Do Go On - 413 - The History of the St Kilda Football Club

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

The St Kilda FC was formed in 1873, from there it's been a wild ride - tune in to hear the story of one of the great sporting clubs of the world!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 08:12 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Listen to Matt on Nick's pod Unpluggered: https://unpluggered.captivate.fm/episode/you-go-for-the-saints-now-ft-matt-stewartNick's website: https://www.zerohanger.com/Support the show and get rewards like bonus eps: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts & get bonus eps in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:saints.com.au/club/historyyoutube.com/watch?v=CWZYqbKYUdcnma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/nicky-winmars-stand Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hello, Matt. Hey Dave, quick question.

How good is it to be alive? I think it's pretty good. Okay, you don't normally answer. I appreciate that. But let's get a second opinion. This week we are joined by a very special guest. We are joined by Nick Splitter from the Unplugged Podcast and Zerohanger. Hello, Nick.

Hey, fellas. How you doing? Good, thank you. So good, Nick. Nick, how good is it to be alive? I'm rough to be alive. At the time of recording, Saints playing a final. tomorrow and it feels pretty good.

It feels pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah. Doesn't happen that often? No. First time playing one at the MCJ in 13 years. It's been a while. It has been a while. It has been a while.

Last time was a grand final. Lionel Richie played, but more of that later. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about Lionel. So yeah, you're a big Saints fan, Nick. You podcast unplugged. I was on a recent episode, which was a lot of fun.

came out, if people want to listen, came out on August 31st, I talked about my journey. Your journey. Your podcast is pretty emotional, isn't it? It's a bit of a therapy session. It's a bit of a therapy session. We talk about everything, St. Kilda Footie Club. And, yeah, it's a bunch of us just talking about how tragic our lives are, really, each week. I know there's a few of our listeners who listen as well, so they'll be pretty stoked to hear you over here.

It's the crossover that everyone wanted. Absolutely. Yeah. Listeners have been asking for it for years, decades. Been back for it. But zero hangar. I, that's a website I love. I did realize you're like, what are you, the boss?

I'm the general manager of Zero Digital. Oh, good. Oh, good. Oh, good. Oh, good. Oh, look, I have no idea. Yeah, bow down. That's so good.

Yeah, and there's, there's, AFL is the, so is that how it's split up? There's different sites of different codes. That's right. Zero hangers, AFLs. Zero hangers, the Aussie Rules site. Largest Aussie Rules independent content site in the country. Zero tackle is our rugby league site. I was going to say humble brag, but that was just a straight out brag. Just a brag. No humbleness.

Yeah, I mean, that's how we do. We split out all the sites for different sports, but it keeps us busy. So, Dave, I don't know if you've got any inkling as to what today's topic might be about, because Dave doesn't know until you get going, Nick. There's been a couple of subtle clues so far. Do you want to explain to Nick and maybe any new listeners how this show works? Absolutely. So, Nick, what we do here is we take it in terms usually to report on a topic, often suggested to us by one of the listeners. listeners, we go away, do a bit of research, then bring it back to the group. Sally Jess Perkins, and one of the co-host is taken ill this week. She's been benched. But we wish her well.

We do wish her well. If she pulls through. And we believe she will. But usually what we do is we start with a question to get us onto topic. Do I have a free hit at this one? Because I feel like Nick might be aware of what you can ask about. Nick helped me write the report. So, which is maybe in part why it's the longest report I've ever written.

Oh, it's a two-hander. Yeah, that's right. So, Nick, I don't know if you know this, but so we asked the question and there is an esteemed listener at home is keeping track of who gets the most correct answers. Right. And I am currently third. Yes. So this free hit is actually really good for me. All right, Dave, here's your question.

Here we go. Which sporting team is this quote about? While other clubs are defined by the number of premierships or rich veins of success, it is the undeniable spirit of blank and its people, which has remained unshakable. Oh my gosh. It was a tough one. I mean, I don't remember winning any premierships or championships when I was playing on the Warrondard High School cricket team in 2004.

Yeah. Did the people have undeniable spirit? Oh, it was huge. I was the 13th man. I made up position so I could go along on the tour, on the bus, and give out orange slices to the other guys who had actual talent. I'm going to lock it in. I'm looking around the room.

I'm just going to say whatever I see here. St Kilda Football Club hat Some Kilda Football Club here Is it the Sikilda Football Club? That's right, we're doing a report on the St Kilda Football Club Hat. I've heard that's what people have been asking for the hat.

They want it, they want it and they're going to get it. So this has been suggested by quite a few listeners. Let me read through some of these people. So they either wanted to hear about the club in general, which is what I'm going to talk about, as they're celebrating their 150th year this year. Congratulations. I've been feeling the pressure

of doing this for a while, but I thought 150th year, we've made the finals, we've got to do it. Other people did specifically want the year 1966, but we'll probably get to that. We'll see if we have time. That happens in the first 150 years? Yeah, that does. So it's been suggested by these listeners. Phoenix from Delaware, Noel White from Wainuth in County, Kildare in Ireland, Stuart West from East Malvern here in Melbourne.

he wrote, as a long time listener and as a first time submitter, I'd love to hear about the Saints and their one and only premiership.

At the time of recording. At the time of recording. That's true. Matt from Missouri City in Texas. Jeff Rossman from Lawrencedale, Georgia in the US.

Maddie Layden from Melbourne here. Corey from Pleasant Town or Pleasanton in California in the US. Josie Penning from Brisbane. Yildiz Basol from Istanbul and Turkey

who wrote, because I love hearing you guys talk about the things you love, i.e. River Dance. And I don't think Matt loves anything more than he does this. Bruce Kelso from Brisbane, Queensland. Gaddy J. from Birmingham. He must have requested that a while ago. He's now known as Gary J. from the UK. Stefan Prince from Cardiff in Wales. Jeff Weiss from Snokelemy in Washington, USA. Paul Meller from Oldham in the UK. Julian McMahon Hyde from Curlewis. Alex from Perth. and Damon from Sawyer's Valley in Western Australia.

Lewis Engel from Cardiff, Wales, Ryan Hoskin from Sydney, Matt Arnett from Mitchum in Melbourne. He's a Cullinan supporter who particularly wanted to hear about the 2010 Grand Final. I'll mention it briefly. Adam Moody from Adelaide, Laura Baker from Victoria. I wanted to hear about the G-Train. I don't know if I mentioned the G-Train much. So I'll have to remember to mention the G-Train for Laura.

We'll find a spot. And finally, the first ever topic suggestion in the hat by a guy called Dickie Jones, who wrote under the section that said, why do you think this would be an interesting topic? Dickie Jones wrote, Loll, it wouldn't. That might have been me. I think that was you.

You were testing out of the system. We were testing that it worked. I forgot on TV Jones. That's so funny, because that's how long we've been talking about. That must have been six years ago or something we set up that online form. People would call out.

Oh, my goodness. I can't believe people from all over the world suggested this. Yeah. It's amazing. They say soccer off football is the world game. I'm pretty sure move over. Yeah. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed that there's a request from Turkey to talk about the security club. I was stoked to see that. That's incredible.

That's incredible. That's so good. Well, this one's for Dickie Jones. And the rest. I watched an interesting six-part YouTube series on the club's history on a little YouTube channel called The Gaz Man. And I'll quote him a few times. I was out a couple of fun episode titles like, as bad as it gets and the invisible men.

You can tell this is going to be a good story. As bad as it gets. I'll link to as bad as it gets in the show notes. Very interesting stuff. And he goes into way more detail than I can. If people have seen the runtime of this episode, which I assume is going to be really long, they'll be like, what more detail than this could they have? Well, they did, okay?

Gasman went in a huge detail. I went to high school with a gas. He was a Saints fan. Is he the Gazman? He was like, cricket team. I was handing him slices of orange. The Gazman.

So I thought to get us in the mood, I've asked a couple of saint supporters to tell us what they think about being a saint supporter, why they love the club and that sort of stuff. And first of, I thought I'd play one from Charlie Cawson from two guys one cup and Tofop

to try and explain what it's like to be a saint supporter. Hi, Charlie Cawson. here, actor, writer, podcaster and Saints Tragic. When Matt asked me what it is I love about the St Kilda Football Club, I thought of the words of the great John Legend, who in his song All of Me described his lover by saying, I love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections.

And that is Sincilda to a T, a collection of perfect imperfections. You think of the most bizarre trivia in VFL, AFL history, and the Saints own it, the only team to lose a premiership on Countback. the last team to play in a draw the most amount of wooden spoons yet despite all this they have this fiercely loyal fan base and to be part of that group is something special someone wants to describe that like having a family member who was just dysfunctional like a drunk uncle or something that you know could be so much better if they just got their shit together and you just love them so much but you also criticize them and you also put them down and you can do that because you're family

but the minute someone else says something bad about them you'll defend them to the hill and that to me is a St Kilda football club, a dysfunctional family member that you love for all that they aren't. I've got tears in my eyes. Nick was really, there was a lot of nodding there. He gets it. Yeah, he's nailed that, hasn't he? Charlie's been on your pot a few times as well.

Yeah, it's a great bloke. I think that could sum up. That's such a good summary of what it's all about, I think. I think so. Is that the end? That's the end. That'll do for us. I've got so many words written here, but I think that'll do.

Yeah, it's more about the vibe and he got it. So you can stop recording, but just for you, Dave, I'll let you know about the Saints history. I need to know. Okay, great. Well, let's go all the way back to 1873. The Saints, or the St. Kilda Football Club, was born on the 2nd of April, 1873 when the South Yarra Football Club merged with the St. Kilda Cricket Club. South Yarra themselves were formed in 1858, so you can make the case that the club's history stretches back even further than the 150 years. So you're going to cover those?

Yeah, right, let's go into 15 extra years. It's interesting that clubs were sort of being formed and dying a lot in those early years. It was sort of like, I guess, humans back then. The life expectancy wasn't so high for football clubs in the 1800s. But being formed in 1873 makes the Saints among the oldest football and sporting clubs in the world. For context, the oldest Major League baseball team, the Chicago Cubs were formed. three years earlier in 1870, and the oldest NBA, NHL and NFL teams were formed many decades later. The oldest football team, as in Sokos, the Sheffield Football Club, which was formed in 1857,

just a year before South Yarra. So this is right at the start of clubs coming together. The Saints famous red, white and black colors came about with the merger, taking the red and white of South Yarrow and merging it with the black and white of St. Kilda. I get, is it, do you know where the black and what, was that the St. Kilda Cricket Club? The cricket club had, had the black and white. So, yeah, sometimes teams' colours come about over a long time or newer clubs. They'll have a, you know, like, GWS, they'll have a committee or come together and they'll do, like, testing. A bit of people coming.

What does this orange hue? What does that make you feel? What does this charcoal do for you? The pellet swatch. Yeah, that's right. You go down to the Dulux colour wall. But for the saints, it was, I'll just merge. those two that we've got, that makes sense. Pretty good. Yeah, it works well. So, but even when you look at

it now, do you think that half the white is one and half the white is together? To me, that's right. Split right down the middle. Yeah, half is cricket to me. Cricket whites. So they did have the red, white and black, but it wasn't the tricolour design that's now synonymous with the club. You know, the famous big thick red, white and black stripes down the front of the Guernsey. It started as a horizontal black and red with a white handkerchief tied around the neck. Bring it back. It's like looking at those old photos. It's fine.

Like, you know, the coaches are wearing top hats and the players are wearing long, you know, long trousers and it's a different time. The big, like, big leather boots and stuff, like, it's really interesting to watch. It's like, how do you run around in the mud wearing those? There was a recent episode where Dave talked about the origin of shoes built for sport and this was before that, I guess. I think it was. A long time.

Yeah. Which is so funny. The Saints home ground initially was somewhere called alpaca paddock. You know much about that, Nick? There's not a whole lot of information on it, but from what I can gather, it's just about where the St Kilda railway station is now. And it was essentially named that way because the council of St. Kilda wanted to raise alpacas as a commiss.

commercial venture. They want to be able to sell them, sell the wool and all that sort of stuff, which obviously worked out really well because there's people wearing alpaca clothes all over St Kilda these days. Yeah, we know if they're Kilda. We think of St Kilda. We think Alpacca's. That's right. Next to Luna Park, you've got the Alpaca pen. I think I read somewhere that it's maybe partially where Albert Park is now as well. But yeah, it seems like it's so funny. It wasn't that long ago, but people don't seem to be able to lock down where this place was. I think that's a fun place for the Saints to have started. Oh, I move out of the way.

I'm picturing Alpacos all around as their training. It does make sense that the first home ground was a failed commercial venture. The early days were pretty rough. You might be thinking, have the Saints always found it tough on field? Yes, they have. The first game was played in June of 1873 against University. And while they held University to just one solitary goal, unfortunately St. Kilda didn't score at all. So they got done.

I love this is so long ago that it's not which university. It's just a university, the university. Yeah, I guess. Maybe that's what it was Melbourne University, I think, and their team is called the University Students. It's pretty fun. It's fair to say things were a little less professional than they are today. In their second season,

one of their games was delayed by over an hour because there wasn't a ball available, which is a pretty key part of the game of football. They had the feet. Yeah. So they were halfway there. Great. There actually was a ball, but when it was being pumped up before the game, it exploded.

And there wasn't any others around. So someone had to, you know, jump on a tram or something. Go to rebel sport. Yeah, got a rebel sport. Pick up a new one. Can we get a refund on this one? It exploded. The Saints website has a great history section, which I'll quote a bit, which I'm guessing was Russell Holmesby.

He's like the Saints official historian and has been for a long time. Fun fact. He babysat me once when I was a kid. And I was pretty starstruck because back then he wrote in the red, white and black section of the Morabin Standard, which was the local newspaper. And every week there was a section about the Saints. And then he was babysitting me. I couldn't believe it. What was the family connection to get him in? I think he must have just, he must have had kids in the neighborhood as well. I'm not sure what it was exactly. But I think my parents may were in some sort of babysitters club. Yeah. He's a different time back then.

He's always lived around Bentley, that sort of area, Benle-Morabbin, yeah. Whatever. So, and then I met him a few years later on a, like a booze bus. He was like a cricket club fundraiser. Maybe the Bentley Cricket Club. And I think I told him the story about the babysitting, and he was enthralled.

Anyway, so I'll be quoting Russell quite a bit throughout this episode. And he gives the early years a slightly more positive spin, saying the club, quote, saw a spirited beginning to life as a football club and showed themselves capable of pushing the most skilled teams in the state, but lulls and morale and drop-offs in form saw the club come incredibly close to extinction. Despite a short-lived merger with University in 1875 to stay afloat, St. Kilda competed well enough to become a foundation member of the body that would govern Australian rules football, the Victorian Football Association, or VFA in 1877.

The Saints continued to surprise every now and then, with their gnat for rallying together, against the best sides in the competition, serving as a precursor to the fighting St Kilda spirit that would manifest over the following decades. But their brilliance would never last. Flip and form, inadequate playing numbers, and general inconsistency saw San Kilda dip in and out of the VFA's senior ranks,

with the club finding itself on the brink of collapse several times. Lingering stories tell players missing games to go to the races or simply not showing up. You were telling me about there was one guy, particularly you heard of doing this? Yeah, he was the first captain. Yeah, not any guy. just any guy. He was the first captain who literally missed a game because he went to the races.

Well, is his name. I think you should name and shame. Name and shame is Billy Shaw. Billy sure. Come on Billy. Although some people won't be like named and shame and they'll be like, good on him. Footy's footy, but you know, the races is life. If he had known about the next 150 years of history, he probably would have said good decision. Yeah, yeah. He probably would go to the races every week. The Saints stabilized during their absence from the VFA and achieved full re-entry in 1886, now adorned with the famous red, white and black vertical stripes and a new residency at Junction Oval, which became the gateway to the new VFL competition with its central location and size guaranteed to draw large crowds. Another merger with Peran in 1888 left the Saints as

one of the strongest clubs in the south and saw a slight alteration of the uniform with the inclusion of blue shorts. The amalgamation was all but forgotten as St. Kilda kept its name, home ground in colours with the blue shorts fully discarded in 1909. You're a bit of a fashion man, Dave. Oh yeah, I love a pair of blue shorts. Blue short down the long two, beyond the knee. With red and black. With red, white and black jumper.

What do you think? Obviously, I'm not sure what the colour blue they were using, but that does not sound good. It was a rich blue. It was a very navy, very navy blue. Navy next to black, I'm not sure. Not your traditional combination. Yeah, yeah, but I love the idea that other club that they went, oh this is obviously a mistake.

Whatever, just get rid of it. We'll take your shorts. We'll pretend this never happen. Yeah, yeah, we'll murder that you'll get, uh, you won't get the name or the club, the ground. Well, I'm going to be the fans. Okay. But I, I can't leave without driving a hard bargain.

You're wearing our shorts. Right, deal. It's funny with the blue, the navy and the black. That's how I remember as a kid, because I couldn't tell the difference sometimes. I'd get in an argument with someone like, no, it's black. And they're like, no, it's navy. And then I put it next to a black. acting, oh.

That's only one you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Then I go to the saint, watch the saints in the late 8, 1800s and I go, and I put it up next to their uniform. We go, oh, okay. And you also mentioned to me, Nick, when we're talking about this, that wasn't the only reason they kept the blue shorts for a while.

It was cheaper. Yeah. For some reason, it's just about the dye for the fabric or whatever. It was just cheaper. The Navy was cheaper. I don't know about you guys, but I always was told when I was growing up that you don't wear Navy and black together. It's just, you just don't do it.

Yeah. That makes sense to me that you wouldn't. Yeah. I've heard also as a kid, blue and green should never be seen via that one. But I think a lot of that is the rhyme. It sounds good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it could easily be blue and green should always be seen.

Yeah, that's right. Together. Also sounds good. Now I'm confused. Yeah, I don't know what to do. In the VFA, the Saints had their ups and downs, although their ups were never particularly high and their downs were as low as you can do. Here's a great quote.

