s debut premiership was about to be won.  It was his ability to find Cable, Schimmelbusch and Burns with a neat tap that elicited that hug.

 

Big Mick, a big, fat hero, number 22.

 

May he ruck in peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Mick – part two

 

 

I’m not sure whether he’d be looking down or up.

– Ron Barassi

 

Mick Nolan died on Tuesday the 28 of May, 2008.  He was 58.  He’s the first member of the 75 grand final team to die, a short battle against pancreatic cancer.  On Sunday Nolan’s achievements were appropriately feted in the Legends Room at the Gabba.

 

Sam Kekovich, Nolan’s teammate in the 75 grand final, proved he’d be more than a handy acquisition on the Footy Show, enervating the crowd as MC, standing for every known abuse he’d seen his way through and creating a few others.

 

Kekovich blasted the audience with memories, real and imagined, among plugs for his lamb commercials.  While he was introducing his choice as the greatest Australian alive, North’s coach in 1975, Ron Barassi prepared himself.

 

‘Not so fast Barassi,’ Kekovich said.  ‘I’m not talking about you.’

 

Barassi got up anyway and humbly accepted the accolade then turned it into a tribute to Big Mick, a footballer who surprised him more than any other.

 

Footage of the 75 grand final highlighted Mick’s brilliance and overwhelming presence, a performance that’ll be forever remembered.  Those in attendance watched silently, applauding at times or shaking heads in amazement.

 

A slideshow of photos splashed on the big screens, Mick at North, Mick, playing for Mayne, Mick with the family.

 

It was a fine testament, the emotion in the room heady when Nettie spoke of her husband, how she’d followed three clubs, Wangaratta,North Melbourneand Mayne.

 

Away from the function Barassi spoke softly, looking idly out onto the Gabba, pondering football, mates, life and death.  He’s 72 years old though he looks much younger.  He’s fit and strong, grinning at his first impressions of Nolan running laps aroundArden Street, a scene that caused him conniptions.

 

‘I thought who the hell is that?’

 

Nolan had been invited to the club by Ron Joseph, a key figure in the North’s rise to power in the seventies.  Joseph admits Nolan’s girth was worrying, his ability less so.

Still, he was concerned.

 

Joseph is a small man, bald now.  In 1973, with a full head of hair and a mandate to turn a hopeless club sideways, Joseph took his football nous regionally to watch the Wangaratta Rovers play Yarrawonga in the grand final.  Primarily he was there to watch and recruit John Byrne. 

 

Proving the regional tour wasn’t wasted, and evidence of Joseph’s skill as a recruiter, Byrne became a good footballer for North, playing in the 77 premiership and the grand final defeat in 78.  Injuries would cull his career.

 

On grand final day in 73, in the outback, watching Byrne play became a sideshow as Joseph was taken aback by the big bloke in the ruck.  Simply, Nolan dominated the game.

 

‘He won it for Wangaratta,’ Joseph said, his interest not tempered by the fact Nolan had been rejected byGeelong.  The big man’s performance had been so impressive Joseph bunked overnight and went to see Nolan the next day.

 

Nolan would’ve towered over him, intimidating, but Joseph persisted and offered him a second chance at the VFL.  Bulk or not, Joseph recognised whatGeelonghadn’t.

 

‘He was a bloody good footballer.’

 

But the generous offer of another crack at the VFL fell on determined ears.  Nolan had been invited before by the Cats.  It hadn’t worked.  It was the morning after the grand final, a triumph with mates far detached from the VFL.

 

As Joseph touted North’s virtues it’s a fair bet Nolan was battling a hangover and growing hungrier.  Joseph’s question, do you want to come to North, wasn’t so much rebutted than deferred.

 

‘He wanted to go on the Wangaratta Rovers end of season trip before he came down,’ Joseph said.  ‘We didn’t start training until January the seventh but he had to go away first.’

 

Afterwards, when Nolan stepped ontoArden Street, his weight and lack of speed was the first thing Barassi saw.

 

Watching Nolan jog a lap, the coach demanded to know who he was and why he was on the ground.  The answer, that Nolan had been invited by Joseph, was placating in the short term.

 

‘Ron knew the rules,’ Barassi said.  ‘I didn’t want anyone out there because they were mates with someone.  That’s not the way a league training session should be treated.  I was brought up with Norm Smith and he never did that, it didn’t matter who you were, you had to be in control of who went on.’

 

Nolan, for all his girth, quickly made an impression and showed his coach and team-mates that weight didn’t matter.

