As we prepare for the Sydney Swans v Geelong Cats Grand Final, Joe Moore previews the upcoming game, writing of the red and white history, culture and family.
A HEARTBEAT ALL OF ITS OWN
“The Bloods – a legacy and a knowing, inspired by and connected to a history that is remembered and respected, iconic heroes and hardworking champions, where no single player is ever bigger than the team”
― Hayley Smithers - Kirk.
This Saturday, Sydney Swans players, coaches, staff, and supporters will unite, taking to football’s biggest stage for the fourth time in eleven seasons. It wasn't always this way. We have much to be thankful for, and much to be proud of.
History
The embryonic stages of this club's history are steeped in aspiration. In the 1850s, gold-seekers from around the world poured into the colonies, changing the course of Australian history. The gold rush ensured that the South Melbourne area quickly developed into one of Melbourne's most populous, and two decades later, the Bloods were born.
Footy in Melbourne was a tribal affair, as much-loved Bloods legend, 1970 Brownlow Medalist, and Australian Football Hall of Famer, Peter Bedford experienced from a very early age.
‘I actually had a brief flirtation with Collingwood as a boy,’ he says.
‘Mum and Dad enjoyed having a little flutter in those days. Mum would wrap the money up in an A4-sized sheet of paper, and I’d take it down to the SP bookie. This one Saturday morning, I walk down from Cecil Street to Bay Street to drop off the bets, then I walk across the road to get the meat and the veggies.’
‘But, my prime objective was to buy a new South jacket, which was predominantly white, with red piping. I looked up on the rack and couldn’t see a red and white one - they were sold out. I asked the shopkeeper, Mr Carter, if I could try the black and white one on. He said, ‘are you sure, son?’
‘It fitted like a glove, so I purchased it. I got home and went to meet Mum when she hopped off the bus. I’m as excited as all hell, and Mum took one step off the bus and screamed, ‘where the hell did you get that from, take it back!’ So I ran back to Mr Carter, and I still remember the look on his face when he turned to me and said, ‘I thought you’d be back, son.’
Bedford’s beloved South Melbourne was starved of success, but the following remained staunch. The Lake Oval faithful, along with their heroes, received a welcome injection of optimism with the arrival of the iconic coach Norm Smith.
‘When Norm arrived, it was like a blood transfusion,’ Bedford recalls. ‘With his background, so many premierships, we looked up to him, and he moulded us into a pretty tough, resilient group. There was so much respect there, it was like he was a father, and every time you went out to play, it was incumbent on you to be the very best you could be; it was special.’
But, the 1970s were a decade of significant economic, political, social, and technological change in Australia, and the shift in the football landscape was equally dramatic.
The paradox of this era was that clubs were gasping for air, just as the game became semi-professionalised. Something had to give.
‘When we were, for want of a better term, transplanted into Sydney, a lot of diehard South Melbourne supporters didn’t like it and virtually walked away from the club. The league wanted to form a national competition, and when the club left, it was almost like losing a part of the family,’ Bedford says.
Over time, South Melbourne footballers had earned a reputation as hardened, working-class proponents of the code; a rugged outfit with a propensity to punch above their weight. In the heartland, a heartbeat remained, and as the club priorotised reconnecting with its roots, two cities eventually became one team.
‘Richard Colless really embraced the South Melbourne people, and it’s been a really seamless transition with Andrew Pridham, which has been absolutely fantastic,’ says Bedford.
Life, like football, provides us with the full suite of emotions. The joy of two Swans premierships was something that Bedford and past teammates questioned they’d ever experience. A call from then CEO, Andrew Ireland just months after his dear wife Lynne’s passing in 2016, brought a whole gamut of feelings to the fore.
‘I’d been out to dinner with my brother-in-law, and I was driving home when Andrew called and asked how I’d feel if we won the 2016 Grand Final, and I got to present the cup to the team? I must admit I teared up when he asked me, with that incredible opportunity they gave me,’ reflects Bedford.
As a club legend, representing the richness of our past, Bedford could not be happier with our current team.
‘The current crop have been instrumental in making sure the old South Melbourne is embraced by wearing the red-vee at Melbourne games. It’s fabulous,’ he says.
‘Last year, Bobby Skilton and I went to the Como, John (Longmire) and Tommy (Harley) asked us to come along and we did some interviews in front of the whole group, reminiscing about the old South days and then we got some photos taken, Bobby presented Callum with the number 14 jumper and I presented young Tommy Papley with the number 11.’