You want to read this quote from the Australasian, Nick? From 1894. The Australasian wrote, There are two classes of men who play football, with one, the pleasure of participating is more than sufficient recompense for defeat. The other class thinks the win is above everything else. To the first class, I think those happy genial saints belong. Which I think really, it's like in the sports world,

that would be seen as a put-down. But to me, I kind of like that. Happy to be included. How just happened to be playing? The proof is in the pudding, in that we're sitting here laughing about this football club. But they have been playing this whole time. And like Charlie said, we can.

Dave, if you start laughing about them, it's trouble. In 1897, a group of the stronger teams wanted to form a new breakaway league. So there's all these teams in the VFA. And they were, apparently they were a bit unhappy with how the VFA were running things, that they were trying to split income evenly amongst the clubs and stuff like that. And like, hang on, we're the rich, powerful clubs. We should be getting a bigger share. So they broke away and formed the VFFA.

the Victorian Football League. And that was with teams, eight teams, including Collingwood, Essend, Fitzroy, now Brisbane, Geelong, Melbourne and South Melbourne, now Sydney. And then they brought in

two battlers as well, for some reason, Carlton and St. Kilda. And, yeah, I don't know why. We're possibly lucky to get an invite as there are other clubs who were much stronger at the time, particularly lucky with the Saints.

At that point in their existence, they had a less than one in three winning percentage. And I've heard that Port Melbourne still thinks it should have been there. I think, have you heard that? I've heard that. I think it was the stadium. I think it was the ground that kind of got St. Kilda that final ticket.

Yes. So it's so funny. They just had a great bit of land. The Alpacca saved them. Oh, they'd moved to Junction Over by this time, which is there right at the junction between, you know, it's still there. Do you know the Junction Oval, Dave? So I wear all the streets split off.

I've explained that pretty well. Yeah, I think I know all these streets. You know what I mean? Yep. Like, thank you all the road. there, I think. It is an oval right on the junction. It's an oval on the junction. Checks out. Okay, Nick, I was able to put that in a word, it's a bit easier than me. That's why you're the GM.

And you're just the M? Yes. Matt. So yeah, and Holmesby agreed with you there, Nick. He said the home ground of Junction Oval was a contributing factor in their invitation. The ground's central location and size helped draw large crowds in the fledgling lead. But success proved to be elusive early on. St. Kilda received six consecutive wooden spoons from 1897 to 902, winning just 20 out of 168 games in the first decade of the century. Do you have to explain what a wooden spoon is, the famous wooden spoon? Oh, please do.

I don't know what the origin. You know the origin story of the wooden spoon, but it's just for all those who don't know about the wooden spoon, it's what you call the team that finishes last. Yes, it's the reverse premiership. Correct. The premiers get a gold, you know, shiny cup and the losers get a wooden spoon. spoon. Does it the same spoon?

I don't know if they... Handed down from generation to generation. I don't know if they ever literally gave out a spoon. I bet you they did. You want to check... See if you can find the origin of the wooden spoon while I talk a little bit more about these early successful years.

I've said generally, Dave, they got off to a pretty rough start. But the fact is they couldn't have got off to a worse start in the VFL. They didn't win a single game in their first three seasons. Whoa. Some of the early losses can still be found in the record books for all the wrong reasons.

For instance, St. Kilda's score of one point in 1899 is the lowest score in the league's history, and that came against Geelong, who scored 162.

Jolong's score that day remained the highest in the league for over a decade until round 16, 19, 111, when Essendon scored 163 points, their opponent that day, St Kilda. No.

Jolong's winning margin of 161 in that 99 match also remained the league's biggest for many years, until round 12 of 1919, when South Melbourne won a game by 171 points. Their opponent that day, Dave? Any guesses? Oh, no, don't tell me.

It was St. Kilda. They won 189 to 18. It wasn't until their fourth season in the VFL before they recorded their first win, finally breaking a 48 game losing streak. Is it because people stopped going to the races finally? Yeah, yeah, they're like, all right. It just happened to be a day where the races were washed out or something. Fine, I guess we'll play this week.

Yeah. According to Holmesby, the wind came about in unusual circumstances, writing the round one match against the eventual premieres Melbourne originally ended in a draw before St. Kilda protested the result due to a scoring error. You know a bit about this, Nick? A little bit. From memory, I think it was that there was a ball went through for a point, but it was given as out of bounds.

And so they didn't score the point. And because they didn't score the point, the score was a draw. Yes. And then the St Kilda Footie Club challenged that decision and took it to the high court of the VFL. Yeah, they took it all the way. All the way, all the way. And a week later, they reversed the decision and called a St Kilda win. So good.

Yeah. That must have been triumphant. You get the call. Actually, you did win finally. Yeah, it's an brutal way. Imagine the celebrations. Imagine the celebrations. And so, because you're like, you want to just, you want to celebrate as the siren goes.

But even that we weren't able to do. We have to do it midweek. they're all probably at work plumbing or whatever. Alpaca farming. Yeah, I'm probably riding alpacas or whatever. Yeah, I heard it that way. I also heard it that Melbourne were awarded a point that was after the siren sounded, and then they took it off midweek to give them the win.

So either way. Sanko Alto climbed their way off the bottom of the ladder by 1903, but victories were sandwiched in between hefty defeats. The recruitment of Tasmanian. duo Vic Cumberland and Vic Barwick gave the Saints upside and with the addition of talented forward Dave McNamara, Long Dave, the success staff side began their painstaking crawl up the ladder. The Gowsman found an article in a 1904 edition of the Pran Chronicle that says at the Saints annual general meeting that year, new player Vic Cumberland entertained the audience with some

sleight of hand tricks. Just doing a bit of magic on the side. A bit of magic at the AGM. And I think that's, you know, I don't really know if that was worth mentioning, but I thought, how could I know? That's funny. As well as being a magician off the field, Cumberland was a gun footballer. As was McNamara, whose nickname was Long Dave, which is so fun.

Any guesses as to why I'd be called Long Dave? Have you ever been called Long Dave? No. Short Dave? Short Dave. Ironic. Regular Dave. Regular Dave.

Just Dave. Just Dave. Yeah. Yeah. Emphasis on the Justin. Playing Dave. So he was named Long Dave because he was a huge kick of the football. Once kicking a goal from 86 yards out, he also had a shot that traveled 93 yards.

This was with the now defunct place and drop kick styles. There is two favoured styles. So you're putting the ball on the ground and kicking it, kind of like a rugby league player. Right. Are you allowed to do that now if you wanted to? I don't know. You can't put the ball on the ground, can you? You can't put the ball on the ground?

No. So your team make can't hold it there sort of like it's sitting on a corner. Oh, I guess you could do that if the ball's already on the ground. Walls of the ground, can you just sort of put your hand on top of it? You probably could. Like it's on a tee? Yeah. And then they come in and just boot it.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, maybe you can do that. You have to make sure that no one else in the other team comes anywhere near you. Yeah. Got a big run up. The drop kick you don't see anymore. Okay. I think maybe there was one accidentally done a few years ago.

But yeah, they're meant to be kick styles that can go further, but they're also way less accurate than the drop punt, which is a relatively new invention. Wow. So, yeah, his two big kicks that I just mentioned, they're 93 and 86 yards. They happened during games, or actually those two, I think, happened during one game.

No wonder balls were exploding. Like, that's a long way. Yeah. That's a long way to kick a ball. Into, what, he kicked them into oblivion. He kicked them so far that didn't exist anymore. He kicked them into the ocean. Yeah.

So they happened during the games, but one time, that he was invited to have a crack for the official world record. And that happened on Thursday, the 9th of October 1913, at the Royal Launceston Show, and he set the official world place kick record with a kick of 86 yards and one foot, which is 79 metres,

which is like it, I don't think there'd be an NFL player today who could kick that far. It's huge. There's a long way. Cumberland, McNamara, and these other new talented players had the Saints on the improve, winning seven games in their seventh season alone.

Which obviously, it wasn't enough to make the finals. So good. It's like, I think it's like, they won seven in a row or the last seven something. Seven in the season. Well, when you compare that to the first six seasons total of two wins, two wins in six seasons, and then their seventh season, they won seven.

Like, people can believe it. Like, what's going on? We're not, and they didn't win the wooden spoon for that reason. Wow. Yeah, pretty cool. By the start of the 907 season, they were flying, winning their first six games in a row, Dave. Now we're getting excited. Yeah, six in a row.

I was expecting more. It's huge. But I mean, what happened after that? Things took a bit of a turn mid-season. And that was in part because their star fullback Harry Lever got injured. At his day job, Lever cut off two of his fingers in a sawmill accident. But he dressed the wound himself and still played the following. day against Geelong.

Oh my God. But unfortunately, it'd more bad luck that day. Their train was late, so the game was delayed, and they finished playing in darkness, and the cats over around them, I guess they could see better in the dark.

Kick it to me. I guess cats can. Kick it to me. I don't know where you are. And they lost my five points in the end. And that sort of, and maybe unsurprisingly, Leaver didn't play another game

for the rest of the year. It's missing two fingers. It's missing two fingers. And the wound would still be opened. Oh my God. Yeah. Maybe become gangrenous. He's risked at all for that game. And yeah, things sort of went downhill from there. Leaver did return the following year and continued playing until 1922, becoming the first saint to play 200 games. Without Leaver, they're only able to win three of the last eight. And this would still be enough for the team to make their first final series, though. Oh, great. Which they got eliminated in the first game to come. But they made it. And that's the main thing. Which is where you are right now. That's where we are right now.

So at the time recording, we're playing in a final of the MCG tomorrow. This podcast will come out after that. But win or draw or lose, which I guess is an option. It doesn't matter because this podcast always will exist when the Saints were a current finals team and premiership threat. Only four wins away. It's a forever story of hope. That's right. This will be lingering out there.

And if you lose, which God forbid, of course, it won't happen. Are you out? It's knock out. It is. It's literally called the elimination final. There's only two finals through the whole series where you can stay in if you don't lose, if you do lose, sorry. And they're the two qualifying finals in the first round for teams finishing the top four. Every other game is cutth throw. When did you finish on the ladder this year?

Sixth. Sixth. A beautiful spot. In a competition of 18. That's top third day. That's great. Yeah. And people said all year,

We were not a finals team. And actually, journalist Caroline Wilson said that this week. Which is strange. How can you say that when we are literally a finals team? I don't understand how you can still be saying that. Caroline thinks it should be a really little recount? Yeah.

There's two final teams that she think are finals teams that are below us. They finish seven. She thinks that the final eight should go from one to five and then I guess from seven to nine. Seven to nine. Maybe she thinks she should pick some wild cuts. Yeah. So it's like, well, what else can you do but win enough games to be in the top eight? Anyway, good on her.

And good on all of them. She's not the only one. The footy media in general has not gone on board this year. They have not. We'll teach them. Yeah. Well, you've got to remember when this is actually comes out. The lesson's already been taught or flunked.

Either way. Either way. We're a final scene. You can't take that away from us, no matter what the media says. The Saints made the finals again in 1908, finishing third. and things were looking up. Obviously, it was still a smallish competition then. I think there were maybe nine teams.

Still top third as well. Exactly. Where you're born to be. That's true. Top three. But they weren't up there for long. They won another wooden spoon in 1909, which of course was famous for being their final season with the blue shorts.

Oh, yeah. The blue shorts curse? Is anyone saying that? Yeah. So people are like, oh, finally the end of the blue shorts curse. From 1910 onwards, things are going to be going to be going much better. better. But they were wrong.

They only avoided another winless season in 1910 with a final round upset victory over top of the table carton. But that wasn't enough to avoid another wooden spoon for finishing last. So they only won one match? Yeah, the last game, yeah. Against the best team in the league. Yeah, that's a weird thing that we've got a history of doing, beating the eventual premieres. Well, Russell wrote about that. I think that you mentioned earlier that there's a bit of a history of kind of turning up against the good teams and then turning the rubbish against everybody else. When you say, Russell, are you talking about a guy who babysat me?

That's right. You're all right. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. You must have told you one of those nights, bed time. Yeah. And so the other thing I had of his at the time, because he published a book called the Encyclopedia of VFL, AFL footballers, and I had a copy of that, which was dad's public,

his school library was getting rid of books, and he brought that home for me. so I had a copy of the encyclopedia. And then I was getting babysat by the guy who compiled it. I mean, freaking hell. The guy who knows everything. Exactly. Wow. David is flabbergasted.

You've never mentioned this before. Yeah. This is like the peak of your life. I know. You never mentioned it? Sure. I mentioned when I met him on that booze bus. I've said booze boss.

That's the... What did he pull you over and... Boozebus is the bus is the bus. it stops you to breath lise, isn't it? I mean, it was a bus with booze on. It's quite the opposite, actually. The opposite, not police, making sure you're not drunk driving. Yeah.

So, yeah, things are bad. But after their 1910 wooden spoon, the Saints started climbing up the ladder once again, and they even made their first grand final in 1913. Do you want to tell the listeners a bit about this, Nick? Where do you want to start? 1858? Oh.

Well, I think we've covered a lot of that already, Nick. Have you been, I know I've got a pretty soothing voice, but... Did you find out about the wooden spoon already? I did, actually. I did find out about the wooden spoon. So, according to a website called top-end sports.com, the wooden spoon is the unofficial title for the last place team at the end of the regular AFL season.

Why is it called a wooden spoon? The wooden spoon is an award usually given to an individual or team which has come last in a competition. The custom dates back to at least the early 19th century, where a wooden spoon was awarded by the students at the University of Cambridge to the student who achieved the lowest exam marks, but still earned a third class degree in the mathematical tripos. Oh man, it's got a real nerdy origin story, Dave,

is that pique in your interest? Love that. Now I'm listening. You got a math degree, but you kind of suck. Here's a spoon. Here's a spoon. You're the dumbest smart person, I know. You still went to Cambridge and got a degree.

Okay. But here's a spoon. I thought Nick maybe you could tell us about the game leading. up to the 1913 finals where we had to be Carlton to get in. Sure. There was a rumour going around that maybe our hearts weren't in it. Well, one of the Saints' best players was a guy named Billy Schmidt, and one of the rumours heading into that game is that he'd been paid off.

I don't know where the rumours started, but it had been going around kind of the VFL rumor mill, I guess, which would have been in Hyperdrive, given St. Kilda were a decent team then. And the rumor was that he'd been paid off to play dead, to not give it his all ahead of that. carton game carton are a massive team and maybe they had some some more money they're willing to pay saints players to not play the best. The unlike them to pay for dodgy results. The blues. They've never been found out for doing that. Always above board. They have been, Dave. Oh, right. What era? 90s or 90s or 80s. Well, they were quarter to the 90s, but it went back a while, I think.

Wow. But just overpaying players in brown paper bags rather than through the salary cap officially. So they had this team of all stars. So they're all on it. They're all on 200 bucks a week. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. So they got done for that and it's led to a few decades of, um, strife for the blues,

but they're back again as well. They're also playing in finals for the first Simon ages this year. Any brown paper bags? Can I only assume old habits die hard. So it goes back to 1913 this. Yeah. It does. Yeah.

At least. Turned out that Schmidt actually had a, had a pretty good game. Matt. That's right. Yeah. So much. so that he had a shot for goal after the siren and he made the shot, kick the goal, and this is the first recorded example of a player kicking a goal after the siren

to win a match. Oh, wow. So for overseas, this is you explain sort of how that works because, you know, a lot of like American sports, you know, you have... Once the siren goes all over. That's it. Or unless the ball or whatever's in the air, buzzer beat a start thing. But you get a shot at it.

Yeah, so he had a mark or you caught the ball and he had a... a free shot at the goal and that the siren went then so he you know he had his it's 30 seconds now but probably then it was a week or so to have his kick and um so he went back and at the time it must have been going through his head if i if i kick this poorly this will make people believe the rumours true so there's that extra level of prayer imagine if he just accidentally kicked it out on the full but imagine if he was actually trying to kick it out on the full but imagine if he was actually trying to kick it out on the fall. You accidentally.

Go on, shit, shit, shit, no. Come on, come on, come on. Oh, no. Oh, no. I hadn't considered that. Oh, they're going to break my legs. Actually slipped as he kicked it.

Accidentally just kicked it straight. Stayed him going well on him crying. No. I haven't quite a lot of money. Yeah. It was weird. I don't know why, but his knees were broken the next day. Yeah.

I've read different lengths, but one was that his kick was from 45 yards out. but I've also saw 60 metres out, which is a huge kick, which is a better story. Even today, 60 metre kick after the siren. That's a big kick. Not many players can do it. So, but does that mean that they won? So they won. And they made the finals.

And in the first round of the finals, they met South Melbourne, who they beat comfortably. Top place, Fitzroy also easily beat Collingwood in their semi, setting up a showdown between Fitzroy and St. Kilda for the premiership, which St. Kilda won. What? What? Their famous first premiership victory. Unfortunately, though, at the time, the VFL had a strange system that meant the team that finished top of the ladder, which was Fitzroy, had the right to challenge the result and play again if they lost the grand final, or any final, I think.

Is that right, Nick? I'm pretty sure if they lost any final along the way, they could challenge and play another grand final. It was a what? Challenge. And Nick, I don't know, I can't break the list. How did the following week go? Sinkilda lost. Okay.

What? It got really close. I think Fitzroy kicked away early. Saints came back to within two points in the last quarter. You know about five goals up or something at half time or something. Fitzroy about five goals up. And St. Kilda went on a run and kicked four in a row or something.

Got to within a couple of points and then... According to the Gaz Man, he tells it quite dramatically. Of course he does. There was a shot from the goal square to put us up when we were two points down, or three points down and they missed from point blank range. Sounds like a brown paper. back to me. Billy Schmidt?

And it was Billy Schmidt. Oh, that's, sorry, but if Stinkiller had won, Fitzroy just challenge again? I think you could only do it once. So if the rules were as they are now, the Saints would have won the Premiership in 1913. Apparently at all, this rule came in because in 1900, Melbourne won the Premiership from third last on the ladder. That is this weird system. And they're like, uh, the team who finishes on top of the ladder should have more of

advantage than that. But the whole system was stupid. In 1900, they split, at the end of the season, they split the competition into two halves. The teams that finished odd numbers, first, third, fifth, etc. And the team that finished second, fourth, et cetera. And then they both had these round-robin competitions. And then the teams on the top of those two round-robbins, if neither of them was the minor premier, they would play off in a grand final.

