If you got given an opportunity to make a film or a tv series about Essendon, what time period, person/player or aspect would you base your storyline around?
I’d have to say for me, following James Hird through the Saga years. The fall from grace was a long and harrowing path.
Alternatively, Jobe Watson and his odyssey from being an overweight and under performing ‘son of a legend’ draftee to becoming the captain, brown medalist and pillar of strength through the clubs darkest hours.
Both as limited tv series.
For a movie - Blake Caracellas journey from and back to Essendon.
Yeah probably Hird, would make compelling and controversy viewing, but for me I would like the Tim Watson era, 3 premierships and one in the comeback year, 4th youngest player to play VFL/AFL, plus he played through from VFL to AFL, and the game did change a lot from 1977 to 1993.
As a dramatic mini-series I’d like to see Essendon 1981-1984.
I know I’ve done endless plugs for this book, but Football Ltd would make a great mini-series.
Maybe I’m getting old but it just has to be about Sheeds and 1984, nothing else is even close, and it could begin with the infamous serve he gave to the players for enjoying themselves at the 1983 Grand Final Wake with flashbacks to Watson being taken out in the first quarter. 84 was the year we emerged from the wilderness, love to see a series of that year in the Ken Burns mode.
If you want multiple series, do the whole Sheedy era, would have literally everything, highs, lows, behind the scenes stuff and intrigue, you name it the Sheedy era had it - and 4 blooddy flags!
You could start there, but I’d want to see it from his first interview with the club (and others that were interviewed).
His ideas on recruitment, travelling the country and remote areas, what people thought of him at the start, him threatening to ‘put the boots back on’, the ‘81 streak…
I’d hate to miss any of that.
Movie starts at the 80 GF with Richmond. Act one follows his appointment and transform into a “professional” coach.
Act two ends follows the 83 season, ending with the GF loss.
Act three is the 84 GF.
Prologue reviews the success of 2000
Act one is the end at Essendon, flash forward to appointment at GWS
Act two follows the challenge of establishing a club in an area that didn’t want them
Act three leads to GWS’ first win
Tells two stories - an old school coach learning to adapt in a highly technical and sanitised sporting environment, and the changing cultural faces of the Australian suburbs with associated prejudices.
I would even go further back and get him as a kid and his love for Football to make it and play VFL with Richmond. The movie could then focus on why his passion grew with Essendon.
Take it all the way to 2000 and beyond and it is an epic series, probably 3 seasons
