Sheeds' Legacy

Football Discussion Stargazer Memorial EFC History Board
1

Was talking to a mate who declared Clarko a selfish person. It was a lightbulb moment; a thought about Sheeds and the type of legacy / standing he has in the game compared to the angry little man who’s so desperate to seperate himself from other legends with 4 flags. The man is so full of self importance.

Anyway, my question … aside from Sheeds’ premierships how would you describe his influence on the game? I think the man is more than his flags but I need help to formulate my arguments when I next catch up with a mate who happens to be a Hawks supporter and hates Sheeds with a passion!

2

Sheeds was a forward thinking coach who sometimes was light years ahead of his rivals with some of his ideas, not just for our club but the bigger picture of the game.

Sheeds pioneered the full-time professional coach by becoming the very first coach to be one which also was a precursor to having full time professional footballers of which he espoused.

He turned our club into a trailblazer during the nineties with the original upgrade of the Windy Hill facilities (which unfortunately the board were happy to rest on its laurels for way too long before eventually becoming outdated) by setting a high standard of professionalism for the rest of the competition to aspire to, of which a number of them quickly surpassed us.

Rules were changed because of some of his cunningly sly tactics such as the 15 metre rule being dumped in favour of a 50 metre rule due to the deliberate time wasting that he ordered his players to apply to slow the game down when the opposition got a run on in a match.

Sheeds was also prominent in helping Indiginous footballers to be recruited into the game in larger numbers by actively working the NT and communities up there by having a constant presense in the off-season by taking EFC players up there on tours and helping establish the annual, at the time, Indigenous All-Stars v Essendon Pre-season games. He actually started doing these tours in his Richmond days in the late 60’s along with the late Tigers CEO Graeme Richmond.

He also has been a big advocate for taking the game overseas too.

Sheeds’ other great talent was marketing our club and the game. He did this by taking the club all over the country during the eighties into small country towns everywhere around Australia. In fact I was at one such game in the pre-season of '85 when he brought almost the entire '84 Premiership side, along with an recovering Paul Salmon from that knee injury from the previous year, to Collie, WA to play the three-peat WAFL Premiers Swan Districts of which we duly dispatched by 99 points that day.

There will probably be a lot more things that he did that I can’t remember at the moment but everything Sheeds did within the game was done with genuine love and passion for the game overall, not just the EFC.

As for Clarkson, I am yet to see how his successful reign has made any positive impact on the game at all apart from making Hawthorn an absolute juggernaut of the modern era.

With Sheeds everything he did at Essendon seemed to translate into the game itself.

Sheeds truly is a Master, Clarko just a great club coach.

3
Was talking to a mate who declared Clarko a selfish person. It was a lightbulb moment; a thought about Sheeds and the type of legacy / standing he has in the game compared to the angry little man who's so desperate to seperate himself from other legends with 4 flags. The man is so full of self importance.

Anyway, my question … aside from Sheeds’ premierships how would you describe his influence on the game? I think the man is more than his flags but I need help to formulate my arguments when I next catch up with a mate who happens to be a Hawks supporter and hates Sheeds with a passion!

http://www.teamsattheirbest.com/articles_sheedy.php

Found this on the net, thought you might enjoy the read.

4

I won’t weigh in too heavily, but I think Sheedy had a far greater influence over the culture and public perception of the AFL, whereas Clarkson’s influence probably doesn’t extend far beyond what happens on the field (no on should deny that Clarko changed the way the game is played, particularly in regards to defensive setups and such a large emphasis on foot skills)

5

Hey, thanks for the feedback. Great stuff

6

Sheedy built 3 premiership teams across 3 eras. I’d say to date clarko has only built one team and done very well with that team.

7

If Clarksons selfish than I want selfy mcselfish as our next coach.

1 Like
8

Yes, as ‘they’ say, it’s all about winning the big one and supporters ultimately won’t care. Interestingly, my Collingwood friend hates Malthouse mainly because of his egocentricity, believing it cost them the 2011 flag.

In contrast, don’t think many Essendon supporters dislike our icon whereas it wouldn’t surprise if Hawks supporters are questioning their man and asking themselves, success at what cost? Reckon he’s left a lasting bitter taste in their mouth

9

In hindsight hung on too long at EFC and should’ve retired after 2004

Clarkson could well of been EFC coach for 2005

10

With the advantage of hindsight I tend to disagree. Sheeds was doing business with 1 hand tied behind his back, especially with Jackson reluctant to invest in needed resources.

Sheeds started his last year in hot form but when Jackson decided to call time on the great mans career the team fell in a hole. Yes, the club just couldn’t buy decent recruits from other clubs to fill holes but in time he (and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility) would’ve built a new team #ancienthistory

1 Like
11
With the advantage of hindsight I tend to disagree. Sheeds was doing business with 1 hand tied behind his back, especially with Jackson reluctant to invest in needed resources.

Sheeds started his last year in hot form but when Jackson decided to call time on the great mans career the team fell in a hole. Yes, the club just couldn’t buy decent recruits from other clubs to fill holes but in time he (and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility) would’ve built a new team #ancienthistory

I completely agree that the club sacked Sheedy – sorry, decided not to offer him another contract – at the absolutely worst time and in the worst possible way, but to blame it all on Jackson is wrong. It was a board decision. A number of board members had been after him for some time, and the decision was made before the 2007 season began. Sheedy was not told.