And the minor premier wasn't there. made, they took the wrong lesson out of it. That sounds like a Cambridge math degree. What's going on? Wooden's food would be given out all over the show. Can you, can you just imagine how much, how different this story would be if that actually kept that premiership in 1913? It probably changes the story quite a lot, right?

I want to win three in a row, four in a row. Five, six, seven. Who's to say? Yeah. Undefeated. Maybe never have lost another game. We don't know. Yeah, momentum starts somewhere.

Exactly. And the Saints captain that day on the replayed grand final was Harry Leaver, the man who lost two fingers. And the team also included another legendary name, Roy Cazali. Does that name mean anything to you, Dave? Up there, the Cazali. Is it that guy? That's that guy. There you go.

So he played 99 games to the Saints and won the Saints best and Ferris in 1918. And yeah, he's also famous for his high-flying marks, which has been a. been a bit of a Saints thing for the whole journey, I think. Always. Yeah. Great players. Great players. Not great teams.

Right. And so there's often one great player? Sometimes it's even more. Yeah. Sometimes it's 18 great players. But they still lose. Champion team beats a team of champions. So yeah, we were so close to winning our first premiership way back in 1913.

And that was, I think that's what Charlie was alluding to when he said we lost a premiership on countback before. But yeah, that pesky freaking challenge system, which was abandoned about 20 years later, I think. I don't think we were the only team to lose a premiership, though. I think there was a couple of others, but

it does feel like it. Yeah. It's a very Sincolta thing to happen. It only happened to St. Kilda. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, you've got a section on your show on unplugged, that's so St. Kilda. Yes. And I love it, because it's just every week, it's this thing. Oh, could have only happened to St. Kilda. But of course, every club could

have that same thing. That's right. It actually happens to every other team every week, but it feels like it only happens to us. That's one of those biases that just makes it feel like it's only happening with you. Anyway, as tough as that stolen grand final was, things were about to get worse for not only St Kilda, but the world. No. Gordon Holmesby, the heartbreak of grandfinal defeat was quickly overshadowed by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Are you suggesting there is some correlation? I think there might have been. But history, you said it would have changed the history of the club, but also maybe the world if you hadn't have been robbed. People talk about Franz Ferdinand kicking it off, but I think if they change their gaze

from Europe down to Melbourne. The real assassination happened on the 40th year. 14 saints were killed in action during the bloody war, which claimed the lives of almost 40 million people, obviously. So, yeah, and there were many other saints who went over, but 14 gave their lives up. You know about one in particular, Nick? Yeah, one of those 14 Saints was Claude Crowell who played three games for St. Killer in 1911.

And he actually died in the landing at Anzacove, Gallipoli. And he's one of, if not the first, of EFL footballer, to die in World War I. Right, Claude Crowell. It's a great name. Yeah. Sounds like a Bond villain, almost. Oh, Bond villain. Well, I see him as a Bond hero.

But maybe that's where you and I differ, Nick. I got nothing. Many other players fought in the war as well, including stars like Vic Cumberland, who we talked about before. So many players from the Saints went to war, in fact, that they weren't even able to field a team in 1916 and 1917. Meanwhile, Cowley clubs like Collingwood, Carleton, Richmond and Fitzroy remained in the competition. White feather clubs. Yep.

The Collingwood, like, you know, it's so funny to me, whatever, obviously, not a big deal. And I was just saying how we were ripped off in 1930. and I would definitely count that if we won it. But it's so funny that supporters talk about, you know, Collingwood supporters talk about all their premierships. A lot of them were happening, you know, before TV, before while people were still wearing long pants, and even while most of the competition was in war,

they won one of their premierships while there was only five teams in the competition, I think. But they still count that, whatever. No biggie. No biggie. It doesn't mean it. anything. Do you want to talk a bit about this, what happened next? The war affected the Saints in a kind of unexpected way, I guess, Dave. I'm Nick. Oh yeah, I was saying to Dave, but then. I was trying to you, but I was saying to Dave, that's the setup you there.

Nick, tell me more. Well, according to Russell Holmesby, due to the war, the club entered a period of recession during 1916 and 1917, but not before changing their official colours to red, yellow and black to disassociate themselves from the colours of the German Empire. It was also a sign of solidarity for the Allied forces in Belgium, who stood with Australia and had several current and former St Kilda players fighting in Belgium. That's right. Yeah. So there was quite a period there where the Saints were the Red, Yellow and Black team. It's very noble. Very noble. And obviously pretty clever. They got ahead of the game, the kind of colours. If you don't want to be associated with Germany, go.

red, yellow and black. I found it so confusing as a kid. I'm like, wait, so we started as red, yellow, or black, and then to get away from Germany, we changed to red, white, and black. And my dad was like, no, we went from red, white, and black, to red, yellow and black to get away from Germany.

Right. But Germany at the time were red, white and black. Belgium were red, yellow and black, and then, yeah, it took a while before they changed back to the red, white and black. They returned to the league, this is back to Homesby, returned to the league in 1918, the Saints proved a more competitive outfit,

but once again fell short of the ultimate glory, this time to Collingwood in the semi-finals. 1919 marked a low point in the club's history with a divided St Kilda line-up obliterated by South Melbourne in a 17-go-4 final quarter, 106 points in one quarter. Oh! We've scored.

Scored against them. Yes. It feels like that would be, the low point in just about any other club's history, but I don't think it's the low point in our history. No, I mean, we started with no wins for three years. Does that mean, but like for the quarter you didn't touch the ball? It would have been close to that, I think. I mean, there wasn't enough time for them to be doing anything else but kicking goals. They would have like, oh God, that would have been so knackered this ones. That's a scoring shot every

minute. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to get it back out from the center, down forward, through the girls every minute. Amazing. Yeah, the Saints mustn't have touched it much. Or no, they must have touched it four times. Maybe they went to the races.

Maybe they were the races. Maybe Carlton had put in a payment, even though they weren't even playing. They just can't help themselves. Several players were said to have walked off the field midway through the onslaught. Well, that's not going to help. Oh my God, what are you doing?

That's why I got worse. Everyone left the field and the sound like, all right, we're on here. kick. Yeah, our best defence was having no players to kick in from their behinds. It's amazing. From there, they actually started scoring less. Yeah. But through the highs and lows, more St. Kilda legends emerged. Wells Ike championed the red, white and black, and claimed the club's inaugural Best and Ferris Award in 1914 before adding another two to his name in 1915 and 1919. So there's a lot of these names are quite famous, at least in the Saints world, but I think

probably AFL historians would be well aware of all these names of talking about. Ike, Cumberland, because mainly, of course, Long Dave. Long Dave. Can't forget Long Dave. No, I mean, like we said, the football club's always been known for its great players rather than its great teams. And I think over the course of 150 years, there's been so many champion players. It just hasn't translated to, you know, winning titles. And back then, was it a draft system? Like, you'd get picked by a club and made to play there? Or did you just get, you signed up for whoever you want? I think, oh, I wouldn't put my life on this, but I'm pretty sure it was just you recruit your own players, however you can. And that's why we got a few great players from Tasmania,

so they were obviously thinging outside the box a little bit. And we've done that a lot over the journey, got some of our best players ever been from Tassie. Yeah, which is why we played in Tazzy home games in Tazie for a while. For a period, for a couple years, yeah. I think that was the one we shouldn't, anyway. Talk about that later, Nick. Off here. Vic Cumberland returned from the First World War and fronted up for a final season in 1920. This was after a four-year absence suffering multiple debilitating injuries during the war.

Oh, gosh. His comeback was the cause to celebration as the eventual AFL Hall of Famer was 43 years old, which is still the oldest player on record to ever play VFL, AFL football. Wow. And he'd been through a world war. Yes. And severely injured. That's right.

Incredible. According to Holmesby, the Wiley veteran helped stabilize a divided St. Kilda the moment he returned from service, with his wisdom, experience and skill guiding the Saints to one of their two victories for the year. At the time of his return, 29 out of St. Kilda's 36 players had not been born when Cumberland first made his debut all the way back in 1903. Is there a better descriptor for a 43-year-old multiple injury war vet than Wiley veteran? Yeah, Wiley veteran.

Yeah, it feels a little underwhelming, doesn't it? He's pretty wily. He's a goddamn legend. All right, Russell. And if he ever babysits me again, I'll say that to his face. You're looking forward to another babysitting search session?

Cumberland was a rockman, the position for people who don't know, the position the tallest players generally play. And to show how things have changed over the years, he was 182 centimetres tall, which is my height, about six foot or just under. I'd like to claim six.

Dan Butler, small forward for the Saints these days, is that hot? Or where the smallest plays on the ground. Small Ford, wow. And Mason Cox, Collingwood's current Ruckman, the American, the Texan, he's 211 centimeters tall or 6 foot 11. So over the 100 years or so, yeah. He's growing a foot. Yeah, the Rockman of grown a foot.

Do you reckon in the next 100 years or another foot? Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think we're going to keep going to foot every century. Yeah. I think that's just science, Dave. And science is, like you said, incredible. So the red, white and black colours for the footy club came back in 1923 is, as the Saints powered into a decade of success led by Brownlow medalist Colin Watson,

another great player in the history of VFLA for football. And by success, I mean, only finishing last once and making the finals once, while enjoying sustained mid-table mediocrity for the rest of the decade. Hell, yeah, that's an improvement. Yeah. Look, it's a step in the right direction. And that's sort of closer to our more recent identity is the club.

Mid-table mediocrity. And again, the play that you were saying won the Brownlow Medal, which is like with the best and fairest, best player in the league. So you've got, you do have a history of having really good plays. Yeah, we've won way more Brown-low medals than premierships as a team. So the Brown-low medal, like Dave said, that's for the, the fairest and best or best and fairest. You've got to be the, as voted by the umpires,

the best player for the year, but also you can't have been rubbed out for any games, which is only how, I think that's happened once or twice, where someone would have won it if they hadn't been rubbed out for doing something violent. It happened a couple of times in the 90s. Cory McCurnan, I think.

Corey McCurnan. And Chris Grant, yeah. Dave's over player. What a guy. He was robbed. Set up. I think a saint player won at that year, too. Yeah.

Both those years, really. Both years were. Robert Harvey is. Yeah. One of them, I think they would have drawn maybe. Yeah, one of them was a tie and one of them, I think he was one vote behind. Yeah. Yeah.

But I thought the right result was found there. Definitely. And this period was tricky for a bunch of different reasons. There were internal disputes, financial woes, which there have always been. But, yeah, players were striking. But during that time, like Nick said, Colin Watson won the brown low, things were, there were high points, but so many low points as well. And you say like they're striking.

How professional is the league at this point? They're like people getting paid to play. Yeah, I think they're one and they're looking for it to become more professional. Yeah. And I guess the Saints were struggling for money. I'm not sure exactly what happened. It doesn't sound right. No.

Actually, no, that can't be right. It's got to be something else. But yeah, Holmesby talks about Watson saying he had the reputation of one of the best footballs in the league. But he left at the end of the year. I think this is the guy who tried to, he got a job in the country. country or something and he wanted to go play footy in the country like the year after winning the brown low medal and the club didn't release him so he had to just sit out the next season then he asked again the year after and he sat out again and he ended up just playing anyway so he was

banned from playing vfl football the thing he was trying not to do anyway well that's right well if you don't want to play vfell football you can't play for the next three years yeah that's what i've been asking for what do you mean you quit you're fired yeah and and the league expanded during this time with teams like Hawthorne, North Melbourne, Richmond and Footscray joining the league. But according to Holmesby, the Saints at their strides by 1929, breaking into the top four to snap an 11-year finals absence. While the year would end again in heartbreak, the emergence of a spry youngster from Wagga-Wogga would begin a new era for the red, white and black.

And his name was Bill Moore. And you're going to tell me about him. This guy, he's, it's so funny how many of these legends. I couldn't really picture them. In my head, they all look about the same, like, you know, early 1900s men. But, um, which is what they were. Yeah. You know, skinnyish white guys.

Because I guess they were all probably units at the time. Probably. They're pretty, they look all pretty slim. Very slick hair cuts, which was just the fashion of the time. A neckerchief. But Bill Moore was probably of all the ones we've already mentioned. And we've already mentioned a few literal AFL legends and Hall of Fame members. but Bill Moore was probably the first genuine gun, right?

I mean, he was one of the first superstars to hit the VFL. He led the league in goal kicking in 1936. He became the first St. Kilda player to kick 100 goals in a season. He led the club's goal kicking for 12 straight years. 12 years in a row, he led the goal kicking. He kicked 735 goals in 195 games. When he retired, he was third on the all-time goal-kicking list behind only Gordon Coventry,

who's one of the greatest goal-kings of all-time, and Jack Titus, who I think is the greatest Richmond goal kicker of all time still. Yeah, they're both big names. So even today, we're talking 100 years later nearly. He's still in the top 20 of all time VFL AFL golf games. That's amazing. Yeah, that really is quite incredible. And having only played 195 games as well, so his average is nearly four goals a game

across a nearly 200 game career. It's just, you don't, I don't think there's any current players who have a, a game goal average of anything like that, do they? Maybe Buddy Franklin, maybe, but I'm even sure. He's retired now. Okay. I've got you on a technicality there. I mean, there wouldn't be too many players that have played that many games that have averaged that many goals per game.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe five or six. Yeah. If they let me play one game, I probably could average more than that. I probably, because I'd probably kick eight goals. Yeah, retired. And then I retire.

In the current, in the current AFL? You are a year. I wouldn't play back then. I wouldn't be too easy. I'm not a scab. And it sounds like most of the team was striking. But, um, so what do you think of what, Dave, you don't know the Saints that well. You don't really follow football that much.

What are the things you think of when you think of the Saints, like iconic, like icon style? Colors? Yeah. The little stick man. Stick man, yeah. What about the logo? The shield. Does that mean anything to you?

you? Yeah, I'm looking at it on your hat right now. So I'm feeling a bit of that. Not that one? No. More like that one. Oh, yeah. I'm looking at Nick's hat now.

I've got one shielded another. Yeah, but is that a very, that's a sort of very saints thing. That's not just a footy. It's a very saint. Yeah. Well, they're the first club who had their own logo on their jumper. Oh, gotcha.

And it's called the Crest. And Nick, I love you to tell. David about it. So according to the Saints, it's unknown who actually created the Crest, but the Crest was immortalised in 1933 with the iconic emblem, not only commemorating the great fortitude shown in the Saints' stunning triumph against North Melbourne, but underpinning the very values and morals upon which the club was built. The Saints held on to victory at Junction Oval against the ruthless shin boners in one of the game's most epic encounters, ending the match with just 15 men on the field, seven of whom continued to play on injured, one of the injured players being

the legendary Bill Moore, but the steely resolve of the red, white and black persevered. So good. How good is that? Just give you chills, doesn't it? Oh, no, it does. It was like, apparently it was just a ridiculous victory. Shouldn't have won. There's no reason they should have won.

And at the time, the Argus newspaper reported, nothing finer, nor more inspiring than St. Kilda's magnificent win against overwhelming odds has been witnessed at the Seaside Oval. It's amazing because the world had just come out of the bloodiest war had ever seen. and people were talking about this game as like wartime environment. It was that violent and tough. And that's how the crest was commemorated. They struck shields.

They struck medals to give to all those players. That's right. And the Saints President at the time, Fred Arlington, Burke, was a veteran from the First World War. And I think he also served in the Second World War. He was so impressed that he made these medals, gave one out to every player. Only a handful of them are still known to exist. but one of them can be seen at the Saints Museum in Moravin, which I believe you've seen it. I have seen it.

It's very special. This is what it looks like, Dave. Oh, that's a beautiful medal. So good. It says, St. Kilda defeated North Melbourne with 15 men, May 27th, 1933. That really is a wartime style. Yeah. Back to Holmesby, it has become synonymous with the club motto 40s quo Fidelius, which is strength through loyalty.

Remains as one of St. Kilda's most enduring symbols, which obviously dates. have proved before when he said, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think I recognize it. The legend of the crest continued to shine through the remainder of the decade as the Saints consistently pushed for finals and found themselves on the cusp several times in an increasingly strong competition. It wasn't until the end of the decade that the club recorded its first finals win since 1913 with a victory over Richmond at the MCG in 1939, snapping a 26-year dry spell. Do you remember that? Oh, that was a great. day. I was, yeah, I was there with my dad. And your babysitter. And my babysitter. Yeah, we were three

the oldest men in the world and we had a great time that day. I don't know if that year means anything to you, Dave, 1939. Because despite the return to finals, things weren't going so well off the field at St. Kilda. And as it turns out, for the world. Again, I think there's some correlation here. The world was heading back to war. Ten more Saints players died fighting in World War II, including Best and Fairst winner Harry Comte, who fell at the Battle of Tarakan. And across the two world wars,

286 former St. Guilt of Footballers served for their country. The other clubs obviously just kept going. Collingwood-type clubs, yeah. Always, always. Which is a bit rich. They play the Anzac Day game. Won six premierships.

Yeah. Between 90, 39 and 45. So, yeah, I don't know. Makes you think, doesn't it? What do you think about the Saints as an emblem, Dave? If you were going to pick an emblem, a mascot for a team called St. Kilda, what would you go for? You happy with Saints or are you thinking of someone else? As in like, am I happy with that being the nickname or it should be something else?

Yeah. No, I like St. Kilda Saints. Yeah, it makes sense. From St. Kilda. I mean, you could be Kilders. I don't know what that is. You go with the Saints? Yeah.

It's easier. Yeah. I imagine that you start, you know, you got Roger Moore as the saint. Okay. Good one. Ready to go. I think Val Kilmer played him as well. So there you go.

Two of the great actors. They could be our mascots. Yeah. Roger and Val. We could be the St. Kilda Roger and Val's. Sounds like a sitcom. Yeah.

Which is pretty much what this story is. Just a comedy. But even though it does feel like that's what it always would have been, it's not always been. mean the case. Really? Yeah. Oh, I've assumed it had been.

When you think of St Kilda, St Kilda Beach, like the Seagulls. The Seagulls, the Seagull, okay, yeah. Or you could get a crab. Fish and Chip Shop. Kind of crabs. Can't minimum chips. That's not bad.

