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He’s arguably Australia’s most powerful sporting figures and he used to call Arden Street home. But just how did outgoing AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou end up playing for North Melbourne?

During an in-depth interview with current player and future journalist Majak Daw, the former Kangaroo says it all came about by ‘accident’.

Living in Coburg at the time, Demetriou thought his football destiny was several kilometres away from the Kangaroos’ headquarters due to ‘zoning’.

“I thought I was in Carlton’s zone, so I went and got asked by Carlton to have a run around and play a practice match, which I did and then found out a few days later from Carlton that I was in North Melbourne’s zone.

“I was on the wrong side of the street,” Demetriou explained.

Not wanting to give up the talented winger, Carlton attempted to dupe its neighbour and rival by telling Demetriou to under-perform so he wouldn’t impress anyone at North.

“They (Carlton) asked me to kick with my left foot and fall over and act like a dill at training at North but unbeknown to me the coach there was Ray Jordan and he knew a little bit about me, so they asked me to go and play at North Melbourne, so I had no option I was living in their zone.

“Once I started there, I loved it so it was pretty easy to stay at North Melbourne.”

PRESS PLAY above to watch the interview | YouTube

But he wasn’t an automatic senior selection after playing with the under 19's.

“I nearly didn’t make the list, in fact I made the supplementary list as the called it in those days and I ended up playing the first six or seven games in the reserves and struck a bit of form with Malcolm Blight as our coach.”

Demetriou went on to play 103 games for the club and kicked 47 goals between 1981 and 1987.

“Maybe it was a wake-up call almost being cut,” he admitted.

Between Daw and Demetriou, there are a lot of similarities. Both are from multicultural backgrounds and both have seen the ugly side of racism. Demetriou though, experienced it through the eyes of others like Jim and Phil Krakouer.

“In that environment growing up, I didn’t experience any form of backlash or any form of racism until I started playing to be honest. Back in those days when you got called a ‘wog’ or a ‘dago’, we used to laugh about it.

“When I started in 1981, Jimmy and Phil arrived at the club and they arrived at a time when we had some big recruits. Ron Joseph recruited Phil Kelly, Kim Hodgeman, Peter Jonas, it was big, I remember how big it was.

“Phil and Jimmy came to training, I’ll never forget it, we were at Kensington at Holland Park doing pre-season training and I remember back in those days it was hot, you weren’t allowed to have any water…you know if you had water, you were weak. But Phil and Jimmy were amazing; they were doing things at training like they had radar.

“As they became really fantastic players, people wanted to get under their skin and the crowd and opposition players…so I saw that first-hand and it did get under their skin, they were really offended. Jimmy used to react; he used to fight back a lot. Phil, he reacted in a different way but obviously wasn’t happy.”

Daw too has been subjected to racial slurs on more than one occasion and has sought comfort at the club which has a revered and supportive culture.

Demetriou looks back on his days at North with pride and admits to having a soft spot for the Roos.

“You’ve always got a connection with a club if you played for them, particularly if you played a hundred games, so I feel a connection to the club and if the club’s doing well I guess you feel good about it.”

While the exterior may look different, the heart and soul of North remains the same according to Demetriou.

“The culture’s probably not too different because it’s only up until the last three or four years that North Melbourne’s had a state-of-the-art training facility. So when I was at Arden Street, we probably had better training facilities in some ways than when lots of guys started who are at the club now.

“…I think the culture, because it was a struggling football club with a small fan-base, the culture was always being up against it, about hard work, I mean it was a good working-class culture in amongst the area and to be quite frank, North Melbourne’s produced a lot of good people, good players, good coaches, good administrators; people that have made a contribution.

“North…should be proud of what sort of people and what sort of culture it’s produced and I don’t think it’s any different now under Brad Scott, I think he knows hard work pays off and I still see lots of similarities between the culture.”

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation throughout the interview; the old fashioned post-match recovery sessions.

“My gosh, the Sunday morning recoveries were interesting, they were just a barrel of beer, chicken, hot pies, guys like Wayne Schimmelbusch and Arnold Briedis playing table tennis almost semi-naked…the training back then wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now.”

Open training Saturday at Arden Street from 11.30am. Photos, autographs and more.