Brendan Goddard, Dyson Heppell & Mick Hurley have been awarded Life Membership of the EFC
Well done, richly deserved
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Well done to each of the boys! Great news.
Having an argument with one of my Melbourne supporter friends over this. They think Goddard getting life membership is a joke.
Do supporters of other clubs truly not realise what Goddard did for us during the saga?
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Congratulations to all three.
Excellent decision to offer Life Membership to BJ⌠our members will be thrilled⌠the rest can FRO.
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Wait, ⌠a Melbourne supporter has an opinion on who another club makes Life Members??
Tell that boy to get a fkn life. FMD
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Supporters of other clubs donât understand what the club actually went through at all, let alone the immensity of Goddardâs dedication. Even some Essendon supporters have trouble with it.
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Your friend barracks for the AFL owned Melbourne Demons. they are the joke. and they can thank us for all the equalisation money we pumped into them
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Tell him to get â â â â â â . He deserves it 100% for what heâs done for the club.
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Fabulous article on Goddard.
Well done champ. One of the all time Bomber greats in my view.
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Can you post the article please, havenât clicked on an age article since 2012. Thanks.
Whatâs this, their club, itâs his club too and has been for 6 years (dumbassâs)
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Bombers life membership a parting gift for Goddard
To gain life membership at Essendon, you must do one of three things: play 150 games, give 10 yearsâ service or be part of a premiership team.
Brendon Goddard didnât achieve any of those things, but as an intimate dinner at the exclusive Cathedral Lodge golf club with players and staff from Essendon and St Kilda came to a close, he became one.
âIt was a thank you dinner that turned into more of a retirement dinner,â Goddard said.
â(Essendon footy boss) Dan Richardson got up, then Ned (Goddardâs manager Craig Kelly) and then at the end (Essendon CEO) Xavier Campbell got up and I thought he was saying a few words on behalf of the club and then he said he wanted to make a presentation.â
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During that presentation, Campbell explained that the clubâs board had voted to induct Goddard as a life member because of his âextraordinary serviceâ.
Itâs a move the club has made only a handful of times in its long history. Senior figures at Tullamarine canât even remember the last time it happened, but felt it was warranted by Goddardâs contribution to Essendon.
Goddard was blown away. And not in the way in which a player is shocked at winning an award after a dominant year. This wasnât humility-driven shock. He genuinely couldnât believe it.
âOh, I completely couldnât,â Goddard said, âIt didnât even cross my mind. To say it was a surprise was an understatement.
âWhen he first said it â I said; âhow is this possible?ââ
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Goddard knows all to well about what it takes to be a life member at a club. After 208 games, he is one at St Kilda.
âApparently, the board have the power to hand out life memberships to people who donât naturally qualify ⌠that makes it even more special.â
Goddard will be formally announced as a life member alongside two of his friends and former teammates - captain Dyson Heppell and star swingman Michael Hurley - after the pair reached their 150-game milestones earlier this year.
Barely 12 weeks after Goddard arrived at Essendon, the club was embroiled in arguably the most devastating drugs saga to occur in Australian sport.
It sometimes gets lost what a pick-up Goddard was for Essendon. He arrived at the club as a 200-gamer, a two-time All-Australian and one of the best utilities in the competition.
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But it was off the field that he had to develop quickly when he arrived at his new club.
âItâs easy to be consumed by just football at a younger age,â Goddard said.
âBut once you get older you start to understand whatâs really important both in life and football.
âMy role at Essendon was vastly different to what my role was at the Saints.
âIf I had a choice I wouldnât be playing that role because we wouldnât have been in that position but I didnât see it as a burden or anything like that.â
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Instead of seeing it as a burden, Goddard used it as motivation to develop his leadership.
As the supplements saga deepened and players were suspended, Goddard captained the club in 2016, when the Bombers won just three games in tumultuous circumstances.
âIâve never had any regrets,â Goddard said.
âEverything that happened three months after I arrived ⌠no one had any idea of the magnitude of what it was.
âI mean, personally, it was the prime of my football.
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âTwo or three years of my football was somewhat wasted, but I look at it as a time that I grew not just as a footballer but as a person and a leader.â
And thatâs what symbolises Goddardâs career at Essendon; the personal sacrifices he had to make to the second half of his career.