Okay. The mini chips. But it actually was the Seagulls for a little while. Oh, you were secrets. Oh, serious. Oh, serious. In the late 30s, early 40s, the club actually used a seagull a logo to relate to St Kilda's famous beach.

Okay. St Kilda's eagles. You got the alliteration girl, that's all right? St Kilda's, Koundahals, Kounder Gullies. But then in 1945, the club again went for a different mascot, and they went for a panther. You couldn't really go too different. Obviously, people that don't know St. Kilda is famous for two things as the beach, and

the panthers patrolling that beach. In the famous St. Kilda book, The Point of It All, which I think Russell had a bit to do with as well, actually. The historians write, the hierarchy perhaps hoped the team would show more tenacity, but the new nickname did little to change the direction of the team's play. The Panthers, battered and beaten, finished at the bottom of the list again. Okay. Worked out real well.

I thought the mascot was the problem. They were hoping to do a bit of nominative determinism. They should have called us the winners. If you'd come last that year, that would be incredible. At some point I read only yesterday. that at one point we tried to be the penguins as well at one point, which is... Oh yeah, there's penguins down in St Kilda. That's good. Penguins are right.

Yeah, Panthers doesn't seem to fit in at all. I don't think I've ever seen a Panther in St. Kilda. No, well, they're very good lighting. There was that one time. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But yeah, I think around that time, a lot of clubs were going for more full-on emblems. Like, that was around the time the Fitzroy became the guerrillas, although they had the lines, which is the gorillas are vegetarians, I think.

I feel like dines are more ferocious. Didn't Hawthorn become like the mayflowers or the mustard seeds or something? Yeah, yeah, there was some real fun names early on. I'm pretty sure I went through most of them in episode three or whatever of this show, maybe episode two, which we recorded a while ago. Okay, so there's been a bit of history since. A bit of history since. Obviously, that was on the history of AFL as a game.

What about has there been any mascot changes in the last eight years that we need to get people up to date? No, I don't think there have been any more recent ones. Yeah, I think there's a few that probably should. I think Gold Coast Sons could probably redo their whole thing. The bombers? The bombers are talking about taking the jet plane off their logo. I don't think they're talking about changing the name though. Just changing the logo.

And that's got people up in arms. You know how people are getting up in arms. Oh, it's bloody, what about the history? What about the history? We've, someone drew that logo 20 years ago, and you're going to throw that away? We've still got the Photoshop file. That's so, because it's like, the original? Yes.

You've got the original. Yes, we do. Logos get up trying it all the time. Oh, not the Saints one, obviously. We've stuck with our same emblem, basically, since 933. So at this point, in the history of the club, Second World War, We haven't won any premiership flags, but the trophy cabinet wasn't completely bare. So this is something that I didn't really know much about until a couple of months ago.

And the Saints actually released for their 150th year a website that showcases a bunch of this history in their triumphant, tragic moments. And that website, Saints150.com.com.com. who says, the VFL lightning premiership or patriotic premiership was organised between rounds 14 and 15 of the 1940 VFL season to raise funds for the wartime effort, which had broken out the year prior, obviously. The one-day knockout competition saw all teams compete in 20-minute matches with the last team standing awarded a fine cup in reverence of their accomplishment. Bill Moore recovered sufficiently from injury to take part in the tournament, playing a hand in steering St Kilda to victories over Hawthorne, Carlton and Richmond, leading to the team taking out the trophy.

And those things were all pretty good teams at that point in time. Hawthorne, Carton and Richmond, we're all pretty strong teams. Right. And I don't anything make sense that we'd win the Patriotic Cup? Yes. Not the premiership. No, not the premiership. But we're the ones.

Collingwood obviously weren't mentioned there. No. We're sending our guys to war. We're sending our guys to war to put the flag on. You didn't mention it, but was that game played in the trenches? I imagine. Metaphorically. Metaphorically.

They do love that football commentators to use a bit of war imagery. you know, be there in the trenches. Even, it's so funny how Australian culture gets a little bit of that. Back when me and friends were having our 21st birthdays and the speeches would be had. And I reckon every second speech I went to with some mate, the speech would be like,

you know what, Jono, he's the one guy I'd want next to me in the trenches. It's like, you're studying a hospitality degree. When are you going to the trench? You're not going to the trenches. But then at my 21st, my mate goes, we've heard at other people's 21st, we've heard a lot of people say, they're the only one I'd want next to me in the trenches. Well, that's not the case with Matt. He's the last guy I'd want next to me in the trenches.

He said something like, he'd probably be filling an online form in about animal welfare or something. Got me. Got that. Got me a beauty. So we've got a cup. We won something. Yeah.

And I read yesterday as well that in. in the 1800s in the brief time that I think it was South Yarra, but you know, the team we formed out of, they won a trophy, which went missing until, I think the last decade, it turned up in Bristol and it was someone in the UK. Yeah, in the UK, some guy inherited it. And he emailed the MCC saying, is this important? So they're like, oh, yeah, how did it end up there? No one really knows why.

But it's now on loan at a sports museum here in Melbourne on display. Yeah. So, you know, we've got a history of cups. Not a good history of holding onto them. They didn't try and take that one office, either. And that's the most important part of the story. You won't challenge the week later. Not robbed.

Not robbed. The Saints also went on to win the reserves premierships in 1942 and 1943, which is kind of inexplicable because the team was not particularly good at that point. you know, the seniors team. But the reserve, normally the reserves are the players who can't quite make it into the seniors team. So normally there's a bit of a flow-on effect. If the firsts aren't done very well, then the seconds probably aren't.

But for some reason, our seconds were very good in the early 40s. But the decade again finished without the ultimate success. In fact, the Saints were far from it, winning further wooden spoons in 1943, 1945, 1947, and 1948. So we're racking up the wooden spoons. The new decade, though, the 1950s brought about more spoons in 1952, 1954, 1995, which took the club's tally up to 19, which I think today would still be a record in the league.

I think it would still be the most. Yeah. But you're not done yet? No, we're not done yet. And there's 70 more years of competition to go. But they did start to turn around after that, after those latest wooden spoons in 54 and 55. That's right. Yeah.

Things did start turning around for sure. And this was with the appointment of this coach called Alan. And no, Dave, that's not the Alan you're thinking of. Before Alan Yabby Jeans, the Saints had a coach named Alan Killegru, who got the gig in 1956. And according to the club, this was a big turning point in the side's fortunes because Killegru was a really tough coach. And he famously declared that nobody will laugh at St Kilda.

I'm not sure that worked out particularly well because most of the league laughs at St. Kilda. But Killegru undertook one of the most ruthless and substantial list turnos in VFL history. He's astounding cleanout resulted in 17 Saints who played in 1955, never donning the red, white and black again, while 11 untried players were called up for the club's first match of 1956. The tough love approach and Killegru's insistence for the St Kilda Faithful to get behind the boys, rents the club off the lower rungs of the ladder, but never into legitimate finals contention. Yeah, but it was the start, right? It was the start. And sometimes you hear about that. Like a coach will get sacked.

But then the next coach will come along and have success. And some of the groundwork was done by the coach before. I think it was just the mentality. Like you hear sporting teams talking about the culture, you know, winning culture and all that stuff. And he brought that in, that kind of ruthlessness, that tough love, really driving standards. And the club had really never had that before. Yeah.

I love that line of no one will laugh at St. Gilda. Reminds me of probably one of the best jokes ever written from years ago, this guy, Bob Monkhouse, I think is it an English comedian. You know, this joke who goes, they laughed at me when I said I was going to be a comedian. Well, no one's laughing now. So good. But yeah, the wildest thing, and I heard this on your podcast, that his list call was so great on Killagrew that when the new season rolled around, a lot of the players never met before.

Yeah. And that happened like two of the players met on the day of a game. Not just any two, but two who are nearly the most important on the field, the two that start next to each other in the centre, the Ruckman and the Rover. So Ray Barrett, who was the Ruckman, Paul Dodd, who was the rover, first met on the tram to North Melbourne, going to the game. That's so funny. Oh, what do you do for the club?

Oh, you play. So do I. Yeah, they're like, oh, you're a supporter of the Saints. No, I play. Oh, me too. It's so funny. Oh, yeah, I'll be tapping the ball to you later today. Oh, great to you there.

That's so funny. this is when we were turning things around. Real professional type standards, like I said. But how bad were the previous players for the coach to come and be like, you suck so much, I will bet everything on these people I've never met. They've never met. They probably never even heard of the game of football. But they look like they want to know.

But it did work. It worked. Yeah. It did work. Because they actually won something a couple years later. That's right. In 1958, the Saints won another bit of silverware taking out the VFL night. Series Premiership, which was basically just a consolation competition for teams that didn't

make the Final Four, but still, it's something. Best of the rest. Oh, right. So it was a playoff amongst the losers. Yeah. Exactly. And played at night? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah. It was before they had light towers at grounds, but. Candle lit. Yeah. Everyone's running around. A lot of our players were just coming back from war, so they were pretty good for it. You know, they've got their pain on their face crawling around.

Yeah. Back to Holmesby. Although the on-field results did little to reflect it. At the time, the Saints boasted some of the best players in the league, who were recognised for their efforts across the competition. St. Kilda picked up three consecutive Brownlow medals from 1957 and 1959 through Brian Gleason, Neil Roberts, after he switched from half-four to centre-half back,

and Vernon Howe, while Bill Young snared the Coleman medal for most goals in the league in 1956. Good year for Melbourne. It was the Olympics year. Have you done that story yet? Melbourne Olympics. Yeah. No.

We've done the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. Very specific. We've done a few Olympic topics, but we haven't done the Melbourne Olympics. I've heard there's a few interesting stories there. Like the equestrian at the Melbourne Olympics was contested in Sweden. Of course. We annexed part of Sweden for the month. There are some pretty good stories from the 56 Olympics.

I don't know if you have. heard about the Olympic rings. You know, it's normally that the Olympic rings are incredible, beautiful historical rings, and they travel to different countries and they put them together. They put them together. The actual rings. I didn't know there. Do you know there are actual rings, though? Yeah. Okay. But in 56, they came off the back of a plane and just lumped on the back of a of a yute and just driven around the, just driven around the city. That's fun. It's very Australian. Back of the flatbed youth. Yep. We're ACDC recording a film clip on the yute later that day. So good.

Back to Holmesby, Gleason's sudden knee injury and forced retirement in 1958 thrusts a young Alan Morrow into the spotlight whose profound impact would be etched into the club's folklore almost a decade later.

But the 1950s birthed a champion of another kind and one whose legacy would be immortalized in the San Quilda history forever. Yes, Dave, it's time to talk about the great Alan Yabby Jines.

Alan Yabby Jains. Is that a name? What is that? Yabby Jins. He's a nickname. Do you know, where did he get the nickname, Yavi? I'm not sure, actually. No, I don't know either.

I'm guessing he just sort of liked to swim in dams. He was a cop, not a fisherman. Right. But he started so young. So he was a player at the Saints, and he played between 55 and 59. Then he, I think he went to coaching the country maybe, and he was doing good things there. And then in 1961 took over the Saints head coaching job. And he was only 27.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So he would have been coaching players older than him, I would have thought. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And players that he played with. Yeah, which would have been uncomfortable. And you would have thought not really the ideal scenario. But as it turned out, youth didn't hold him back as he took the Saints back to the finals in just his first season,

breaking a finals drought going back 22 years back to 1939. They were in the frame to make the finals again in 1963, but it came down to their last game against North Melbourne. In the 1960s, Australian music and TV legend Molly Meldrum was a member. member of the Saints Cheer Squad. How would you explain Molly Meldrum to listeners, Dave? What is he's like, he's an Australian icon these days, but he's a music journalist that's famous for wearing a large, what was it, 10-gallon hat? Yeah, like a cowboy hat. Cowboy hat. And he, yeah, through the 70s, 80s, into the 90s, would interview all the touring musicians who came out, you know, you're out and Johns, you Madonna's. Rod Stewart.

And he was, and then became friends with all of those people. He seems like he's still mates with a lot of them. Who's that British interview, Graham Norton? He's a more flamboyant version of Graham Norton. More, yeah, he's Graham Norton, only more flamboy. Yeah, that makes sense. I remember one time, you ever been in the edgy, Nick? Of course.

Yeah, of course. I was down there one Wednesday night years ago, and I saw Molly's hat sort of bobbing through the crowd. and he was just he just walked in did a U-turn turn walk back out and he was on his way back out at the door he was obviously looking for someone or something I said hey moly about the saints and it was packed like you know shoulder to shoulder he turned around again came back to me and goes oh we are we are on the up and we chatted about the same for like five minutes that's good at else he looked like his face went from like this sort of concerned looking for someone to like beaming and wanting to chat about the car

I must have talked about the saint. There's a statue of Mully. Yeah, that's right. In Richmond, is it called Richmond Junction? It's that kind of little side street next to... Is that where sort of some streets meet? Yeah. That's how I'd explain it.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Dave, do you know, Junction? No, I've never heard that word. The Junction, no. There's a gold, I think it's a gold statue of Mollie, Melchum. So good. And he's also, I think he's got a saint's tattoo. I think it's the shield on his...

Yes, I think so. And he's been known whenever, whenever the club's been in Grandfather. final or a final series, he paints his front fence and it's like a tourist attraction. So cool. Anyway, so he's part of the cheer squad back in the 60s. The Saints have to beat North Melbourne to make this final in 1963. But he realized that they didn't only have to win. They had to win by a certain amount of points to make it.

And he wanted to let the players know during the game. So he took drastic action as nine news reports. This is quoting Melbourne. I don't know what possessed me. I was in the cheer squad and for some reason I jumped the fence, ran out onto the ground

and the umpire was about to bounce the ball. The umpire yelled stop and I said, hold on a moment. At that point, Meldrum made a B-line for St Kilda players

Kevin Cowboy Neal and Ruckman Alan Morrow to deliver his important message saying, listen, apart from winning, you need better percentage to get in. And Molly,

who was working at a bank at the time had done the sums. Not only did they have to win, that to win by two more goals to jump over the time. top of Essen and Meldron said. As Meldron was running back to his seat, he was confronted by a burly police sergeant who escorted him off the ground.

And there's footage of it. That's him there being talked to by the umpire. I still got a hat. Still got a hat. Yeah, there's another photo where he's running out with the hat off. But yeah, he's always been a hat man. I did tell you this report was about the St. Kilda hat. Football Club hat.

Yeah, there it is. While the Saints went on to achieve the result required and make the finals, Molly scampered through the streets of St Kilda hoping to evade police. I told the officer I needed to go to the toilet, but I took off down Fitzroy Street and then down Grey Street, Melbourne recalled. So he had a bit of a history of not seeing the final sirens of important games. That was one time.

Cornyn Holmesby, famously Jeans, Yabby, said the Saints could have gone harder after keeping Richmond goalless for an entire game at one point, a feature which had last been achieved in 1921. So he was bringing in an even more ruthless attitude. Oh, you kept them goalless? You could do better than that. You could have murdered them.

Yeah. Sorry, coach, how could we do better than keep them goalless? Murdered. Murdered them. He didn't want to say, but he sort of just nodded. Just a wink. Yeah. I'm not saying anything, but.

You know how you can do it. You know. You know deep down. It was the uncompromising standards, refusal to yield, an insatiable hunger to succeed that would put the Saints on the road to premiership glory. Under Jean's tenure, Saints vied for September action in 1961 and 63, but were eliminated in the semi-finals on both occasions. It was during this time where some of the club's greatest champions began to emerge.

The blonde bombshell Carl Ditterich forged himself a reputation as one of the most intimidating players whoever graced the field, with his partnership with Alan Morrow and Brian Maynott, Mineot? Why not? And Brian Maynott in the Ruck, one of the best in the league. Carl Ditchrich.

I don't know it doesn't sound like it because you kind of talk about him as one of the most feared players in the league, but they actually called him the St Kilda Beatle for a while. Oh no, here comes the Beatles. Yeah, just really intimidating

John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Yeah. Hello, hello, I'm going to do some rock work, okay? A dibble dabble to bold, okay, you'll rock it down to you there, you're running. Yeah, I think it was mainly just because of his hair cut, right?

Yeah, the fetal. Yeah. The blonde beetle. The St. Kilda Beetle, so funny. Neil Roberts and Vernon Haud continue to shine down back. Brown low medalist Ian Stewart, who won three, and Ross Smith, who won one, dominated through the centre, while legendary captain Darrell the Dock Baldock was in a league of his own. With a team of champions and all the ingredients to write themselves into legend,

genes helped pave the next era of St. Kilda's history, furthering their ambitions to be there in that last week of September. As the club was putting together its best ever team, they're also embarking on another big change, moving from their home ground at Junction Oval in St Kilda to a new home at Linton Street in Marabin in 1964. This came about after ongoing disputes with the St Kilda Cricket Club over the use of facilities. I guess in those shoulder seasons especially after finals into cricket season and the cricket club's coming and we're trying to do pre-season here. Yeah, we're We're about to play in a final. We're doing our actual season.

We need the ground, let alone the, and then the alpacas were probably getting involved. According to Homesby, six months of direct involvement from the Saints Stars in building their new footballing residency, right down a walking in lines to pick up stones from the newly laid playing surface, were done in the hopes of ushering in an era of prosperity for the club. They were building both literally and figuratively a new home and a new beginning as the Bayside Club entered a new and unknown frontier in the southeastern suburbs. So yeah, the players were literally, as they're laying the new turf, the players would line up and go

through picking up pebbles and rocks. Yeah, literally out of the grass, out of the grass. I mean, you imagine now, you talk about Leo Messi in Miami starting new franchise with David Beck. Can you imagine David Beckham and Leo Messi walking through grass picking up pebbles? I don't think I can really picture it. No. But these were literally the best players in the VFL at the time, which is amazing. Yeah, they were just, yeah, they really had bought in. And that showed in the success they were having on the field. But it wasn't without controversy of the move, which you can imagine.

Like, they'd played at Junction Over for many decades. They were the St. Kilda football club, had always existed in St. Kilda. So to move from St. Kilda and Marabin, which is probably today, it's probably maybe 20 minutes. drive. If that. Yeah. It's not that far. It's not that far, but back then, Marabin would have been like the edge of the world.