‘I’m just so impressed with what the boys have done, especially given the demographic. I wasn’t quite sure how far we’d progress, but they’ve just shown great maturity for their age, and full credit goes to the coaching staff for being able to mould them as a group. The beautiful thing about it, is that the lesser lights are really standing up and playing well, displaying that toughness and determination we’re known for,’ Bedford concludes.
Culture
“Love breeds love. Big or little, every gesture of love is as worthy and important as another. And maybe the small is actually not so small after all. Sometimes those little gestures are just as life-saving.”
― Trent Dalton, Love Stories
By chance, Ray McLean met Paul Roos at a Tullamarine airport baggage carousel in 2002. McLean is the founding director of Leading Teams, and Roos’ philosophies on player empowerment married up well with the work being done by the leadership and management consultant.
In a matter of months, the Sydney Swans playing group searching for substance met him at a Coffs Harbour training camp.
‘When we were working through that idea of finding a clearer identity, ironically, it was Heath James who spoke up, a young player whose father Max had played for South Melbourne,’ McLean recalls.
‘He was the one that said, well, do you realise that back in the 1940s, we used to be called the Bloods, and they were hard, and they were tough. You could see almost immediately that it resonated with the players.’
Once the players acknowledged that the Bloods stood for something meaningful, they embarked on a journey filled with honesty, accountability, and wholehearted commitment. It cultivated a culture that sustained a group of dedicated men hungry for the ultimate success.
‘At the 2005 Grand Final, I was sitting in the coaches' box,’ McLean says. ‘When you’re more external, you don’t have quite the same level of emotional attachment. Well, I came down and saw Bobby Skilton, Mike Willessee, and Barry Round holding one another and crying. That win pulled all those generations together - Sydney, the old South Melbourne, and the transition from Melbourne to Sydney.’
‘I think the beauty of it is that if you ask the current day players, their views wouldn’t be distinctly different from that original group we worked with. But, they value the fact that they belong to something that has stood the test of time; they know they create their own version as they move through, with respect to the past and with some sense of creating a pathway for new players too. The longevity of it has been really significant for me,’ adds McLean.
Maintaining a culture that permeates the jumper is no fluke. McLean believes that one of the biggest contributing factors is the fact that those in charge have always acknowledged the turbulence of our history - much of it a bloody hard slog.
The leaders take charge, and each new player is introduced to the Bloods. Mature-aged recruit Dean Towers once told me that he wished he’d been able to take part in the Swans’ induction night every single year - such was its profound impact.
‘I had a conversation recently with Aaron Rogers, who works for us at Leading Teams. He played one season at the Sydney Swans and openly says that it changed his life,’ McLean says.
‘The records will tell you that he only played two games for Sydney, but he said that experience helped shape his life more than anything. The value of belonging, the value of feedback, and the whole culture of supporting one another, become a really good guide to who you should recruit or not, and even more importantly, how you exit people.’
Respecting those that have come before is a critical component. Our grand finalists on Saturday will enter the fray confident in the knowledge that they’ve been surrounded by a collection of the strongest proponents of team-first culture that there’s ever been.
‘I was there when the succession from Paul Roos to John Longmire happened, and it was seamless. At the board level, there was a sense of why would we look externally when we already have this great internal candidate, and the base of our Bloods’ culture had been formed.’
‘The important part of that was that John didn’t have to come in and do everything that Roosy did, he put his own spin on it, but it meant there was this overarching culture that wasn’t going to get thrown out,’ McLean says.
‘Guys like Brett Kirk, Stewy Maxfield, Jarrad McVeigh, Nick Davis, Ben Mathews, have all had their fingerprints over what we’ve done because, in their own way, they got it, they made some contribution to it themselves, but they also gave others the chance to write their own story, and that has been really significant.’
Three years ago, John Longmire asked McLean to address a group of younger Swans players. One, sitting attentively at the front of the room, eagerly answered many of his questions relating to the Bloods culture. Impressed, McLean asked the player where he was in 2002 when all this originated.
‘He said he was just starting school, going into Prep,’ McLean recalls.
‘That was the key point. He was talking as though the Bloods belonged to him, and that’s what it should feel like. But, it’s not only him, you also have a respect for those who’ve come before you, and you have a responsibility to hand it on in good shape to the next lot.’