 

‘Three days later I could appreciate this fella could play,’ Barassi said.

 

Recruiting Nolan wouldn’t be Joseph’s grandest moment.  There was the constant worry about his weight, his lack of stamina at training, that Mick’s love of a good time would separate his ambitions from ability.

 

‘I didn’t think he would turn out to be the influence he was atNorth Melbournebecause of his body size,’ Joseph said.

 

It quickly became apparent Nolan didn’t shirk training, he just did it slowly, often two or three laps behind the others.  It got done though, all the running and drills designed to improve speed and skill. 

 

And when Nolan played people suddenly started noticing more than his stomach.  He was quick to get into position, hold his ground and win the tap out.

 

‘His body size was less important than his ability to read the ball in the ruck,’ Joseph said.  ‘It made him the footballer that he was.’

 

Barassi laughed at suggestions he was tough on Mick during the pre-season. 

 

‘He survived many pre-seasons with me as coach.’

 

In 77 all the players had to complete a time trial, a distance of five kilometres before they were allowed to train with the main group.  Thirty years ago the game was different.  Footballers worked to earn a living instead of playing for a living.  A five kilometre time trial in January, after three months of indulgence was hardly worth running for.

 

‘Mick of course couldn’t do it,’ Barassi said.

 

Nolan’s failures weren’t limited to one session.  It went on through the week, irking Barassi and the players.  As big and slow as Nolan was, a training session without him was hell instead of agony.  He gave the group a different feel, more character, Barassi said. 

 

Unfortunately, though Nolan’s times were getting better, it was clear he was never going to beat the clock.  A week later, without making the time, Nolan was told he’d done enough to join the main group.

 

‘The combination of speed and distance wasn’t his strength,’ Barassi said, smiling at the memory of Nolan’s gut hanging over his shorts.  Then his eyes got hard as he gazed out at the empty Gabba.  His former ruckman had done all the things a top footballer had to do.  He’d been good enough to play in a premiership.

 

‘He could even chase and tackle at times,’ Barassi said.  ‘Though he hardly ever got any success in that area.’

In 1977 Nolan played 19 games but wasn’t selected in the grand final.  If he wasn’t winning the tap out or taking a mark, he became a liability. 

 

Keith Greig, North’s captain in 1977, said Nolan’s weight was an issue throughout year but it was unfortunate he wasn’t selected. 

 

‘I was really disappointed he missed out on 77,’ Greig said, shaking his head.  ‘He might’ve been tailing off a little bit then.  But 75 was his peak.’

 

Barry Cable, a two time premiership rover for North, was adamant Nolan was never a liability.  Instead, Cable said, Nolan was a significant part of every game the little rover played for the club.

 

‘We were a good combination,’ Cable said.

 

In the 75 grand final Nolan continually found Cable and John Burns with deft taps, hulking that bulk around the MCG, heaving, pushing and grappling.

 

It didn’t matter how fat the man was, as long as he won the tap-out.

 

‘Once he got front position you knew he could never be out positioned.  There was always a chance the ball would come in your area.’

 

Cable, who lived and died at the feet of ruckman, rates Nolan the best tap ruckman he ever played with, something Peter Keenan, who rucked in the 77 grand final, won’t argue with.

 

A champion rover for North and also a former coach, Cable is unequivocal about his love for Mick and his ability to turn a game.  Footage of the 75 grand final provides enough testimony, but there was more to Mick than that glorious day.

 

‘During the season there were many other good games he played,’ Cable said.

 

Barry Goodingham, the 20^th man for North in the 75 grand final, replaced Nolan at the 23 minute mark.

 

His contribution to the grand final is about eight minutes of action, a few hit-outs and a couple of possessions.

 

During the testimonial, like many others in the room, he cried tears of sadness because Nolan not only helped Goodingham’s career but also defined his life away from football.

 

They were mates.  Football had nothing to do with it.

 

‘He was a beautiful bloke,’ Goodingham said.

 

As team-mates, they rucked against each other at training and during practice matches.  Football was different then, the players had more freedom on the street, partially because they had fulltime jobs and families at a young age and also because the VFL wasn’t national.

 

 ‘We used to go to training just to run out a bit of soreness,’ Goodingham said, shaking his head.  ‘The players today, I know they’re professional but we used to have more camaraderie because they’re not allowed to have a drink.  Mick and myself were different.  We enjoyed it.’

 

Goodingham is still a huge man, looking down on everyone in the room, not carrying any weight but carrying a heavy burden.  Nolan had died.  The bond was broken and all that’s left is the memories.