Because I grew up in Marabin. My grandparents moved there a little bit of the decade before in the 50s. And when they moved there, it was, they were the only house on the street. It was sort of farm. It was industrial and stuff, wasn't it? It was factories. Yeah, there's factories and stuff. And there's also like farmers gardens and stuff.

And, I mean, the industrial area is all still there. Back to Holmesby, the move caused wide. spread division internally and externally, but all was forgotten when a record crowd of 51,370 people flocked to the new home to witness a stunning triumph over Collingwood, which is hard to imagine. I've been to a bunch of games there, never that many. I don't think legally in the 90s you're allowed to have that many in there. I think the capacity was more like 30,000. Something about that 35, yeah. So I don't know how they got squeezed in. But even more recently when they've played preseason games and AFLW games there.

The capacities, I know it's different, but capacity is like eight or ten thousand now. And it feels pretty full. It's packed. Eight thousand packs it. It's pretty hard to imagine. I think the stands were slightly different and whatnot, but still, it's hard to imagine that many people there. And St. Kilda rocketed to the top of the ladder in 1965 with 14 wins,

securing its first minor premiership, which is finishing on the top of the ladder after the regular season. In 1965, it's the first time they finished. on top of the ladder, Dave. Finally. So, yeah, a bit of time. Nearly 70 years into the competition. About 92 years, to be precise.

Unfortunately, Dave, despite their great season, 1965 ended in heartbreak when they lost the grand final to Essendon. Oh. Yeah. Kick in the face. What a kick in the face. Damn it. It's too hurt.

But did they challenge them for the next week? Yeah, that's the problem when they finish on top of the ladder. So if the challenge system existed, they could have done it. Could have done it, but unfortunately, they weren't using the challenge system anymore. Robbed. Robbed. Absolutely robbed. Robbed.

Exactly. I've always said that system's a good system while they get rid of it. So, yeah, the next season, 1996, I don't know if anyone's got any interest in that. No, I just skip that one. Yeah, I've heard it. Heard it. All right, well, let's not talk about that then. Let's talk about the theme song.

The song now synonymous with the club is a version of the tradition. or spiritual song when the Saints go marching in. At the Junction Oval though, they use an adaptation of, I do like to be beside the seaside as their song. Right, but rewritten at all? Probably. Perically? Very, I actually probably not that.

I'm not sure. I don't think it was, no. They were known as the Seagulls then. Okay, right, that makes sense. There you go. The song is, it's not very rousing, really, is it? It's not. I do like to live beside the seaside.

It's like a merry. Poppin song or something. But yeah, they changed to when the Saints go marching in when they moved to Marabin. This is from the Herald Sun. When the Saints Go Marching in was written by an unknown songwriter in 65 or 66 when the Saints were moving from Junction Oval to Marabin. Now, written seems like a stretch to me. Yeah, I don't think that's quite accurate, Harold Sun.

I mean, even the, I think what they're saying is written is changing, I want to be in that number to I want to be in Marabin. and they're like, that's a writer's credit. Because nothing else changed. The melody, most of the lyrics, all stayed the same. But yeah, they just abbreviate it. They took out all the verses. Very unlike the Herald Sun to get something so wrong.

As a media man, should you be throwing stones like this? Oh, I'm picking up stones. Picking up. That is very St. Kilda of all. Well done. The Herod Sun continues. There are only 14 words in this theme song. The original tune is an American gospel hymn.

This song was famously recorded on May the 13th, 1938 by Louis Armstrong in his orchestra. The current and favorite version of St. Kilda fans was recorded by the fable singers in 1972. The fable singers recorded all the current team's songs in 1972, and they're still the ones that, for the most part, get played at the games. They're the, hur. Yeah. B, bop, bop, bop, bop, boom. That sort of style, yeah. The fans love them.

The fans love them. Yeah. Yeah. There was a revolt when AFL had them all re-recorded a couple of years ago. Yeah. And they brought most of the old ones back. There's trumpets and trombones. Yeah.

Yeah, it's brilliant. The Saints, like the Saints song, it's a great song, but they've sucked a lot of the fun out of it by killing the verses. It's basically just, it's the chorus and then the chorus again. Yeah. There's a great drum solo. There is a great drum solo. Yeah. It's a lot of fun hitting my brother in the head with that after wins.

Yes. I guess, do you want to explain to international listeners what the song's about? I don't know how unique that is to Aussie first. Probably not that unique, is it? I'm not sure what it's like in other sports, but in, in Aussie rules footy, every club has a theme song that kind of plays on the ground over the loudspeakers when they run out on the ground and all the fans sing along and chant and whatever. And then at the end of the game, the winning team goes back in the locker room.

They all kind of huddle up and the players sing it together, which is kind of a cool little thing. Yeah, I don't know. And they were doing that the whole time, like, I do like to live outside the seas. Yeah, I don't know when it would have come in, but it's definitely been in as long as I can remember, and I'm quite an old man. It happens in some other sports. You are an old man, but it does happen in some other sports. I don't know in college football, a lot of the big colleges have their theme songs that they kind of huddle up and sing or chant in the locker room. And like a lot of the AFL songs are based on old American songs.

Like a lot of patriotic songs. Oh, yeah, the French national anthem is one of like Geelongs, maybe. Brisbane? Or Brisbane. Brisbane? Yeah. I don't think the German anthems any of them, though. No, I don't think it is.

Maybe Collingwoods. Sounds right. Must be true. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the players sing it. But as the siren goes, they'll play the winning team song as well. So the crowd will sing along.

And now they've got emcees at the games. The emcee will often say, should we hear it again, Saints fans? You're like, just, yes. Just play the song. Just play the damn song. Nah, got on him. He's doing his job. It's the kind of job that Dave would have done.

million times before. I know what you're going to say, but they've told me, I've got to say this. But here's some of the verses from the original Dave that were cut. They all start with, or they all end with, I want to be in that number when the Saints go marching in. But what about, oh, when the drums begin to bang, or when the drums begin to bang, I want to be in St. Kilda, when the drums begin to bang. Or when the stars fall from the sky. Oh, when the stars fall from the sky. Oh, God. It's very dramatic.

It's so dramatic. When the trumpet sounds its call. When the trumpet sounds its call, I want to be in St. Kilda. When the trumpets sounds it's cool. When the horsemen begin to ride. Or when the horsemen begin to ride. I want to be there in St. Kilda. When the horsemen begin to ride.

But my favorite, I think. Or when the moon turns red with blood. Oh, okay. Turns red with blood. I want to be there in Moravan. I think we should bring a couple of those back. At least the last one. I think it'd be sick.

I think all the other clubs have got these fun verses with fun imagery, you know, like Sydney Swans one, which is definitely an old American patriotic song, and I think they lifted this line straight from them, but they say, shake down the thunder from the sky, which I think is sick.

Or Collingwood saying that every premiership's a cakewalk, you know. But we don't have it. We've just got marching in. I want to be there in St. God and when the Saints go marching in. I want to be there in St. God and when the Saints go marching in. Repeat. Let's get the moon blood with red with blood.

Yeah. You've got links to the club, Nick. Can you? I'll have a word. Have a word. But I want to get the horsemen into this story too. I want to get those horsemen riding and then the moon dripping with blood. I reckon we take a couple of them.

Horsemen and the moon would be fantastic. If I need to sign some sort of petition, I will. as you might have heard in my 21st speech, I love to do it. I still don't know what he was talking about, but anyway, all right, Dave, it's time. Nick, you ready? Let's talk, 1996.

You sure people want to hear this? I think they do. All right. I guess so. I mean, if they're still listening at this point, anyway. So the Saints got off to a hot start winning the first eight games on the trot.

Oh, wow. Things got a little bit wobbly for the rest of the season, but still won six of their final 10 games to finish second on the ladder with 14 wins, just won behind the Collingwood Magpies. In 1966, it was the final four system. The top two teams,

Collingwood and St. Kilda, played each other, and so did the third and fourth teams, Geelong and Essendon. Unfortunately for the Saints, the blonde beetle, Carl Dittrich, was suspended for six weeks during a previous match for striking. So obviously, yeah, I don't know.

know the exact incident, but he must have punched someone. Six weeks back then would have been something pretty bad, I guess. Six weeks now could have been like accidentally tackling someone wrong. He did get, he got suspended a lot. Yes. He did get suspended a lot. So it makes sense. Oh, yeah.

We've had a few players like that as well. But anyway, it meant that he would miss the whole finals campaign. The winner of the Saints Pires game would go straight into the granny, and the loser then would have to play the winner of Geelong and Essen and third versus fourth. So first versus second, you get a bonus chance. Third versus fourth, it's elimination. Losers out. The winner of that game plays the loser of first versus second.

Gotcha. The Stainz started poorly against the pies and were down by 31 points at quarter time. While they rallied strongly for the rest of the game, they went down by 10. In the other final lesson in Beach, Long, so the Saints had to play the Bombers in a replay of the 1965 grand final matchup

to get their ticket to the grand final. While the bombers were too strong in 65, in 66, the Saints flog them. Flogged them. Flogged them. That was a cake walk. Whatever that means.

And that set up the blockbuster grand final between the Magpies and the Saints, which brings us to the big game. On the 24th of September, 19966, in front of more than 100,000 spectators at a packed MCG, Collingwood and St. Kilda went head to head with the premiership and all the glory that that entails on the line. Do you know how many premierships in Kilda had won at that stage?

We're talking night premierships, reserves premierships, patriotic cups. We're talking trophies that were won before we existed. Because I'm counting those. Just day VFL grand finals. We were at rounding down or rounding up, zero. Correct. And Collingwood? Collingwood, I think it won 15.

13. 13. They've won 15 now. They slowed down from this point, didn't they? They did. All during the World Wars, though. Yeah, it was funny. Once other teams were playing in the competition at the same time, they haven't won very many since then.

Once all the other players came back. Of course, I'm in a glass house as a saint supporter right now, throwing stones, but I did pick them up in a line. So I think that was okay to throw it. It is about as David versus Goliath, a matchup could be in VFL. Speaking of throwing stones. It's good by you. Okay. Have you told that story?

The David versus Galas. Yeah. I don't think we have. Hmm. That's one. Yeah. I don't know. There weren't, I don't think Russell Homesby's written a book about it yet, so it makes it harder.

Ask him next time he'll be. Yeah. I will. But, I mean, not just the histories of the two clubs, but the Saints, obviously, like you mentioned, were missing some of their biggest stars, Carl Litterich. Ross Oakley, who later went on to become the CEO of the VFL, did his knee. a week earlier against Essonan. And Darrell Baldock, who was that the captain of the club,

had injured his knee about a month earlier, maybe six weeks earlier. And by all reports, that leg should have been in plaster. He shouldn't have been running around at all. And he, like, playing football. Like all the premiership stars of our team, many brand-low medalists, legends, like literal legends in the Hall of Fame,

I think they all basically say he was their greatest player. That's right. His nickname was Mr. Magic. That's how much people loved him. Is he doing magic tricks on the side? Slight of hand. Slight of hand. Vic Cumberland taught him everything he knows.

Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't know. I don't think I knew that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Our captain, he was like an undersized center half forward.

Yeah. But he could sort of play anywhere. Pretty much played every position on the ground. And he was just a freak. And, um, yeah. I think it was about 182 centimeters. Right. Just about.

Oh, no, that's a pretty tall. Not for 1966. I have a good size. That was in 1913. He would have been the Ruckman. Yeah, that's right. That's true. So the game was tight all day. And a quarter time, the Saints were up by four points. Half time, the Pires had kicked back and were leading by one point. At three-quarter time,

the Saints were back up by four points. It was seesawing, but staying close the whole way through. Then by the 25-minute mark of the final quarter, the Pies had kicked a further three goals two to the Saints two goals four, meaning that the scores were leveled, with only a couple of minutes to go. And I'm going to let the great man and the great babysitter, Russell Holmesby, summarised the final moments of the game. Hearts were in mouths as hysterical panic and excitement coursed around the ground in the deadlocked final minute. All it would take was one point. As the ball bubbled up in the Saints forward 50 and the crowd continued to scream their lungs out, an opportunistic Barry Breen found himself with just enough space to seize the Sharon and fire towards goal. His

and kick sailed high for an agonizing few seconds, crossing the line for the most famous minor score in the game's history. Probably the most famous wobbly punt ever been kicked. With the Saints up by a solitary point, Collingwood were presented with one final roll of the dice, advancing the footy through the centre and barreling long to centre half forward. Bob Murray's match-saving mark on the last line of defence, all but confirmed the result, with his clearing kick to the boundary averting a crisis that would have shattered the the hearts of the St. Kilda faithful.

So in the dying moments, the ball was right deep in Collingwood's forward line. If Collingwood Ford was able to take a mark there, would have at least been a draw and a replay, but probably, you know, they could have won. So, yeah, and you've watched this quite a few times. I've seen it a few times. You can actually hear the commentators that are imploring St Kilda to win this game. It's never happened before. And they're yelling out, hit the boundary line.

Hit the boundary line. They're barricing. They're absolutely barricing for St. killed. Ted Witten, the former foot scrape player, was commentating that day. And he was just telling the Saints to slow down and just run out the clock to the siren. Sort of just giving them advice. That's interesting. Yeah. It's one of the most famous pieces of VFL, AFL commentary now. Be up there with Jezolenko U Beauty. Yeah, right up there. And what else? One of Dennis Committees one, probably one that I don't want to mention about

Thefe in the Night or whatever. That was about it. That was a less positive Saints grand final. A bit of commentary. Back to Holmesby. As the Sharon sailed into Alan Morrow's outstretched hands, the siren sounded to end the longest premiership drought in VFL, AFL history. We're currently trying to build up to a beat that record at the moment. No words can do justice to describe the sheer emotion that followed, but the tears that flowed in pure happiness,

the unbrialed outpouring of joy, and the historic celebrations that were 93 years in the making, had finally blessed the red, white and black. At long last, St. Kilda had its first ever premiership, and all of those men were immortals. Man, even just reading, it must have got hairs on the back of their neck. I think that's, as much as I'd say the Saints have got a part of that, I think that's all Russell Holmes be working. He didn't know how to write. He, or does.

Oh, my God. I thought you had some bad news for me. He'll never babysit again. I'll read that writing and I think, I trust my child with that man. Just like I trust my child. my life. There were a few quirks in this game. It was back in the black and white day.

So, uh, you, it was, Australian TV was still black and white then. So if all the footage of the game's in black and white, which is funny to watch now because you're, you're watching black and white stripes versus black white and red stripes with, um, yeah, they're pretty similar looking. It's hard to see. It's hard to see. But one of the weird things was that, uh, generally after the grand final that the two captains on the ground would swap their jumpers.

and swap their Guernseys. So no actual photo exists of St Kilda's captain, Darrell Baldock, actually holding the Premiership Cup. The magic one. The magic one. He's wearing a Collingwood jumper in the premiership photo. So there's obviously there's some versions now that have been retouched with the St Kilda jumper, but there is no photo of any St Kilda captain holding the Premiership Cup in a St.

Kilter jumper. Not the day. Not on grandfile. Obviously there's photos of Wizard cups being held up by a thing. And set. Cups. Yeah. We'll talk about them briefly later.

But, yeah, my friend had his 21st, and there was black and white theme. And my plan, and I didn't quite have the guts to follow through with it because I didn't want to be wearing, be like Bulldog and being in photos and color. My plan was, because he's a big color and supporter, he's like, everyone has to wear black and white. I was going to wear, I was going to go dressed as Bulldog and hold that, have a fake Saints premiership cup. Yeah, black and white.

but didn't have the guts. What did you end up doing? I think I platted my beard and tied, made it look black and white, and put black and white things in. I just wore whatever I had in the house. I think I wore my brother's op-shop white suit. Finding the cup. I said I didn't have the guts, but I couldn't be, I just.

Couldn't find the cut. I couldn't find a cup. That was only one, and it's in a pretty well-secured cabinet in St. Kilda, in Marabin. It's actually the other thing from that game is that it's the first time that The winning team of the VFL grand final did a lap of honour around the MCG. They invented the lap of honour? Invented it. It had never happened before.

The Secular website says it's still hazy to this day as to who suggested the Saints Walk around the MCG with the Premiership Cup, with coach Alan Jeans and Chairman of Selectors, Des Nisbet, the two names thrown up in discussion. The only thing undisputed is that that iconic lap was done for the fans who, according to Jeans on Nisbet, had waited long enough to witness the ultimate success. So good. I love that. It's sort of similar to a story about future captain Danny Frawley in the 90s when the Saints were doing it pretty hard.

I think there was a game that was pissing down or, no, it was really hot. The weather was extreme and maybe it was in at the Gabra or something. I'm butchering the memory. But anyway, Frolley. Some memories of being Hawthorne at Waverly. Oh, okay, Hawthor and Waverly. Maybe. And then he took, so Froley took the whole Saints team over to applaud the fans who,

hung out and watched the game, which, yeah, it's just, it's just, that's that kind of club. Whereas Carl England's all jumping in their convertible limousines. Converteable limousins. They, you know, they don't give a shit about their fans, but why would they? All this country.

They don't care about anything. Molly Meldron was also at that game. Oh, Molly, of course. And I sort of alluded to this before that he never actually saw, he often didn't see the final siren. at important games. He's always arrested. This time he wasn't arrested.

Unfortunately, he can't recall the moment the Premiership became official telling 9 news. Barry Breen kicked that wobbly punt to win the match and it all became too much for me and I fainted. So in theory, I've never experienced the Saints winning a grand final ever. And that's why I hang out for it so much, he laughed. That's why. That's why, yeah. He'd just like to see it. I'm pretty sure I remember a story of him, maybe at the 65.

or one of the losses he went to, he was so angry after the game, he went to kick a can. I was like, I was so angry, I went to kick this can on the ground, and he kicked through it and into a brick wall

and broke his toe. I think I'm just, I remember that story, I couldn't find it online, but I'm pretty sure that's true. Molly? If not, why not, Molly?

Kick harder. The Saints continue to be competitive with the top teams into the 70s, playing off in the grand final again in 71, but despite leading by 20 points at three-quarter time, the Hawks flew home with a seven-gold final term to claim the premiership. They moved a few times. They moved a defender into the four-line who kicked, I think he kicked five goals.

