In a week in which the club pays tribute to its 1977 premiership stars, it’s only fitting NMFC.com.au looks back at the amazing impact of the great coach Ron Barassi.
‘The Coach, A Season with Ron Barassi’ was penned by John Powers, who followed Barassi and the North team for the entire 1977 season, which culminated in the club’s second flag.
Over the next three days, we’ll be publishing excerpts from the book.
Having come off an amazing 67-point victory against Hawthorn in the Preliminary Final, North was into its second Grand Final in three seasons.
Melbourne, in its Grand Final weeks, becomes a slightly daft, mildly off-kilter city. Concern over the strained ankle of a champion footballer can push news of hostile rumblings in the Middle East onto pages two or three of the daily papers. Radio and television seems to be almost totally dominated by interviews with players in the forthcoming match, or with old champions reminiscing about great battles of the past. And while intellectuals bemoan the philistinism of their countrymen for allowing themselves to be so pointlessly diverted from the major issues of human destiny, bets are laid in every bar, tickets for seats at the game are scalped at between six and eight times their face value and the rooms of every hotel fill with interstate and country visitors arriving to share in the revelry of ‘finals fever’.
On The Friday before the 1977 Grand Final, the city came to a virtual standstill as between midday and 12.30, Bourke Street was closed to traffic and both competing teams, led by their coaches, rolled in a motorcade from Parliament House to the front of Myers. There, trailing the yards of multi-coloured streamers, they were greeted by the governor of the state and the mayor of the city.
Both coaches, their arms upraised, stepped forward onto the dais to accept the ovation of the thousands of surrounding spectators.
“I just wish today was tomorrow,” Tom Hafey said through the microphones.
And a smiling Barassi, in his turn, replied characteristically: “Tom’s beaten me in two Premierships so far … and I’m sick of it.”
While he joined in the banter and fun of the festivities, Barassi had only one thing on his mind, game day.
The fuss, the carnival atmosphere leading up to the Grand Final, presented a new problem for Barassi.
“What you’ve got to guard against now,” he told the players earlier in the week, “is thinking that just getting to the Premiership is enough. It’s not! And there’ll be a lot of pressure on you this week from the press and media to make you feel that the real job’s over. People are going to congratulate you, and shake your hands, and make a helluva fuss of you wherever you go.” He shook his index finger at them in warning. “But that all stops in five days’ time if we don’t beat Collingwood on Saturday. So don’t get sucked in by it. The most important game of the season is still in front of us, and we’ve got to be certain we go into it mentally and physically right. It’s no earthly use reaching a Premiership unless you go that one extra step and win the Flag! … then you can relax and lap up everything that’s due to you.”
So throughout the week, training continued with remorseless intensity…
Keep an eye on NMFC.com.au for more excerpts in the coming days.
The Coach, A Season with Ron Barassi, by John Powers, (Slattery Media Group, 2017). RRP $19.95.
Available from participating bookshops, the North Melbourne Football Club, or books.slatterymedia.com.
