Twenty-five years ago, the Melbourne Football Club’s position could not have been any more different than it is today.
While the 2021 version of Melbourne sees the club head into the AFL grand final as the bookmakers’ favourites, 1996 almost saw the end of one of the league’s power clubs.
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With Melbourne on the verge of merging with Hawthorn, deep in the trenches on the Demons’ side helping save the club was John Stanaway, a man who is now a life member.
After Melbourne survived the merger with Hawthorn, Stanaway wanted to help the club even further, thus beginning his now-22-year tenure at the club.
“I thought at that stage that I’d really like to be able to do something for the club,” he told Wide World of Sports. “Knocking on the door of a footy club and asking what you could do to help, I wasn’t too sure what I could do.
“I bumped into the fella who was the head trainer at the time, we had a bit of a chat and they were looking for people so he asked me to come along.”
Stanaway, now Melbourne’s head trainer himself having risen to the role in 2006, has seen all the highs and the lows of the club over the last 25 years; from the merger scare, to Jim Stynes’ ‘Debt Demolition’ drive, to the infamous tanking investigation.
Now fittingly, he is in the Demons’ Perth hub, ready to watch his side play in its first grand final in 21 years.
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While his beloved club could potentially end the AFL’s longest-standing premiership drought on Saturday, Stanaway recalled the dark days in the late 2000s.
“It was horrible,” he said.
“I still remember being down at Geelong and getting beaten by that ridiculous margin and Chris Connolly bringing all the staff and the players into the room and saying we all had to stick together. Then that week they sacked poor old [Dean Bailey] so it was just tough.
“Then Jimmy [Stynes] came on board and that was inspirational. I still remember the days, even in the last few years, when you’re walking down the race after the game and there’s people throwing their memberships and their scarves at you and the abuse is absolutely horrible.
“I’ve always been close with Nathan Jones and I felt sorry for him because he burdened that whole thing, during the bad time.”
While Stynes inherited a $4.5 million debt when he took over as president in 2008, Stanaway said he did not fear that a merger like 1996 would be on the cards again.
“I felt that there was enough support,” he said.
“That merger business was just really nasty and I was fairly confident that it wouldn’t happen again.
“Being under financial restraint was difficult. We were really flying by the seat of our pants and there was never any extra money.
“You look at Collingwood and they have thousands of members and we only had a few.
“The money they spent on their facilities and their staff compared to what we had was just so far apart it was ridiculous.
“We did it pretty tough down at Junction Oval, it wasn’t easy down there. The offices and everything were pretty basic and the meeting room was just a temporary out on the edge of the ground.
“It was tough but there were still good times though. Everyone just put up with what they had and we got on with it.”
Melbourne were the easybeats of the competition at the turn of the decade, and were given a priority pick in the 2009 draft where they possessed the top two picks.
Despite all the hype surrounding the top of the draft and the processes Melbourne took to secure an extra pick, ironically it was the man they chose with their fifth pick of the draft (No.34), Max Gawn, that ultimately changed the trajectory of the club.
While top pick Tom Scully grabbed the headlines, Gawn, a gangly 208cm big man who was coming off knee surgery, attracted little fanfare coming into the league.
It would take over half a decade for Gawn to transform into the ruck behemoth he has become, and Stanaway recalled the 18-year-old version of the Demons skipper that first came through the doors.
“He came in as a skinny kid that obviously in the early days didn’t worry about it too much,” he said.
“It’s obviously well-spoken about that he got caught smoking on the way to training one day, so he was a different sort of a kid.
“I think it took him a few years to realise that if he was going to stay at the club and be successful, he was going to have to change things. Obviously maturity plays a big part.
“I don’t think he took it serious at the start, that was his problem. Because he was tall and he had his tyres pumped up pretty well he thought he could just roll on and get things done.
“I think he’s realised over the years that you have to work harder to get to where you want to be.”