They were basically go and throwing caution of the wind. We're running out of ideas. Let's just switch the team around and it worked. Bob Ketty. Bob Ketty. Curse that name. Alan Jeans continued to coach the team. to a high standard making the finals in the first four years of the 70s.

But unfortunately, after 1973, the Saints Golden Era was over, having made the finals nine times between 61 and 73. And that is, I mean, that says something about the Saints. Our Golden Era meant one premiership. Our Silver era, no premierships. The Silver era was that decade of mediocrity. After this point, I guess it is, yeah. Alan Jeans, Yabby, he remained in the top job until 76,

and Barry Breen played on until the 80s. So there was some of those Premiership Legends who hung around for a while. Barry Breen also was the first player to play 300 games for the Saints, which was a record that existed until the 2000s, I think. Yeah, I think it was Berk or low. Forget which order, but it was same year.

Burke and then Harvey did it. That's right. And then Revol. And then Revol. All of a sudden, in the first 100 years of the club, only one player played at 300 games but yeah in the last 20 there's been or last 40 I guess there's been four it must have been so many premierships yeah you assume with that that many great players in the modern era we must have got there well let's find out anyway the slide down the ladder

was on and while they were tough times there were still bright spots with exciting individual players particularly Trevor Barker barca debuted in 1975 unfortunately for him he sort of got there as it was all, you know, hitting the skids. And he played during the toughest era, one of the toughest years of St Kilda's victory, starved history. A little bit like Darrell Baldock. He was kind of that undersized kind of player who played pretty much every position on the ground. He played center half forward. He played center half back. He played fullback. He just, he did everything. And he was a bit, he was his era as Kizali. Absolutely, yeah. High flying takes speckies every week. Do you want to talk a bit about this?

Because I said to you, when we were putting this story together, I said to you, this next period is, it's like the nadir of the Saints. But it was also the Saints disco era. The Saints disco era, which is famous in its own right. Yeah. Professional football club never liked to have fun. But this team that never really won anything had, you know, one of these eras, this period where they were known for being the party club. They never won anything. They would lose on a Saturday and then have a party Saturday night through Monday.

And it was known as the Saints Disco. Really lean years on the field, but incredibly fun. And it's such a well-loved period for Saints fans, which probably says it all about, I guess, the history of the club. I think it says a lot, but it also probably just says a lot of people found the club in that period as well. And their earliest memories, you know, people of our generation and older. People younger than us wouldn't remember it. but that was, you know, that were the first games I went to, were at Marabin.

Yeah. So have such fond memories of it. And it was different. It would, you'd go there. It wasn't allocated seating like it is now in a big stadium. This is old man talk, but you'd go there. It was mainly standing room at Marabon. So people would go and it would be a social thing as much as anything.

Yeah. Now it is, you know, a lot more corporate and whatnot. It was the animal enclosure. Yes, that's right. I'll talk about that. in a minute, but you had a story that I hadn't heard of about Ian Stewart. He came back to the club? Yeah, so in that period, Ian Stewart, who was the centreman for that premiership team in 66, three-time Brownlow medalist, he was appointed general manager of the football department.

In 1983, he was involved in a controversial clearance wrangle when South Melbourne players Paul Morwood and Silvio Foshini crossed to the Saints without clearance from the VFL. In round four, Moore would play in the game against Geelong without official clearance from the VFL and the Saints ended up losing by 11 points but had they won, they would have risked forfeiting the Premiership points under league rules.

When asked about the risk of forfeiting Premiership points, Stuart replied, we were beaten by 21 goals last week. What's the risk? Let me maybe we can play anyone. The risk is not playing. So yeah, Dave, this is a grim period for the Saints on field.

they added to their wooden spoon collection in 77 and 79 and 83 and 84 and 85 and 86 and 88. Oh no. So I think by this point they're up to 25 wooden spoons by the end of the 80s. 1985 started particularly brutally with three consecutive 100 point plus losses. So this is sort of the time that you guys are starting to get into the club. I actually wasn't in this this period I was living in the country and was a Coulton supporter. Right. And Calvin had a great decade.

I only realized this recently because I don't have any memories of being a Cullin supporter really. But I was a Cullin supporter when they won premierships. So I'm like, it doesn't quite, it's funny feeling that I'm like, I sort of have been a Premiership supporter. I just don't have any memory of it And then what happened You didn't what happened You didn't like that winning feeling Yeah no it was all wrong

Well I've told you this before But when we moved to Marabin Dad's side of the family's all saint supporters Mum's side's all Carlton And it was like a housewarming I remember there wasn't even furniture in the house yet And my uncle John Dad's young brother

Took me into the front room And he sat me down In front of the heater and he goes You go for the Saints now Matt. And I said, okay, John. And I've been the Saints Porter ever since. But mom being like, she, of our family, she's the only other diehard footy fan in our family. There's my younger sister also is in order a bit, but my brother and sister don't really care that much. Dad, you know, sort of, but not really. And, um, yeah, mom tells me about it how she was unstitching the number

four for six Kernan off my Carlton jumper and stitching it onto a Saints jumper. And stitching it onto a Saints jumper to be plugger and she was like it was the saddest moment of her life but she did it anyway what a grandmum i've heard you tell that story a couple of times i can just imagine in my mind and it's obviously nothing gets your mum but i have this picture of like this lonely lady yeah like sobbing yeah yeah yeah yeah and thread like unstitching quietly sobbing yeah it's so brutal um yeah i don't know it's hard to know whether or not because ever since then the The Blues, they have one premiership, which they bought with money in a brown paper bag. But brown baggers.

They've had a pretty tough time since. We've now both got the two longest premiership droughts in the league. All right. So you're damned either way, then. Yeah. They haven't won since 95. So there isn't quite as long. But how about you, Nick?

Is it a family thing for you? It is a family thing for me. I, a bit of a similar story, but I had to choose when I was about five. I used to go to St Kilda Games and Hawthorne games every weekend. My mum's side of the family is all Hawthorne, and dad's side was pretty much all St Kilda. And I chose very poorly. I think of that scene in Indiana Jones, you know, where he chooses the cup and he drinks from the cup and his face melts off. And the knight says, he chose poorly.

That's my life. How many flags we missed out on from the Hawks? That's a, what's it? Seven? Well, it must be, yeah, it must be about that. In your life? They want a couple in the late 80s. They want a couple in the...

Early 90s. One or two in the early 90s. Oh, 91. 91. Yeah. 89. Yeah. Yeah.

And then... And they won four in the last 15 years. Yeah. They won 2008. 12, 13, 14. Yeah. They won the three. So yeah, that's...

Yeah. But don't you think... I just feel like you'd be a different person. It builds resolve. Yeah. It builds resolve. Yeah. One way builds resolve.

The other way it builds like... You're soft. You soft, but all... Yeah. But maybe it also... I've heard. Palli Clause are talking about this is like, there's people who have grown up being winners and they just believe that they can do things more.

They'll try more things and they'll have more self-belage. They're like, oh, there might be something. Because it can happen. They know it can happen. Yeah. It's like, you just do it and then it works. You know, just do it and win. So, Dave, I thought you'd bring it up before now, but you haven't.

The Saints and there wouldn't. Swones. 27 wooden spoons is what we currently stand at. It is by far the record. You were saying that like if you'd stopped 60 years ago, you're right. Oh my God. 27. So that's since joining the VFL in 1897.

We won more in the VFA as well, but we don't count those. That doesn't count. Not official history. But of course, it should be said, I think we've got to clarify this. A third of those were won before 1910. We're talking about horse and cart days. Do we really count these? They're wearing long pants and leather boots.

Back when a spoon meant something. But it was probably valuable to have. And there were way less teams, you know, your chances of winning one were much higher back then. And then, yeah, we've only won two in the AFL era. So in 1990, the VFL became the AFL and team, we started having teams in all states. And coming up when Tasmania gets their team in a few years, every state in Australia will have a team. in that period of only won two wooden spoons, compared to Carlton, who's won five.

Right. And they're heavyweight. So, I mean, I might be sounding a bit defensive there, but I just want to say, since things have been made more equal, we haven't been as bad. True. Yeah.

As bad. We're only the equal worst team. Yeah. But yeah, it was, the times were very tough in the 80s, late 70s in the 80s, but they were good times, like Nick says. Back to Holmesby. It wasn't the poor,

on-field performances, substantial defeats, increasing collection of wooden spoons, rapidly increasing debt, or even the risk of folding that defined the club and the eyes of the Seekilda Faithful. Instead, it was defined by those who proudly represented the red, white, and black, and provided a light to cut through the seemingly endless darkness. And Trevor Barker was the absolute hero who championed those values. The idolised saint with the blonde locks, Hollywood looks, and a penchant for spectacular Marks gave fans a reason to cheer year week after week. Barks

took out the club's best and fairest award in just his second year before adding another to his collection in 1989. That very medal would later be named in his order with the Trevor Barker award to this day, one of the most revered accolades that can be bestowed upon a saint. Oh, is it for the hottest player?

Yeah, yeah. Named after Hollywood Trevor. The Saints' mascot's actually noun. St. Trevor. St. Trevor named after him as well. And he got the long blonde locks. Speaking of the Trevor Barth rewards,

have you been before Nick? I haven't, actually. I haven't been to the Trevor Barra Wars. Let me do a little humbug brag here. Because I got a plus one invite when Aaron Goxie Gox, stand-up comedian and Saints Fanatic, he was going to be performing. Didn't end up happening,

but he took me as his plus one and it was really great. So I thought I'd message Goxie and see if he wanted to let us know what he feels about being a Saints fan. I guess I love the Saints because, you know, there's always interesting characters and even though they're not a very successful club, you know, it's always something fun going on or something interesting. It's very rarely dull or boring at Saints. So, yeah, I wish I could say it's for the greatness of the on-field product, but yeah, that's probably how I sum it up is a quirky and fun club.

That's how I sum up Goxie, a quoky and fun guy. What a guy. That's great. Haggud's Goxie. I love Goxie. I love Goxie. Honestly, a natural treasure next to Molly Meltram. Yes, that's right.

I think once Molly goes and heaven forbid if he ever does, I think Goxie steps into that role. I think Molly's already been embalmed, hasn't he? I think he's still kicking. But the, yeah, there's a few roles at Stain. There's probably the Hollywood role, which Eric Banner is currently in as the Hollywood Saints fan. Have you had one before, Banner? Was there another Hollywood supporter?

Graeme Kennedy. Graham Kennedy was. He was a Saints fan. There you go. Shane Warren. Of course. Hollywood, Hollywood Shane. Peter Hitchner.

Oh, the Hitch. The Hitch is a saint supporter. What do you hell. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people who knew the Saints supporters. Yeah. Because the club did a video with their ambassadors a few years ago. Yep.

Coxie was probably in it. Jane Bunn. It was like majority news reporters. Yeah. Jane Bunn, Alicia Locksley, Pete H&A. Yeah. There you go. That's right.

People who are in the know. Tim Gossage. The Goss. Yeah. Anyway, back to Barker. He was offered big money to play for other clubs, but he stayed loyal to the cash strapped saints. He even donated a car.

He won back to the club to help their money issues. How did he win a car? He won't. No, he won't. He had a raffle. No, he won't. Come on down. He wanted it for being the best player of the year.

I think maybe the club. Mark of the year or? Oh, yeah, it was a. Something like that. It was something like that. Yeah. Not only did he, did he not take more money from other clubs? He took less money from Sikilda.

Yes. He just couldn't afford to pay him. Isn't that wild? He could have been, yeah, he could have gone anywhere and got paid proper cash, but he stayed. I think in that, in that period. players, I think it equaled out to something like 13.5 cents in the dollar they got paid during that period. That's how bad it was. And they talk about it now. They should be getting paid that money now, right? They should. I think there is something kind of going on behind

the scenes that there's some sort of acknowledgement or something, whether they actually get paid cash or there's just some sort of acknowledgement of what those guys did. Yeah, Bassett will come out and say, sorry. Is that clear everything up? He's out. He's our president at the moment. Yeah, billionaire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to sake sometimes, we need the members. He founded Sikh, didn't he? Can't you just chip in yourself? He founded Sikh.

Oh, that's your president. Yeah. Oh, right. So the president, for people who don't know footy, the president's like, it's an unpaid role. It's an honorary. It's an honorary title. And it's normally like a business person or some sort of.

Someone who's got some clout. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Anyway, after 230 games, Barker never played in a final. and only tasted victory 29 times throughout the 80s. So it was tough. But isn't it amazing to stick with that? There's like there's nearly no upside.

Worst pay, less success. Another club would have gladly taken him. Yeah. Oh yeah, they wanted him. Yeah, yeah. He did go on to have premiership success in the 90s, though, as the coach of Sandringham in the Victorian State League, which confusingly is now called the VFL.

The VFA became the VFL when the VFL, or after the VFL became the AFL. That's confusing, but anyway. So he coached a couple of premierships with Sandringham, but sadly he died of cancer at only 39 years of age. Oh, gosh. And at that time, he was seen as the next in line to be the Saints coach. There was somewhat of a succession plan kind of put in place

that Trevor Barker was going to become the next coach of St Kilda. and the captain of St Kilda, Danny Frawley, was going to become his assistant coach. And that was going to be the dream team kind of coaching team at St Kilda moving forward and never happened. Yeah, sad. Another bright light for the Saints in the 80s, as well as Barker was Tony Plugger Lockett.

Okay, now we're talking. That's all I've heard of. First one. Oh, that's the first name. No, Cizali. Yes, you knew that one. You didn't know Ross Oakley? The player who went on to be the president

of the whole league or the CEO of the league? You didn't know Billy Schmidt? I did know Long Dave. Back to Hoseby. The arrival of one Tony Lockett to Morabin took the game by storm, with the boy from Ballarat going on to become a legend of the game.

Making his debut at 17 years of age, Plugger fast became one of the Saints' most iconic heroes with his hulking presence, strong hands, surprising speed, and aggression, making him one of the best players of all time. In tandem with the great Nicky Winmar, the duo formed one of the most dangerous partnerships up forward, despite their side's minimal success.

Windmar's chemistry with Plugger inside Ford 50 was truly magical. Without him, Lockett wouldn't have kicked anywhere near as many goals as he did. Tism, I don't know if I've mentioned this to you, Dave, one of my old-time favorite bands. They had a song called Father and Son, and it was all about the dad taking the boy down to watch footy at Marabin, and the chorus was, win mar win mar win mar to locket they also shot a shot a video clip at marabin they did that's right i'm going to mention that a bit later um locket registered his best season in nineteen eighty seven boating 117 goals to lift the saints off the bottom of the ladder and taking out best and

fairest coleman and brown low medal honors as a result wow does anyone ever win three at once it's very very rare yeah very very very rare because brown low medals is sort of seen as a midfielders award now forwards never really win it um So yeah, it's probably unlikely that ever happen again. I mean, it did that full forwards never really won it ever. No. It's very few, I think. Yeah.

Pluggard was also feared as a player due to his size and physicality, while only standing at 191 centimetres tall, short by key position player standards today. He weighed over 100 keg, he weighed over 100 kegs during his playing days, and he wasn't afraid to throw his weight around. This was true off the field as well. In 1988, he was in host. with an ankle injury when journalist Eddie McGuire attempted to barge in for an interview.

Eddie McGuire, who went on to become the Collingwood president. I don't really have a problem with Kyle. It's a fun thing today to be. Yeah. And it's Jess's team. While she's not here, really lay the boots. You would have thought the pies would have been Dave's team. Anyway.

I love a pie. There you go. So McGuire's trying to barge in for an interview and lock it through one of his crutches at McGuire like a spear. The footage was captured and shown on the news that night. As far as I can tell, there were no repercussions for it. It was a different time. Surely not the last person to want to throw something at him.

He was like, back then he was like a real doorstop kind of journalist. Hey, you know, like on a current affairs type show. Shot to barge in. Yeah, going through people's rubbish and stuff. That's so inappropriate. Someone's in hospital. I'm probably talking up a little bit. But he really, I think he was just trying to...

I think he was a junior journalist at the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's that kind of tenacity that showed, that got him to where he got now. That's how he got the Collingwood job. And the host of who wants to be a millionaire. Something that's quite well. When people talk about Marab and Footy Ground, there's a few things they talk about.

One of them is the cold showers, Dave. It was also in the days where footy was still only semi-professional, so things were a bit loose. according to an article by Paul Daffy, the visitors' rooms at Morabin were considered among the most inhospitable in the competition. The biggest bug bear was the cold showers. After almost every game during the 1980s and early 90s, Marabin curator Brett Sullivan was called to the rooms about 20 minutes after the match to try and get the hot water going. A match every week. You like it? Oh mate, sorry, something again.

But the funny thing is, his first port-a-call was the gas tap at the back of the rooms, just a few steps or from the stairwell that leads up to the back of Bay Nine in the grandstand. This was one of the main thoroughfares on match days, Sullivan said. So, St. Supporters are walking past this wall where the gas tap is for the opposition room, hot showers. The easy access to the gas tap for anyone who wanted past enabled supporters to develop a habit of turning it off, a measure that instantly cut off the hot water. When the tap was taken off, supporters brought.

So they eventually went, all right, we'll just take the tap off. But like after years. Yeah. So once they took the tap off, supporters brought pliers and continue to turn the hot water off manually. One of the stories is that Ian Stewart, who was the general manager of the footy department at that stage, was one of the first people to kind of click to that idea that, hey, we should do the other team cold shouts. That's so funny. Because he comes up again, we'll talk about the muddy ground at Morabin as well. He was like he was one of the all-time greats.

One of the, no one ever won four Brownlow City. He was one of a few that won three. Three. Yeah. And one of the all-time great players. But he's like after football, he's like this guy turning up hot water. It would have been a real prankster. Franks like as an older man.

That's so funny to think about. After 23 years as a curator, Sullivan believes it was the cheer squad members who discouraged the hot showers saying the cheer squad never admitted that they turned off the tap. But that were the main suspects. Bill Cobb, a member of the St Kilda Cheer Squad for 36 years, was horrified by the suggestion saying, cheer squads get blamed for an awful lot of things. Cobb's now an administration officer at Australia Post. And he said, but I'll fight tooth and nail to protect the good name of our cheer squad.