After the 2000 premiership Sheedy made a lot of bad errors. Basically he believed all the bullshit about how we were the best team of all time, and he was the greatest coach of all time, etc., etc. The low point was the then president, Graham McMahon, announcing that we were the Manchester United of the AFL – overlooking small differences such as that Man U had won about 7 of the previous 10 EPL championships, whereas we had won exactly one AFL premiership. But Sheedy went along with it all very enthusiastically, and neglected only one thing, which was to mainain focus. So we slid down the ladder, and had one disappointing year after another.

He had a contract renewal in 2004 or 2005, and he should have been let go then.
But he wasn’t.

He got himself together in 2005. He stopped drinking and he refocussed on football. The results took a while to show on the field, but in 2007 they began to. Which was after the board had decided that he was going.

We had a great start to 2007. We were never going to win the flag that year, but we were in the top 4 mid-season. That was when it became known that he was going to be gone at the end of the season, and he and the team understandably fell in a hole.

The board proceeded to compound the error by appointing Matthew Knights, a coach with a consistent record of failure, and backed it up by appointing James Hird to succeed Knights, because he had been a great player and great players always make great coaches.

It’s not Jackson’s fault that we’ve had a disastrous 15 years. It’s taken a combined effort by a number of people. No doubt Jackson didn’t help, but to put all the blame on him is unfair.

Sheedy was great at building teams, but not very good in keeping them at the top. He won us 4 premierships in 27 years, which is a pretty good effort. In the same period Carlton won 4 and Hawthorn won 5.

12

If we had the same amount of support from the maggots and AFL as the Filth and Hawthorn had, we could have won 9.

1 Like
13

Whoa Shelton10, you mention Sheeds drinking like he was an alcoholic which is just wrong. He actually woke up that he had become unhealthy and set out to fix it.

And while you lump Hird in as a bad coach with that other bloke, I still believe if Dank had never been born Hird would have proved himself a greater coach than Sheeds. We will never know.

14

If we never sacked knights we never would’ve had the saga. we’d just still be a joke of a club.

15
Whoa Shelton10, you mention Sheeds drinking like he was an alcoholic which is just wrong. He actually woke up that he had become unhealthy and set out to fix it.

And while you lump Hird in as a bad coach with that other bloke, I still believe if Dank had never been born Hird would have proved himself a greater coach than Sheeds. We will never know.

I didn’t say that Sheedy was an alcoholic at all. I simply said that he stopped drinking. I’m not sure of the exact timing, but there were reports of him having passed out at the beach one day over summer after having drunk red wine, and I think he gave up the grog not much later.

I don’t lump Hird in with Knights. The Knights appointment was just a poor choice. The Hird appointment was also a bad one, but for different reasons: he was seen as the “silver bullet” who would defeat all our enemies and fix all our problems, purely because he had been such an exceptional player. He had no coaching experience and in fact had up to that point said that he didn’t want to coach.

16

The 2000 team was unbelievably good

to then have salary cap issues and falling behind in football department spending (recruiting team, fitness staff, coaches, high school standard gym etc)

These are some the reasons we fell away

I don’t think Sheeds was responsible for absolutely everything. The board however.

1 Like
17
The 2000 team was unbelievably good

to then have salary cap issues and falling behind in football department spending (recruiting team, fitness staff, coaches, high school standard gym etc)

These are some the reasons we fell away

I don’t think Sheeds was responsible for absolutely everything. The board however.

I agree that Sheedy wasn’t solely responsible for us falling away after 2000, but I believe that he bears the lion’s share of the responsibility, aided and abetted by a very poor Board.

Sheedy has to take a lot of responsibility because at that time he absolutely dominated the club. He’d been there so long and achieved so much that if he wanted something then it happened, and if he didn’t want something then it didn’t happen. Not in absolutely everything, but almost everything. He got carried away with his success after we completely dominated the 2000 season and we began to decline from that moment onward. We lost every game of the 2001 pre-season.

18
I don't lump Hird in with Knights. The Knights appointment was just a poor choice. The Hird appointment was also a bad one, but for different reasons: he was seen as the "silver bullet" who would defeat all our enemies and fix all our problems, purely because he had been such an exceptional player. He had no coaching experience and in fact had up to that point said that he didn't want to coach.
The other difference between the two is that Hird could actually coach, experience or otherwise.
We lost every game of the 2001 pre-season.

And then came out, smashed North round one, finished on top of the ladder and played in the grand final.

1 Like
19
I don't lump Hird in with Knights. The Knights appointment was just a poor choice. The Hird appointment was also a bad one, but for different reasons: he was seen as the "silver bullet" who would defeat all our enemies and fix all our problems, purely because he had been such an exceptional player. He had no coaching experience and in fact had up to that point said that he didn't want to coach.
The other difference between the two is that Hird could actually coach, experience or otherwise.
We lost every game of the 2001 pre-season.

And then came out, smashed North round one, finished on top of the ladder and played in the grand final.

Yes. But lost twice to Carlton, the away games at Port and Brisbane, and to Richmond. And the Grand Final.