 

He glamorised Nolan’s ability on the field, his skills, marking, positioning himself in the ruck duel and winning the hit-out. 

 

‘He was enormous.  His best contribution to North was in 75, when he was his heaviest, the first grand final he played in he won.  It was a good moment for him.’

 

Two weeks after the grand final North had to play in the Australian Championships, where each state premier played each other in a round-robin tournament.  At the end of the tournament North were due to playNorwoodin the grand final. 

 

It’d been a long season.  Though the games had shortened quarters and weren’t a full contest, many North players, some of whom had played more than 20 matches that year, didn’t want to play.

 

‘We were buggered,’ Goodingham said. 

 

Still, the game had to be played.  But rooming with Nolan, a man of similar tastes and desires, was too tempting.  Nolan’s idea of a psyche job for the game the following day was to go out for a few beers.  Goodingham couldn’t, or wouldn’t argue.  They’d been in a nightclub for about two hours when Barassi and his entourage walked in.

 

Ruckmen aren’t hard to find, especially men as big as Nolan and Goodingham.  It didn’t take long for Barassi to notice them trying to shrink into a distant corner.

 

‘What are we going to do?’ Goodingham said to Nolan, who’d orchestrated the trouble.  Nolan suggested as long as they’d been busted they may as well make the best of it.

 

‘So we staggered in about three the next morning.’

 

The next morning Barassi pounded on the door abouteight o’clock.  Goodingham and Nolan were reluctant risers, ending up late for the team meeting and got fined two thousand dollars by their fuming coach. 

 

‘Mick nearly started crying,’ Goodingham said.

 

Thankfully Blight kicked eleven goals to help win the game for North.  Elated by the win Barassi embraced his errant ruckmen, telling them they were alright and withdrawing the fine.

 

Part of North’s folklore is the measure Barassi placed on fitness, skill and desire.  He was brutal, especially on the skilful players like Malcolm Blight, Wayne Schimmelbusch and Keith Greig.  As Goodingham said, training was pretty hard.

 

‘And I could hardly run.’

 

But he outran Mick, as most in the team could.  But Goodingham, as Barassi said, admired Nolan’s ability to do everything that was asked and never shirk a drill or refuse an idea to help him lose weight.  But nothing ever seemed to work.

 

‘They just had to put up with what he did,’ Goodingham said.  ‘He got a kick on Saturday.’

 

Nolan too, Goodingham said, was hardly injured, not missing many games with soft tissue injuries or sprung knees.  He never had a bad injury that didn’t involve food or beer.  But getting older and being overweight made it harder to keep going.

 

‘He did a marvellous job getting to where he was,’ Goodingham said.  ‘There wouldn’t be another bloke in league football who did that.’

 

In the early days at training with everyone watching him, Barassi and his captain Barry Davis wondered how he was ever going to keep going.  Before the interchange rule, which was introduced in 1978, the ruckman couldn’t rest on the bench, instead resting in the forward pocket.  It didn’t bother Nolan.

 

‘He had a lot of stamina,’ Goodingham said.  ‘He just kept doing it.’

 

Nolan did it for 107 games, played in a premiership and became a wonderful character, as Barassi said, for the club, the code and football inQueensland.

 

The issue of whether Nolan should’ve done better in North’s golden era isn’t easily answered.  He played in three grand finals for one premiership, finished third in the best and fairest in 75, played 19 games in 77 and 19 in 78, seasons North won and lost grand finals.

 

Weight aside, he did well, but with the weight off, his coach and team-mates doubt he could’ve done better.

 

Barassi, who led a group of players that would shape and shake the VFL, suggested he could’ve been better had he shed the kilograms, but he was the type of player that didn’t need to lose weight.

 

‘One of his strengths was because of his bulk.  He was able to keep his position.  While he might’ve gained something in other areas by being lighter he might’ve lost in others as a tap ruckman.’

 

To qualify Nolan’s worth, Barassi directed a barb at every ruckman who was taller, thinner, better skilled and didn’t win a grand final.

 

‘You don’t get in a premiership side and have the respect of footballers in an era when things were going very good forNorth Melbourneunless you’re pretty good.’

 

Cable said Nolan might’ve been better if he’d been lighter, but weight didn’t matter as much as effectiveness. 

 

‘You wouldn’t be able to take his football brain away,’ Cable said.  ‘If he was fitter he’d still be able to out manoeuvre blokes.  I’m sure that he could’ve done it.  Mick still might be a good player today.’