Sounds like one of those whodnut stories like, it was the cheer squad at the gas tap with the flyers. It's so funny that it, yeah, it's like, how dare you? Which kind of, it doesn't convince me either way. Like, that's exactly what a cheer squad member who turns off the hot water would say, I'll fight two to the nail. How dare you? Our very good name in the cheer squad. Like Nick was saying, the sprinklers was another one that Marabwe was famous for.

During the tough years in the 80s, to bring the visiting teams down to their level, the saints turned the sprinklers on overnight to make sure the center square was a muddy bog. This was confirmed by an 1983 coach Tony Jewell in a 2018 radio interview, saying that one time they used a program timer to turn it on for a few hours at night before the game. But the timer failed to turn it back off. And Jule remembered that the following day the game against the Tigers was, quote, like a fair dinkum swimming pool. When the journalist asked him after the game,

why it was so wet, he told them that it was a localized shower. Famous, the famous local showers in Moabin. But again, I think it was Ian Stewart who did that. And there were nights where he'd be. out walking on the field with hoses and turning the sprinklers on and all that's of stuff in the centre square. That's what Jill said that him and Stuart would be out there sometimes drinking a beer, holding a hose out there on a Friday night.

But the Saints have to obviously play in it as well. Are they better in playing in mud? No, it just brings the opposition down to that level. There was a... Yeah, so one of the stories out of that year is from Rowan Sawers, who's a... one of the professional umpires in the VFL umpired over 400 games of football and he had to say this about his umpiring debut at Marabin in 1977 and he said my first bounce in league football didn't bounce the ball got stuck in the mud paul Calorie the

sincilla rover plucked the sharon out of the bog and played on it didn't bounce it just got swallowed by the bog so yeah that basically kind of had the effect of making opposition teams dreading to go there they're like you go there you're going to get muddy, even on a nice day, and it's just hard work. It's a slog. Slog in the bog. It's what Maravan was famous for. But the Saints players and fans love Maravan.

Despite all this, we're talking about Danny Froley before Spud. He said there was nothing like it. You would walk out in the middle, especially in the 80s, and you could just sense the atmosphere of the place. According to the Harold Sun, after a fiery game in 1978, Essend and President Colin Stubbs described the Saints as animals, and the fans embraced the tag. A small area fenced in between the umpires and St Kilda players' races

became known as the Animal Inclusion and was home to the most rabid fans. Spud Frawley later said, The Animal Inclusion was famous for all the right reasons. Anyone outside the club was like it was feral or was gross. It was awful. I don't think anyone has loved the St Kilda Football Club more than Danny Froeley. No. No.

Yeah. He is, yeah. Like he went on to be in the media a lot after he coached other teams and stuff. But yeah, he was always flying the flag for the Saints. By the way, he gets the name Spud, Dave. It's not the most interesting way to get a nickname, but he grew up and worked on a potato farm in Bungaree. That's how we got the nickname.

Which I guess begs a question. Did you grow up in a snake pit, Dave? That's why I, uh, in year eight, Nick for context, I tried to rebrand as Cobra. It did not take off. Nick doesn't look convinced. I can see it. I'm trying to bring it back.

I'm trying to bring it back now. He's going to call me Cobra. Oh, yeah? No, okay, fair enough, fair enough. No, cobra, let me go on. One of our listeners who suggested the topic is Maddie, who in her submission wrote, I'm a massive Saints fan just like Matt. Danny Frawley was also my family friend and school coach.

He was the person who introduced me to football when I was a kid and moved to Australia. He's the reason I love this sport so much and was the person who made me go for the Saints. But also the reason I love them too. Danny was not only an absolute legend of the AFL, but also a huge advocate for mental health. Yeah, so that's Maddie's message. See, I hope you can consider this as a topic. And yeah, I couldn't agree more with Maddie. He was an absolute legend. I remember me and my brother. So I had number four. My brother Tom had number two, Spud's number. And yeah, that were full forward, full back. And they're just super dependable at each end of the ground, both grew up in or around Ballarat.

We had a great period of getting players from Ballarat. Was that a zoning thing? I think it was, yeah. Every club had their kind of their club zone. So we at one stage had the Mornington Peninsula as well. And we lost that. We lost that part of the zone. That went to Hawthorne and they got a bunch of incredible players.

And there was also, there was, I think there was a story that Breridan, didn't he like fudge where it was from? on the, like you said it was from the other side of the road or something, so we went to Hawthorne instead of the Saints. A lot of dodginess forever. We've been dog forever by the system. But we would have had Dunstall and Burriton, I think, out of that, out of that zone. And I think it only changed like two years before or something.

Hawthorne, Hawthorne petitioned the VFL to get that part of the zone. Dogs, dogs, dogs. Makes way more sense for it to be ours as well. It's so much closer geographically to us. Mm-hmm. one of my favorite ever footy memories growing up was going out to western oval is the first time i went to the western oval the your home ground dave the now known as witten oval and i went to see spud's last game were you there nick i was there yep and did you run out so after the game i didn't run out no

normally it'd be after someone kicks a hundred goals the crowd would you or it still does run out under the ground and uh we all ran out when he finished and there's the some great photos of him with his arms up, just bawling his eyes out. Such an emotional guy, but he bled for the club. And I met him years later in a pub in Ireland. And he was so nice and welcoming, like Molly, as soon as I told him I was a saint supporter. He's right into him? I did, yeah, just bumped into him, but he was over there as an assistant coach for Australia in the international rules when Australia was playing Ireland. And yeah, he just kind of got light up a room with his warmth and humour. A little, little personal story. You know that photo of him holding up the flowers and he's

on the shoulders and stuff. The players actually got him a copy of that photo, framed copy of that photo. And my dad had a photo store in the city. And a lot of the players used to go there to get their photos done and whatever. And they actually got that photo developed and framed and a plaque put on it to give to Spud at Dad's shop. And so when they came in and they ordered the thing, they said,

we'll come back on whatever day to come pick it up. Dad actually kept me out of school and took me in the work so I could be there when Robert Harvey and Stuart Lowe came in to pick it up. That's awesome. So, yeah, that was cool. So you met Banger. Yep. And Buckets.

Bunkers. Banger and buckets. Amazing. I went to the Saints training at Buckets the week he was retiring. And I went to the training with me and my friend, Arnie, and I brought my little Sony camcorder to everyone's getting photos with him and stuff. And he's been real patient and nice after training. And I go, honey, get a video of me shake and.

a bucket's hand. And we're standing there and auntie's going, oh, it's not working. I mean, Stewie Lauer standing there shaking hands, and he's going,

it's not working. Something's wrong. He's like, I don't, I can't get it working. And Stui Lai sort of between his gritted, smiling teeth goes,

you guys taking the piss? The problem was you couldn't see your hand. It just been engulfed in his mitt. There's this great photo of him during his playing days holding like 12. His hands are so big. He just hold 12 eggs in his hand. But you would like shaking hands for about 25 seconds. Yeah. And he was just like, you know, being kind, but just like,

all right, guess. I think there is about three seconds of video of me shaking his hand somewhere. No, we're going to try and dig that out. That's so great. Sadly, uh, Spud Frawley also died young, uh, the age of 56 in 2019. Really shocked a footy world. And to commemorate him, the Saints now play an annual Spud's game. which I don't think we've won a single one of. There have been three of them. No, we haven't won one. Yeah.

I think we've been thumped a couple of times as well. And the Saints have also opened the Danny Frawley Center for Health and Wellbeing at Morabint, the Home Ground and Training Facility. And it's a state of the art facility. And its website says, The Center's vision is to continue Spud's legacy as both a St. Kilda champion, an advocate for mental health where everyone is welcome and endeavoring to look after

their health and well-being. This is a pretty nice tribute for a legend of the club. Have you been in there? I haven't been down. I haven't been inside the Danny Foley Centre yet. It's a pretty impressive building though. Yeah. The whole guy, the whole redevelopment's awesome. It is. And I love it you can still just go out and kick the footy. Yeah. I kick some great goals on Marabin earlier in the year. Hey, on that note, let's go for a quick break. I think one of my favorite early memories of seeing games and raven was after the games a supporter the same guy every week he'd climb up on one of the big advertising billboards that was sort of on the outside of the stadium and he would be up there with his trumpet and he'd play oh when the saints triumphantly after we

won or kind of downtrodden he'd still do it if you lost you know after loss and i was like you know everyone was having fun i was like i was quite young when we were going there But I was there with, I would have been there with a crew of 30-odd people with my uncles and arnie's and friends every time. It always just felt like a party and then we'd walk back to Nana and Pops place, either commiserate or celebrate the game. It's just the best. It's so good.

You know what I remember about that period? And you were probably there. I mean, you're a year older than I am, a very long year. Yeah, hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. But that period following Tony Lockett from Gold Square to Gold Square, I used to run halfway around the ground to follow him from Gold Square to goal square so I could see him kick goals up close.

And there was a bunch of other kids that we did the same thing. And none of us knew each other, but we all did it together almost every week. That's so funny. Were you part of that? I wasn't part of that. I was running from end end to watch Spud Frawley defend. So we would have been crossing over. No, we all stayed down the south road end.

But I had, I heard about that and I remember seeing kids doing it. Yeah. But I was never cool enough. There's probably a hundred, maybe a couple of hundred kids that would do it. almost every week. So, fun. And there's room for you to, like, roam to run and follow. It was all essentially open.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it was all standing room. Apart from, there was, like, there was like a grandstand on the back on Linton Street. Yeah. And in front of that was just concrete steps. Yeah.

So you could just run around, around, literally around the boundary line fence. That sounds fun. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Good times. It was very social. Yeah. There were a lot of kids just sort of going off and doing whatever they wanted to do.

All the parents were getting pissed. Yeah. Which I had no concept of at the time. But yeah, that's obviously... Did you stand on cans? Yeah, you could stand on big old thick cans. Yeah, so the vibe there was just so much fun. There was also the siren guy,

which I only really know from the Eddie McGuire's story, which you can see on YouTube. He does a report from the final game at Marabin. And there's a clip of... I think he's a siren guy. But he's just like, they're going, ah! But he's only his, sounds like a siren.

He does the siren. Yeah, I think maybe he was just the clone. He's the siren guy. He was a siren guy. He was just a fan of the siren. But do they have a real siren as well? There was also a real siren. They ended the game whenever this guy decided enough.

I've had it. I'm bored. We're in front. Yeah, play the siren. That was always a bit of a funny heckle from the crowd when your team kicks a point to start the game. Blah the siren, a bit of fun. According to Andrew Sleverson writing for Sien, back in the 1980s, the St Kilda Football Club was renowned

for having a good time. Nick was talking about this before as well, including at the infamous Saints Disco at Morabin. One man who recalls the fun-loving days of the Saints is former full forward Mark Scott. And he must have had a pretty short time. I don't really, well, he was before my time anyway. But in a game at Morabin in 1980,

Scott kicked a bag of nine goals, Big bag of goals. The end result was a 49 point defeat at the hands of Carlton. With Scott admitting it was a little bit tricky for him to fully acknowledge his own individual output even among the regular boisterous behavior saying, Marabin in those days was just a quagmire. It was hard to celebrate because you came off and you'd think, I've kicked nine.

I've had the best day of my life. But all the boys have got their heads down because we were beaten by eight goals. It's because no one else kicked a goal. I played 34 games in Gilda. 34 games. Yeah, right. 110 goals. Not a bad ratio.

Yeah, that would give you another year contract based on that now. But like, so it wouldn't have been his choice to retire after 34? I think he played some other, so he came to St Kilda from Hawthorne and then went to Fitzroy. I was thinking, you're averaging four or four a match and they're like, sorry, man. How's this, though? Three, three games for eight goals at Hawthorne, 34 games for 110 goals at St Kilda, 41 games for 57 goals at Fitzroy. So his best period was at St.

Yeah. When there was no one else kicking goals. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm hogging it. But even so, he's saying it was hard to celebrate because everyone else was bummed out by the loss. But then he said, but I must admit at St. Kilda in those days, they never used the gym. But by G, they did some heavy lifting in the nightclubs. The boys celebrated anything. Biggest loss ever. All right, we're going out tonight, guys. Where? Biggest loss, but what about that? Nine goals. Hey, Scotty, let's go. It was a party club, you know? And people see that as a negative. Maybe they should have been more focused on football. But I think that's glass half empty stuff.

Yeah, come on. Come on. Why not party? Hey, how good is it to be alive? You know what I mean? That should be the Latin motto for the saints. You can only play football for so long. Yeah.

But you can party forever. Yeah. As I reckon. And Kiss said that as well, I think. The grand final entertainment. this year. So we had Plugger dominating, but we also had other champion players coming up at the club, and they all had great nicknames like Plugger.

I should say Plugger. That's obviously where Unplugged Podcast gets its nickname. Yes. Or its name. Yes. Yes, it's name. Yeah. It's name.

We've decided that whenever we get Plugger on the show, that episode is just going to be called Plugged, and then we hang up the microphones. That's again. So, and why is he called Plugger for? I was thinking about that. Yes. I don't know why it's called. or plugger?

That's a very good question. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure. Plugs the gulls. Plugger, yeah, did he wear thongs? Like, do you call him pluggers? I don't know. I guess you go.

There would be a story, and in Russell Holmes, but you'd know it. Russell would know it. Let's get Russell. But I'm imagining it's not that interesting, otherwise we would know it. But yeah, all the other great players coming up at this stage had great nicknames as well, like Robert Banger Harvey, Neil Elvis Winmar, whose nickname was Nicky. his real name Elvis is his real middle name Yeah

His real name is Neil Elvis Windmar But his nickname's Nicky Right I thought that that was going to tell me That's Nicky's older brother Neil Elvis Yeah But that's well there you go Then you had Stewie Buckets Low And Captain Danny Spud Frawley

So with all these great players The Dark Days were coming to an end once again Tony Lockett's nickname Plugger Was inherited from his father Howard Who in turn had inherited From his own father a green thumb who used to plug around in the garden.

Three generations. He's plugging the third. The plug of the third. The gardening. There you go. There you go. That's great nickname, though. That's a great nickname.

And I can't believe I haven't heard that story before. That's fantastic. Yeah, because your whole life's like, yeah, it's a plugger. You're accepted. Yeah. I'm like, what is it even really mean? I don't know. It just feels right.

He's the plugger. You know in that Brownlow footage where they call him up as Anthony Lockett. It always confused me when I was growing up. Anthony? Who's that? Who's Anthony Lockett? You mean Plugger?

And then for a while you got the wrong lesson out of it. Plugger must be short for Anthony. So with the dawn of the 1990s, where the VFL became the AFL, uh, continue, uh, hang on. I've already said all this. It's, this is a problem when you go off script earlier and you come back and you go, oh, I'm just bringing that down later. So with the dawn of the 90s, the VFL is the VFLU.

BFL becoming the AFL. A new decade, Saints fans started to feel hopeful once more, hope of course, being the curse of the Saints fan. Always, always sort of, it's this weird mix of optimism and pessimism that I feel like I'm always floating between as a Saints fan. Like other, and it's like what Charlie said at the start, there'll be opposition supporters of the media will be talking about our list. So I'm like, it's not as, it's not as bad as you're saying.

Yeah. Only other secure supporters are allowed to say how bad it is. Yeah, that's right. the shit we are as a club. Not you. No. You can't take that. How dare you? How dare you? I would never. The Saints started climbing up the ladder, finishing 12th in 89, 9th in 1990, and finally back into the finals for the first time in 18 years in 1991. Plugga won the Coleman again that year, kicking 118 goals in the home and away season. He kicked 127 that year, including through finals, 127 goals in 17 games, an average of nearly seven and a half per game, which we told you a

Bill Moore before. Yeah. Seven and a half per game is double that. That's ridiculous. Seven goals for one game this year would be most for the Ford's best game of the year. Pretty much. But doing that on average every week is just unthinkable. Yeah.

He missed the first six weeks of that season. He came back in round seven and kicked 12 goals, 10 goals and 12 goals in his first three weeks. The guy was just unstoppable. You're going to make it up for it. If you extrapolate that out to a full 22 week season, you get 164 goals. The single season record in VFL, AFL history is 150. 50. So it's just shows how dominant in the great patches of goal kicking ever. So the Saints made the finals and they met and remembering this is after these dark years where players

weren't getting paid. What were they getting paid 13 cents in the dollar? And they got through that somehow, survived through to the AFL, made the finals in 91. And we had probably one of the best teams in the league would have been one of the favorites for the Premiership that year. Yeah. Like a very formidable team. and they met the Geelong Cats in the elimination final at Waverly Park. And the system was weird for this to be an elimination final right now. That's right. I mean, under that old final system, there were six teams played finals footy,

first played second, third played fourth and fifth played sixth in the first week. So under that system, you actually rewarded with a better matchup if you finished fifth than fourth because you got to play the worst team. So fifth and six is an elimination, so it's third versus fourth. Just makes no sense at all. That's right. So third versus fourth is also an elimination. Yeah.

So if you're third and lose, you're out. You're at. Even though a fifth has played a team that wasn't as good. Yeah. Yep. So this is in the, in the AFL era, this is in 19901. It's so funny that no one's checked this over with a mathematician or someone who knows what they're doing. They change the system the next year.

Yeah. Which is, yeah, as we know, it's what happens after St. Kilda failed. Throughout the whole history, that's been the case. You always get shafted. But it was a crack in game. I was there. It's the first final I went to, obviously. It was the first one I was alive for.

And Saints got out to a 19-point lead at half-time. But despite plugger kicking nine goals, the Dirty Cats flew home to win by seven. Is that the game that Gary Ablett took out? David Burke. David Grant and Nathan Burke. Yeah. So when you said they were playing a bit rough, were they? Yeah, like just dirty off the ball.

One of them was Ablett. One of them was Hocking, maybe? Oh, yeah, that's right. Maybe Hocking was Burke and Ablett was Grant. Yes, that might be it. But yeah. Stretching my memory. Just pretty filthy kind of play.

And we were robbed because... Yeah, what happened? You're up by one team. Well, two of our best players were taken out off the ball for starters. And yeah, they just got over us in the end. It was brutal. But in the system today, we would have had a double chance, or we would have been playing a much lower team.

