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It wasn’t his first time, but I can still remember the afternoon I had my Kevin Sheedy debut in Sydney. It was way back in 1993.
The Swans were still a rabble, and their pair of defeats to start the season had taken their losing streak tally to 17.
Sheedy’s Essendon – the Baby Bombers – hadn’t exactly set tongues wagging about potential September glory. They too brought a winless record for 1993 to the SCG that day.
Just over 9,000 – and some suggested that count included bar staff, ground attendants, and even players and coaching staff – turned out that day to see the Swans play Essendon into form – a 28.13 (181) to 14.11 (95) victory.
I was a Australian football rookie reporter at that stage, and I can’t remember precisely what he told us in the media after the win, but to have an icon of the game – a three-time premiership player, and already a dual premiership winning coach – in front us, talking footy, was something surreal.
The Swans went on to win a game that season. Sheedy’s Bombers, well that win against Sydney kickstarted what would eventually be an amazing season, culminating in a premiership win on the last Saturday in September.
It was my first Sydney-Sheedy encounter, but his first venture to the city came way back in his second season as Essendon coach, when he brought the team to the SCG in May, 1982 and they won by a kick.
This Sunday afternoon (coincidentally against the Tigers, the club where he played 251 games) Sheedy will coach his last game in the Harbour City.
In the 31 years since he first coached in town, there have been some memorable matches, none more so than the 1996 preliminary final at the SCG.
I still believe it is the most significant game of VFL-AFL ever played in Sydney. It was the night Tony Lockett kicked a point after the final siren to send the Swans into the grand final.
Sheedy has had his wins, his losses, even a draw in Sydney, but while results with his GWS Giants haven’t been really favourable in town since they entered the competition last year, his work for the game outside the white line cannot be glazed over.
When the Giants signed Sheedy in November 2009, there were a lot of sceptics. Too old, too long out of the game, it just won’t work.
But, as the Giants’ hierarchy knew, it wasn’t about just coaching a football team, it was about spreading ‘the Gospel according to the Giants’, and in Sheedy they had the perfect mix.
An iconic figure in the game, a proven coach, a name which was known in Sydney, and a top class promoter and marketer. It really was win-win.
No other coach in the AFL at the time (with perhaps the exception of pulling off a massive coup and signing Paul Roos), would have fit the new franchise better.
It would be more than two years before the Giants played a game, and they needed someone out there creating publicity, interest, and getting his head and name in the media.
Sheedy had the profile to do that, and did it, and his contribution to the growth of the club in those early days can never be underplayed.
The signing of NRL player Israel Folau certainly helped the Giants significantly in the PR side of things, but while many considered it little more than a gimmick, with Sheedy there was always legitimacy.
In those first two years while they didn’t have a team in the competition, Sheedy still managed to get the Giants a share of the spotlight.
When they did start playing, the questions came about whether he was coaching, or his assistant Mark Williams was running the show. It’s been the same this year with Leon Cameron.
It’s been said Sheedy does the match-day stuff, the motivation and working individually with his youngsters, while Williams and now Cameron do more the day-to-day coaching.
Really it doesn’t matter who does, or did what. Sheedy was the figurehead, and the amount of footy knowledge and smarts he has been able to pass on to his young team will be invaluable many years from now.
Statistically Sheedy has just three wins from 42 games as GWS Giants coach, but it really isn’t about numbers.
Look away from wins and losses and you can get a real perspective of how valuable he has been, and what a job Kevin Sheedy has done not only for the Giants but the game in Sydney.
The Giants are hoping he will stick around in 2014, and continue to have a role with the club.
Buddy Franklin would be a hell of a signing for GWS, but so too would Sheedy.
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