Thatâs not to describe him as a martyr, as he couldnât have foreseen what was going to happen.
He wasnât a knight in shining armour that came to save the damsel in distress. But he found positive motivation in dire circumstances.
Selflessness is one of the attributes that stands out for Craig Kelly, Goddardâs long-standing manager and head of giant sports management agency TLA.
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Kelly was sitting close to Goddard when Campbell announced his life membership.
âThe feeling in the room was pretty special,â Kelly said.
âThe common theme was that heâs very, well ⌠the general public have a very different perception of what the real man is about.
âHeâs a very special person, heâs loyal and he just wants to make places that heâs been at better.
âItâs never about him, itâs always about his club and his teammates.â
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And, intriguingly, the football world had to wait until this week to learn of Goddardâs official retirement.
While not many genuinely thought we would be seeing him at a third club in 2019, the possibility still lingered.
And while he was chaired off the Adelaide Oval by Hurley and Cale Hooker, following the Bombersâ resounding final win against Port Adelaide, his retirement was much more subtle.
A simple Instagram post on Wednesday night, thanking his family, friends and teammates.
For a 334-gamer, thatâs about as low-key as it gets.
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âThe thing of retiring ⌠itâs not important for it to be public for BJ,â Kelly continued.
âI donât think the public really know the real Brendon ⌠and they probably never will.â
As far as what lies ahead for the 33-year-old, Goddard is remaining tight-lipped. But one thing is for sure, heâs leaving football behind.
âThereâs a few balls in the air,â Goddard said with a chuckle, perhaps subtly referencing future plans for his second love, the game of golf.
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âI have been planning for life after football. Just taking my time and seeing my family and doing things we havenât been able to do together in a long time.
âOnce I got out of the football bubble and the reality of not returning to Essendon kicked in ⌠I found myself not being desperate or super hungry to get back into it and playing again.
âThe reality of playing for someone else and potentially moving, it just wasnât that appealing.
âI will miss it, itâs what I know and what Iâm good at. There might be something in a year or two but for now there will be a gap year ⌠at least.â
Unfortunately, there were three significant absentees who couldnât make it to Goddardâs farewell dinner: two of his coaches - Ross Lyon and Grant Thomas - and close friend and St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt.
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Kelly, when asked to describe his time working with Goddard, said: âItâs been an absolute pleasure to be part of his football life.â
And what an extraordinary football life: 15 years, 334 games and 160 goals.
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I loved Goddard as a footballer well before he came to Essendon. My feelings and respect for him as a player and servant of the club are beyond description. I hope to be able to thank him personally one day -especially as I have regrettably passed up the opportunity a couple of times. Deserves life membership and more.
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I must say itâs a bit early for Heppell and Hurley. Theyâre both in mid-career. And why Hurley but not Hooker?
Well done to BJ though. Richly deserved.
Heppell and Hurley automatically qualify for it as they have played 150 games.
Hooksy was last year⌠along with Zaka, Belly, Gussy and a few others
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Hooker made life member in 2017
Actually it was changed years ago to give the board the discretion for players who didnât meet the established criteria but were considered worthy additions.
But that would have been too much research to do for The Age (see here for article noting change).
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Someone email the link to the Rage, accompanied with the appropriate dressing down and abuse please. K? Thx.
Idiots.
Life membership selection criteria amended
Jan 2, 2012 7:00AM
Essendon Football Club Board has resolved to amend its criteria for the consideration of awarding Life Membership.
The amends only impact players, both past and present and the selection criteria now applied is as follows:
- Playing of 150 senior matches (AFL home and away or finals);
- 10 years on the senior list;
- A Premiership player; and
- At the Boardâs discretion.
At the season launch in 2012, recently retired player Andrew Welsh and current players David Hille and Brent Stanton will be awarded the honour.
Premiership players not already life members will be awarded in retrospect at a special premiership players dinner on the eve of the 2012 season.
Aside from the discussion about the Saga, Goddard was actually a f*cking good player.
Deserves to be a life member simply on playing ability on the ground.
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ActuallyâŚ
Iâd probably praise himâŚ
Melbourne supporters can barely remember their own players name and generally call them by their number like a Chinese restaurant meal order.
The fact he knew Goddard by name is astounding.
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