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Simon Madden once called Kevin Sheedy: “An enigma. Batman and Bruce Wayne all in one.” But Batman and Bruce Wayne ARE one. Batman is really just Wayne with a cape and some ears.
Sheedy does like to tell a joke every now and then so perhaps Batman and the Joker all in one would be better . Except Batman and the Joker aren’t all that different either.
Remember in The Killing Joke when Batman says to his smiling insane nemesis: “I don’t know what it was that bent your life out of shape, but who knows? Maybe I’ve been there too.”
No let’s stick with the old Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They’re one, and completely different.
When James Hird was suffering from his chronic foot injury, Sheedy said: “Don’t worry about it. Make sure you get it right so it doesn’t go again”, and sent him to Munich to see eccentric physician and injector of “homoeopathic substances” Dr Hans- Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt.
Later Hird would comment: “If there’s one club you want to get a serious injury at it’s Essendon”.
However when Dean Wallis told Sheedy he was thinking of retiring after three years of hamstring injuries Sheedy replied: “You’re ******* (f word) what?! You ******* (f word) **** (c word)! “.
He then upended the table with its cups of coffee onto Wallis.
One of Essendon’s greatest players, Tim Watson, was coached by Sheedy for twelve years but still seems unsure who the man is and exactly what happened during that time: “Kevin is a little eccentric and has been known to make the odd comment or push the odd idea…Is he a genius? Genius is a very strong word”.
He released a book, Kevin Sheedy. The Jigsaw Man, which included the thoughts of other players but that only made matters worse. Often they appear to be talking about a completely different person.
“I never really got to meet him one on one. Until such time as you earned his respect, he was cold on you”, said Mark Harvey. Mark Thompson in the early days would cop an elbow from his coach at training if he spilled the ball.
But to a young Darren Berwick ‘he was more of a father figure to me than anything, because my father passed away a couple of years before”. To Michael Long, a young shy indigenous player struggling in the intimidating atmosphere of Melbourne and top flight football, Sheedy was “almost like a father who brought me into this world”.
He also mentions somewhere, without elaborating, that he was also like a mother.
More importantly for Long, Sheedy was a role model outside of sport and a significant figure in bringing about reconciliation between indigenous and non indigenous people.
Now who would have believed that a thug from Richmond with mutton chops and no teeth would one day have those things said about him?
Some have suggested his philanthropy is really self promotion citing the 1996 draft when he told club officials “I want to be the first person to coach a Maori”.
For a plumber who had previously only read one book (the Catechism), he has certainly come a long way. And he’s still going.
His obsessive, impulsive personality is more suited to teaching than plumbing. If the school kids at GWS show committment then he will reward them with loyalty: “If you believe in them and they believe in you , then it’s amazing what you get”.
If any of them tell him they’re giving up because of a hamstring injury, they certainly will be amazed at what they get.
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