Gawn, now Melbourne’s captain and a six-time All-Australian, was central to why Stanaway was included in the Demons’ Western Australia hub, despite COVID-19-induced caps on staff allowed in.
“He pulls the group together,” Stanaway said of the Demons skipper.
“If [the players] have to be told that something has to happen or they have to pull their head in, he’ll tell them. He’s not frightened to stand up and say, ‘Righto, this is what we’re going to do’.
“He’s a very good leader and he’s a hell of a nice bloke too. He’ll never walk past you without saying, ‘Gday’, which is nice.
“When you’re on the periphery a little bit, you think, ‘I don’t know if these blokes know who I am or appreciate what I do’, but he’s a really good bloke.”
Despite the additions of high-calibre draft prospects throughout the early 2010s, the wheels of change began turning at Melbourne with the appointment of Paul Roos, the man who helped Sydney break a 72-year premiership drought in 2005.
“A lot happened at once,” Stanaway recalled.
“Staff changes, I don’t like to be negative about anybody in the past, but just different recruiting and different ideas in recruiting [occurred under Roos].
“I think they may have targeted the wrong sorts of players [in the past]. [They had] different staff and different thought patterns as well. Roos had his own people that he brought in and that changed this.”
Roos’ three seasons at the helm saw the club raise its wins total from four in 2014 to a competitive ten in 2016 before he completed a handover to current coach Simon Goodwin.
Melbourne again lifted its wins total in Goodwin’s first two seasons, culminating in a preliminary final appearance in 2018, before a crushing loss to West Coast threatened his tenure at the club.
Seemingly shaken by the humiliation at the hands of the eventual premiers, Melbourne cratered the following season, dropping from fourth to 17th on the ladder.
“2018 was one of those years where we were looking pretty good,” Stanaway recalled.
“Beating West Coast a few games before the finals, I was feeling okay, but the game started we were just steamrolled and it was absolutely devastating.
“It was like when you lose most games, there’s not much talking for a little while. Everybody just does their own thing and there’s a lot of sitting and thinking. Players have to get over a loss quicker than what myself and the staff do.
“[Angus] Brayshaw was only young and I still remember his mum came into the room and he was just a wreck. He was just crying on her shoulder. There was a lot of emotion and a lot of tears, but we had gotten beaten and just had to move on.”
The depths of 2019 proved to be a blessing in disguise for Melbourne, who was able to add talented duo Luke Jackson and Kysaiah Pickett with multiple first-round picks.
Jackson, the 2021 Rising Star winner, and Pickett have infused Melbourne’s veteran core with excitement and flare.
“The group we’ve got now are very close,” Stanaway said.
“I think it was maybe a little bit fractured in the past. There’s obviously certain groups that stick closer than other groups, [but] it’s more of a one-in, all-in feeling at the moment.
“Everybody’s in it together and there’s no fractured groups anywhere, it’s very united. I think that’s the main reason why they’ve been so successful, the group is very much together.
“It’s a mix of the right coaches [as well]. I think Mark Williams has been fantastic. Adem Yze being at Hawthorn and having some success [before joining Melbourne] helps.”
Just days out from its first grand final since 2000, Melbourne’s position could not be more different than it was 21 years ago, when it ran head-first into arguably the greatest single-season team in VFL/AFL history, Essendon.
According to Stanaway, there is little to compare between the club’s two most recent grand final sides.
“This year, obviously we finished on top and we were minor premiers,” he said.
“If we got an injury we’d have three or four blokes who could come in to play, whereas in 2000 Cameron Bruce tore a quad in training in the week of the grand final and there was a selection dilemma and we didn’t have the stock to bring in.
“It was a different sort of team. Although we had some really good players in 2000, we sort of just got there. We beat Carlton by a kick just about on the siren and then beat North Melbourne comfortably, but we were a little bit lucky to get there.
“Whereas this year we’ve played really well and we deserve to be where we are, really.”
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