 

Greig said Mick’s weight was never an issue.  ‘All the blokes I played with and against never had a bad word to say about him, never said he was a big fat bastard who couldn’t run.’

 

The dual Brownlow medallist mentioned Mick’s gentleness.  The evidence supports Greig’s observation.  Despite his girth and size, there’s no footage of him from the 70s belting anyone.  The 70s was an era where effective aggression didn’t always involve the ball.  There’s plenty of footage showing some of the stars of the VFL smacking hell out of an unfortunate player just because they could.

 

‘He never hit anyone one,’ Greig said, shaking his head.  ‘He didn’t have to.  The amount of people that turned up today at such short notice from Melbourne, Wangaratta, Mayne footy club and all the clubs he was involved in, it speaks testimony to the guy, they just love him.’

 

Greig and Nolan used to go duck shooting.  Mick, not wanting to miss the opening of duck season, was limited in his reasons why he suddenly needed a leave of absence.

 

‘Mick’s the only bloke I know whose grand father died seven times,’ Greig said.

 

It was more than duck shooting.  Greig wanted Mick to play in the 77 grand final and both of them missed out.  In 78 they played and North lost.  The loss can’t be blamed on Nolan, though the reasons he was thrown into the first ruck are as tragic as they are stupid.

 

Peter Crackers Keenan, proving his nickname was apt, punched Don Scott in the finals and got suspended for two weeks.  Greig was about fifteen metres away from the incident and watched Scott flop to the ground.

 

‘The first thing I said to Crackers was you’ve cost us the grand final,’ Greig said.

 

Unfortunately that’s what happened.  Certainly Hawthorn had a good side, but North was a slick unit of solid veterans and talented youth. 

 

‘I’ve often said we should’ve won more grand finals,’ Greig said.  ‘But Hawthorn people also say they should’ve won more.’

 

Nolan rucked against Don Scott in the 78 grand final, once again playing his heart out.  Scott played his heart out too and was better, getting named among the Hawks best, a reversal of the 1975 grand final.

 

The loss was something Nolan wouldn’t recover from.  He played nine games in the next two seasons and the club let him go.  Nolan went to Queensland.

 

Cable visited Nolan a few years ago, though it wasn’t the first time the men hooked up in the Sunshine State.  In the 70s they played a game for North inBrisbaneagainstGeelongorRichmond, Cable couldn’t remember which.  Certainly though, he remembered the heat. 

 

Barassi took Nolan off late in the game.  The big fella went into the rooms, quickly followed by an exhausted Cable who was lathered in sweat and stinging for a drink.  As Cable ran into the rooms Nolan sheepishly offered one.

 

‘I was ready to drink anything which I did and down it went,’ Cable said.

 

Nolan offered another.  Stung by the foreign taste, the bitterness, Cable was hesitant, wondering what it was and resisting the fresh cup.

 

‘He’s the first bloke who got me to drink a beer,’ Cable said.  It was the last beer Cable ever drank too.

 

It’s not surprising Nolan offered Cable a beer while the game was still raging outside.  After he was taken from the ground late in the 75 grand final he sat on the bench smoking a cigarette.  Photos on Sunday showed him lighting Malcolm Blight’s cigarette during the half time break of a game in the seventies.

 

‘He was part of a group that made it fantastic for many people,’ Barassi said.  ‘He’s too young, he’s just too young.’ Barassi looked out on the Gabba, where his old club had lost the night before.  ‘It reminds you how awful this world can be,’ he said softly.  ‘He was a character, very handy for a club and a coach.  He didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone, that’s the measure of the man.’

Joseph, the man who offered Mick a second chance, recalls the 75 triumph as the memory he cherishes the most, not just because of Nolan but because of all the players who played alongside him.

 

People representing the Wangaratta Rovers, football inQueensland, his family and theNorth Melbournefooty club attended Nolan’s testimonial.

 

‘What more do you want?’ Joseph said.

 

No one wants anymore for Nolan.  He achieved all he needed and touched thousands of people with his girth, mirth and ability.

 

‘He was in the best and sadly he was the first one to go,’ Joseph said.  ‘He just became a great champion for North Melbourne.’

 

On Tuesday, when Mick was in a bad way,North Melbournemade a decision to tell him he’d just been given life membership of the club.  The club had wanted to wait until Saturday, the game againstBrisbane, to make the announcement, but with Nolan slipping away quickly it was left to his family to break the news.

 

Big Mick, who hadn’t muttered many words throughout the day, opened his eyes and looked at his family, acknowledging what the honour meant, that his shinboner spirit would live on.

 

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