‘I think we’ve done that exceptionally well. In fact, I’d go so far as saying that I don’t think there's any other club that could lay claim to have done that as well as the Swans have.’
Family
Acceptance, belonging, connectedness, and empowerment – these are the essence of family. And according to Hayley Smithers - Kirk, who joined her husband Brett on what would be an incredible, unconventional footballing journey, that’s exactly what the Sydney Swans represent.
‘Family inclusion and care has become a very important part of the Sydney Swans fabric,’ she says. ‘I think Paul Roos taking the reins through 2002 and then permanently in 2003 created this important shift and it was nice to feel more welcomed and considered.’
‘Partners and parents are made to feel included and a part of every success. As we know elite athletes and elite coaches need to have a degree of selfishness and sacrifice to be the best in their field. The Swannies have a great awareness of this, and I have felt it not only as a player and captain’s wife, but also more recently as a coach's wife.’
As Ray McLean outlined, it was the sense of belonging that helped the club climb to greater heights, and a storied drought-breaking premiership.
On September 24, 2005, the MCG illuminated with red and white as the Bloods brethren converged in the hope of long-awaited glory. The ghosts of Grand Finals past stalked the stands, memories of Bob Pratt's prang in 1935, infused with the horror of the 1945 'Bloodbath' - when as raging favourites, youngsters Billy Williams and Ron Clegg met errant elbows in the opening exchanges - rendering their valiant efforts redundant.
Lifetime Swans yearned for that cup.
That magical day lives long in our collective minds, hearts and souls and for Brett and Hayley, it represents the culmination of courage that brought them there, while also acting as a beacon of hope for future possibilities.
‘A beautiful memory is captured on film where our one-year old Indhi is in Brett’s lap curiously inspecting the premiership medallion and trying to bite it and it is only because of the picture that someone took that I knew this had happened,’ Smithers - Kirk recalls.
‘The Swans rooms were filled with the elated family of players and coaches. I hadn’t seen Brett yet and I waited quietly against the back wall watching the joy float through the room and then there was this moment where he pushed through everyone, our eyes locked and we embraced and held each other.’
‘That embrace was of an unorthodox and hard fought path to the AFL, grit, resilience and a childhood dream realised. My sister caught this moment in a picture and it is one of my all time favourites from our twenty-six years together.’
When Brett Kirk retired from football, the family travelled together. He’d eventually find his way to Perth, looking to learn the coaching caper, under the watchful eye of his former midfield mentor.
‘We loved our time at the Fremantle Dockers and for Brett to begin his coaching career under Ross Lyon was such a wonderful opportunity for him – although the kids and I could never really grasp the team song, so we did our own mash-up version with Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You,’ laughs Smithers - Kirk.
‘Returning to Sydney was definitely a homecoming experience for us all. Brett was thrilled to be back in the red and the white and connecting with his Swans family, friends, and the supporters,’ she says.
That return brought great joy to many, and to this day, they remain connected with the club and actively involved in the Sydney junior footy scene.
‘The Sydney Swans is a HUGE part of our life. Indhi has been in the QBE Sydney Swans Academy since he was 11, and he is now 18. Our 15-year-old twins, Tallulah and Memphys are both in the girls' Swans Academy. Skout, who is ten, has just completed the trial assessment for selection into the 2023 under 11 program. The Kirk Kid Krew have grown up at this footy club, and we are most definitely ‘proudly Sydney.’
As preparations intensify this week, a favourite son is leading the way.
‘With Brett’s role as Head of Player Development and Wellbeing, he and his team play an integral role in the preparations of players, their partners, and families having a positive experience this week and then getting to the Grand Final,’ says Smithers - Kirk.
‘It’s an exciting week, but I think one of Brett’s superpowers is his ability to stay really present and help others with strategies and tools to stay present. He is a wonderful guide and mentor and has been in this position before multiple times as both a player and as a coach [2005, 2006, 2013 & 2016].
‘Brett’s experience is so valuable to the younger players. His ability to connect through building meaningful and authentic relationships is a wisdom all its very own.’
Our young team will no doubt channel that superpower, and when the sun sets on Grand Final Eve, preparations will draw to a close. Each player, each coach, left with solitary thought, each of them energised by the challenge and primed for their tilt.
Go Bloods.
