GAME ON FOR FNQ Bombers legend got ball rolling
AS is the case with many aspects of Australian rules football, the great Kevin Sheedy’s fingerprints are all over the growth of the game to the Far North.
Well before the Gold Coast Suns and Richmond played the first match for premiership points in Cairns in 2011, the Essendon coaching legend made his impact in the region.
Sheedy, these days pushing 70 years of age, has made it his mission to grow Aussie rules, helping further the Sherrin in Darwin, London, Tokyo and up to Cairns in his early days as the coach of the Bombers.
“The first time I came up to Cairns was in the early 1970s with a mate of mine, Bruce Andrews,” Sheedy said this week.
“Historically, I thought if I was going to talk the talk, I needed to walk the walk. When I got the coaching job in 1981 I aimed to take the club around Australia and we did.”
His Bombers broke new ground on Sunday, January 17, 1991 when they played a practice match against the Brisbane Bears at Cazalys Stadium.
It was the first senior AFL match of any description in town and a forerunner to the first AFL premiership match 20 years later, between the Suns and Tigers.
On that day, conditions were oppressive as Troy Clarke, coming off a knee reconstruction, made his first senior appearance for the Bears. Clarke, a South Cairns product at 17, had won the Crathern Medal as the best and fairest player in the Cairns senior league.
History says it was so hot on the first day elite footy landed in Cairns, at halftime players were sitting in Eskies and trying to squeeze into a fridge in an effort to cool down.
Sheedy, who coached and played in 929 games across five decades, continued to bring matches to the region and fondly recalls a game a few seasons after the first contest.
“We cut the game short because a torrential storm was coming up the coast,” Sheedy said. “The last quarter went for 15 minutes so we could get out of the ground and no one was in harm’s way.”
While Sheedy laid the platform for the game to grow north, it was two other AFL heavyweights who sealed the deal.
Andrew Demetriou, who was chief executive officer of the Australian Football League from 2003 and 2014, along with now Greater Western Sydney Giants chief David Matthews, delivered the first game for “four points”.
AFL Cairns boss Gary Young recalled his memories of seeing Demetriou and Matthews, both on holidays in Port Douglas, around a decade ago.
“I bumped into Demetriou and I told him: “How good is it up here? We need to get footy up here,” Matthews told Young all those years ago.
Young and now AFL Cape York regional manager Rick Hanlon had dinner with Matthews in Port Douglas to get the ball rolling.
“That is more the catalyst of bringing AFL games here,” Young said.
“Dave was an enormous supporter and he was close with Sheeds and they both come back every now and again, and are great friends of AFL Cairns.”
Sheedy, who still works for the Bombers three days a week, remembers Cazalys Stadium as one of the better grounds he has coached at.
“The stadium in Cairns is one of the best ever built and was ahead of its time,” he said.
“As a matter of fact, Cazalys Stadium was a better surface than many Victorian grounds. Our players thought they were playing on a lawn tennis court.”
The annual game has progressed from Tigers against Suns in the early days to reigning premiers Western Bulldogs facing the Suns and Young is still surprised the idea came to fruition so quickly.
“I thought it would take five or so years to get a game for premiership points,” Young said. “All of a sudden, in 2010, there was a phone call and ‘do you want a match?’ it said.
“Yep, we do.”