Yep. And also, Ablett and Hocking would have been rubbed out for the rest of the year. You know, like, very frustrating. Anyway, Saints played finals again in 92, winning their elimination final against the Magpies. Their first September win in decades before being knocked out by your boys, the dogs in the semi-final. Sorry about that.

No, we get our finals revenge on you a few times. We'll get there. Yeah. According to Holmesby, that 1992 season would see the Saints close the book on Morabin's rich history of football, with the red, white and black taking residency at Waverly Park as part of the AFL's ground rationalisation strategy. The move cleared up some of the club's debt, as well as an opportunity to start afresh, with newer facilities compared to those of the aging Marabin. St. Kilda remained at their spiritual home for training and administrative purposes,

with the final game being played on the Hello Turf in round 20 on the 1st of August, 1992, where they had an 18 point win over the Fitzroy lines. I was there. Are you there with that one, Nick? I actually don't recall, which makes me think that I wasn't. Yeah, it feels like it's... I think I would remember that. Yeah.

I remember there were kids on the ground picking up chunks of grass to take home and... I'd like to think that they planted them in their lawns at home, and now they've got a little bit of linders and street grass. Got their own oval out of the back. Picking up pebbles. Exactly. It was emotional, but yeah, that year we went on to winter football. final after that. So it was interesting. The two first years at Marabin, we played finals and won

a premiership in the last two years ended a long drought of finals and played finals. So Marabin was a, I think that's another reason why people love Marabin, even though there was a real tough spot in the middle. That 91 team might be the best St. Kilda team of all time, really. When you look at the list and the players and all that's the stuff, it was just an incredible, an incredible year. Yes. Yeah. Just the final system was so poorly put together that. You will just never know, but definitely, like, worthy of premiership contention that year. But, yeah. Growing up nearby the ground in those years after they moved away, it was kind of fun.

So we moved to Waverly, which is a lot closer where you were growing up, Dave. Do you have any memories of Waverly? Do you ever go to Waverly Park? Or Arctic Park, as that was sort of pejoratively known. No, I don't think I ever did go. Because, yeah, there was this idea that the weather was worse there. Yeah, it was in a valley, wasn't it? Yeah, so it just was like a, it rained more there.

Yeah. So that's how I got the name Arctic Park. But finally, I remember, all my memories there, for the most part, are just beautiful, sunshiney days. The rainbow-colored wooden seats they had there. Yeah. Brown and blue big screen. Yeah.

If you got close enough, you can see the individual pixels. They were just globes, you know. And my favorite jingle used to play there. Delta, Carri. truck rental, just call one, three, one, three, four, nine, Delta. Matt has an incredible, he's a steel trap. His mind is for ads. I don't hear the number, right, unfortunately.

I never remember the number correctly, which is the thing that they really want you to get down in the jingle. I have one memory from Waverly, and it is around that weather. And I remember sitting in the outer one afternoon, and it was absolutely pelting down. Like, these are golf ball size. Is that the Brisbane game? The Brisbane game.

I was in Maui at a friend's place and we were watching on TV. There was this guy who was in the like probably two or three rows in front of us. Big old Brisbane Bears jersey jumper. But he was bald. It looked like Angry Anderson. Yeah. And he was just jumping around and the Halestones were bouncing off his head. And I just have this clear, like it's a clear picture of that even now.

And we flogged them at that day, didn't we? Yes. But you could like the TV coverage was hard to see. It was that. Whoa. The weather was that thick. Yeah. On the broadcast, it looks like snow because it's just white.

It's just white. Amazing. And so during that period when they'd moved to Waverley, I was still living in Marab and so me and mates would ride down there after school or on weekends and just be able to play around what was becoming pretty dilapidated stance. We could climb up into the scoreboard. And I regret it now, although hopefully the club held on them, but it was unlocked. You'd climb up the ladder into the scoreboard.

And all the old team names are on planks, which. they put in, you know, when Collingwood's your wait team, they'd put the Collingwood slot in there and all the numbers for the scores. They were just sitting there like, oh, if they ended up in the tip, I wish I'd took some of them home with me. But it was just a real fun, fun time. Yeah, I've got a couple of those old wooden slats from the benches in the grandstand. Really? Yeah, I've got a couple of them in my garage. Yeah. You got your name on one of the new seats? I don't, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Our pop, an Anna and Pop, I've got their names on there.

They're pretty exy, but luckily we've got a big family. Could all chip in to get one seat. I think that costs like a grand or something like that. Yeah. But it's for the Danny Fruly club, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, so fun. Anyway, enough for reminiscing about the olden days. Let's reminisce about the olden days.

So the club has basically paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to move. And I wonder what if it was possible to stay. If they just went, no, we're going to fight it out and stay. And they, like Geelong had a state-of-the-art ground now in Mrabba. and it would be, the club would be in an even better spot. And they're doing okay now. But yeah, they were paid hundreds of thousands to move. But yeah, as we'll hear soon, it didn't necessarily fix their money problems.

But before we get to that, this great team, as Nick says, probably maybe the best ever Saints team, wasn't able to quite get to the big dance. And then the following years dropped back down the ladder. But it was at the end of the Saints being involved in iconic moments. And perhaps one of the most powerful and iconic moments of all came on the 17th of April 1993 when Nikki Wimar stood defiantly in front of opposition spectators who'd been hurling racial abuse at him.

Which spectators? Yeah, Collingwood Scum. The following comes from the National Museum of Australia. I never went to a game at Victory, Victoria Park. Do you ever get out there? I went to one. I think it must have been around the time that they stopped playing home games there

and they moved to the G. Yeah. So it would have been early to mid-90s, I guess. And it was pretty intimidating. Yeah. Like I went to one, I've been to a few Geelong games, and it's about the same, where you're just surrounded by the opposition, and they're so loud and so intimidating. Yeah.

It's an experience. It's changed a lot now, right? You go, that's one of the many things that it's improved. I mean, we're reminiscing about some things, but it feels a lot safer now. It wasn't particularly fun. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't particularly, and it should be. Yeah.

Going to the footy and watching sports should be fun. And that wasn't particularly fun. Yeah. And yeah, it was particularly grim on this day. But not to say that it hadn't been on many days before this, but this is the day that Winmar and an iconic moment stood up and basically changed Australian culture in a lot of ways that day. So, yeah, this comes from the National Museum of Australia.

On Saturday the 17th of April, 1993, St. Hilda faced Collingwood at the Magpies home ground of Victoria Park. The Saints had beaten the magpies in the finals the year before, so there was animosity, but St. Kilda had not defeated Collingwood of Victoria Park since 1976. In the warm-up before the game, Gilbert McCatum and Nicky Wimmar received withering racial abuse from the crowd. McCateman Winmar, man, it was such a fun time to watch the Saints.

Particularly these two players so good, but both indigenous players. And they're getting all this racial abuse. then McCatum grabbed Wimma and said, Bro, we have to do something today. We have to make a statement. We'll show this mob. We'll make them quiet today. It was a hard-fought game,

with both teams leading at different times. The deciding factor was the performance of St. Kilda's Indigenous players with Winmar and McCadam named Best on Ground. As the siren sounded, Windmah was standing near the Collingwood Cheer Squad. Some Macpies fans were not gracious in defeat and continued to hurl abuse. Windmar lingered, raising his hands in victory,

towards the hostile spectators and then, as if he had heard something specific from the crowd, he looked at them, raised his jumper, pointed at his skin and said, I'm black and I'm proud to be black. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players had endured racial abuse on the field from spectators and other players. Windmars stand, which was captured in iconic photographs, opened the way to a code of conduct that was the first of its kind in Australia. Legendary Sydney Swans player Adam Goods said of Nicky Winmard's gesture in 2013, It's something that stands in history, which proves that you can call me all the things you want,

you can discriminate against me, say all these things, but I'm still going to be black and I'm still going to be proud. That's exactly what the photo symbolises to me. Even today, 20 years later, it highlights how every Indigenous person should feel about their heritage. The iconic pictures of Windmast stand taken by photographers Wayne Ludby and John Feeder appeared in the Sunday Age and Sunday Herald Sun respectively. Both photographers had to fight with their editors to get the photos, prominence they deserved. On the day, there was not much discussion about the images, but by Tuesday, everyone was talking about it. In an editorial in the age, it said, there's no place for racism in football and the AFL must do everything in its power to make sure players, and if possible,

spectators understand this. The following weekend, the Collingwood president, Alan McAllister, appeared on television to assure Victorians that the magpires were not a racist club. And this is something that's followed on with the magpies, even, you know, even recently they had a big, what do you call it, investigation of the club that found that there was systemic racism within the club. The do better report? The do better report. And I think they are now doing better.

But, yeah. I mean, football in general, I'm not just throwing Collingwood under the bus, but a lot of the bad times have been seemingly, Collingwood's been at the center of it. And this one was pretty gross. I remember even as a kid just being like, the hell are you saying? So Alan McAllister, Collingwood president, went on TV, said, We're not a racist club, but he finished by saying that Collingwood did not have an issue with Indigenous Australians, quote, as long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off-field,

everyone will admire and respect them. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was him going on to say, we're not racist. Wow, I've never heard that before. That's awful. Yeah, and at the time, it was, you know, it was a big deal. I think it ended up, there was a game played with the Indigenous All-Stars, I think, came out of that from my vague memories.

But all these things, yeah, it just showed how far there was to go at the time and how, like, that's him out there publicly saying there's nothing to worry about. And by the way. And sections of the community was like, this is normal. Like, that's just normal. He didn't say anything wrong. Yes. That's normal.

Of course. Yeah. But, you know, so it was all very grim, but some positive things to come out of it. meant that by the end of 93, the AFL promised to establish a code of conduct for players and teams. Rule 30 to combat racial and religious filification was included, and it stated that no player shall act towards or speak to any other player in a manner or engage in any other conduct which threatens disparages, filifies or insults another person on the basis of that person's race, religion, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin.

The role of umpires and reporting incidents of racial abuse was emphasised, and clubs were liable for fines of up to 50 grand. The league also introduced strategies to encourage football development in indigenous communities and to fund AFL Aboriginal liaison officers in each state. Winmar's gesture ignited a national discussion on racism in sport. The instigation of Rule 30 was the first time that racist abuse was officially prohibited within a sport. The ruling sent a message that racism would no longer be an acceptable part of the game or the culture around it. According to an Australian Human Rights Commission report in 2007, the AFL led the way in Australian sports and trying to engage with ethnic and indigenous groups.

Racism persists in the game, as demonstrated in 2013, when Sydney player Adam Goods was vilified by a 13-year-old spectator, Collingwood supporter. And in 2023, Western Bulldogs player Jamara Ugle Hagan lifted his shirt and a gesture similar to Winmar after being racially abused by a fan at a game and on social media. And I think that fan was a Saints fan. That was a St. Cilda game, yeah. Which has just hurt so much to hear. It does, doesn't it? That was this year.

Mm. And you're like, Saints have got, we've got so many indigenous stars on our list now. You're like, and you keep thinking that we're moving past it. Yeah. And then you realize it was still so far to go. But that, you would be aware of that moment with Windmar. Yes, yeah. Absolutely.

know the photo. Like that's cut right through to mainstream Australia. Yeah, very. There's a statue of it at, um, at Perth, the Perth. The Perth. Yeah, because he's a Western Australia. Yes, yeah. And yeah, he was, him and Frankie Peck at my two flat favorite players growing up,

that were my two badges I had. Just absolutely heartbreaking. But I love to say he's still involved in the club. He designed our indigenous Guernsey a couple years ago. Yeah, great. Yeah, the Indigenous rounds become quite a big thing. Sir Doug Nichols' round? Sir Doug Nichols' round now called, yeah.

Because, I mean, we could do a whole report on him. Probably could, yeah. Yeah, maybe that's when you come back, I'll make you do more talking. So, yeah, that's a pretty heavy part of the story. And we're going to a much lighter one now, which also happened in 93. and I think my dad was up at this match with some of his siblings. It was up at the SCG in Sydney when a swans fan smuggled in and released a pig onto the field with Plugger and Lockett's No. 4 painted on it.

I'll say it's lighter. It's probably fat-shaming stuff, but commentator Sandy Roberts famously exclaimed, There's a pig at Full Forward. It'll put that up there with some of the great moments in commentary. And Chase and shewed with officials struggling to catch it until Swan's player, Darren Holmes dove on the pig, tackling it to the ground. I think he grew up on a farm or something, so he had it covered. Plaga wasn't playing. It's amazing he wasn't even playing in the game.

Most people don't remember that, that he wasn't even playing in that game. I think that game and the game in the following year, I think including my dad, he's merged them into one game. He's like, I was only at one of those games. He's like, I was at the game with the pig, and when Plaga kicked 12 goals and we, and I'm like, that were two different games. It's interesting. And he wasn't sure which one he was at. I think it was at the pig one. Yeah, so plug wasn't playing, but apparently he did see the incident

and he didn't find it funny and he vowed to take it out on the swans the next time they played, which he did. Again, up at Sydney's home ground, he was involved in possibly his most infamous on-field incident. In round 7,994, the Saints were having a dirty day at the SCG. The swans were leading by as much as 51 points. Game over. It's a flogging. Then, in an ugly incident, at full tilt, Lockett ran through Swans defender Peter Kaven

with his elbow raised, breaking Kaven's face. Oh, broke his... Just like, smash. It was... Like, if it happened now, I think you'd get a life band. Probably. Probably. It was like a car accident.

Yeah, it was... And Kaven, like, I think, you know, he was shaken by to... I don't think he played again that season. He did play again after that. He went to the crows. He went to the crows. I think... Because Plugger ended up at Sydney...

The next year. The end of 904. And I think Kavan was still there when Plugger turned out. And I think he's like, I'm not, he wasn't ready to be a teammate with him. Oh, and I remember one time on some sort of nighttime talk show, Kaven was on. And there was a, they had a dummy of Plugger. And they said, all right, you get to take on Plugger. You get three choices for weapon, baseball bat, feather duster or some other light,

thing and he chose the baseball bat and just tore the dummy apart to pull him off the tummy it's like okay there's still some he's already dead yeah it was he felt just like that that's how I remember it's like okay there's still some there's 20 years of rage there

a really funny segment quickly became really scary sad yeah I've written down here so Locker got an eight week suspension um and but Kavin missed 12 weeks so eight weeks like he would he would get, if he did that now,

I don't know. You get double that. You get double it. It'd be double. It'd be the record. Probably. Of all time for being rubbed out. But, um, yeah. So after doing that and the saint's still getting flogged, the swan, the supporters are giving him crap. But he played by a man possessed. I think still taking it out on him for the pig thing,

I guess. And at one point, he kicked a goal low and hard from close range into the Sydney. cheer score. Yeah. Like he kicked it to hurt him. Try and hit fans. Yeah. That's sort of, at the time it was like, yeah, now looking back, it's like, whoa, this is what a, what a weird day at work for, um, the big man.

He kicked 11 goals to reel in the 51 point deficit and Saints ended up winning by a point. What? Yeah. Wow. It's like one of the all-time greatest comebacks. Yeah. In the last quarter.

I think it was 51 points at the end of the third, somewhere in. late in the third quarter. Yeah. Yeah. Just came from the clouds. Wow. But he also broke a man's face. Yeah.

And tried to maim another. Yeah. And I think this is one of those ones where you say, well, it's a different time. Oh my gosh. You would have just been, you would have been, you would have been in short pants at the time, Dave, back then. Very short. You rarely wear show your legs anymore. In 1995, Lockett broke many Saints fans' hearts by asking to be traded to of all teams,

the Sydney Swans. After 183 games and 898 goals, he moved to Sydney where he continued his career at a similarly high level. Yeah, and like I said before, Kaven, unsurprisingly, did not state the Swans moving to the Adelaide Crows. Pluggard would go on to become the game's leading goal kicker of all time, finishing his career with 1,360 majors. So he played the majority of his games at the Saints, kicked the majority of his goals at the Saints, when he's brown low at the Saints. People still, for some reason, seemed to remember him as a Swans player. Yeah.

But he basically went up there for his retirement plan. He was, he was as much. He kicked his record goal for the Swans, even though the majority of the ones before that played in the grand final for the Swans. Yeah, so I think that those things probably. He was a far better, far better player at St Kilda. Far better player at St. Kilda. And probably a far better person at the Swans.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Well, I don't think he broke anyone's faces. Oh, maybe he did. Yeah, who knows. So things are getting rough. we've lost our star, the all-time great.

And despite the move to Waverly, the money troubles were only getting worse. And your colleague, Nick, Ed Carmine, wrote a great article for your website Zero Hanger. This is just giving me a moment like when Russell Homsby was babysitting me. Now I'm like, oh my God, Nick probably commissioned this article to be written. Wow. It was actually it was Ed's idea this one. It's a great article. Did give it the all clear, but...

It talks a lot about autism as well as the Saints, but I'm not focusing on that bit so much. But Carmine writes, The day after his side fell by 17 points of the demons, midway through 1995, Andrew Plimpton, the Saints president at the time, told the footballing world he could no longer keep the wolves from his boardroom door.

As the president of the struggling Saints, Plimpton had been working feverishly to provide off-fields ability to head coach Stan Alves and is now Tony Lockettless lineup. Yet by the close of business on Monday, June the 26, 19995, the administrator was finally forced to send for help. Plimpton's call to create the Save Our Saints Fund was made to draw the club's latent fan base back to their bleachers at Waverly Park and to make sure their wallets came with them.

The move of doing the SOS enabled myself as president to say to our members in a very open and honest manner that I couldn't guarantee our future at Plimpton told. zero hanger. Behind closed doors, this was a time when the AFL was very much suggesting that there were too many teams in the competition. This was also a time when all clubs were talking to each other in regards to mergers and relocations. There was a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace and we were all somewhat unsure where we were all headed. The bottom line was that we were vulnerable. Throughout the remainder of the 1995 season, the importance of the scoreboard had taken a backseat to the Saints fight for survival.

Loose change was collected in the grandstands and greater donations came in from those with deeper pockets. But it was the manoeuvres of Plimpton and his board that set the wheels in motion. We had this company called the St Kilda Saints Limited, which was a non-listed public company, he said. We managed to go and speak to all the shareholders of the company to persuade them to donate all of their capital back to the club, and all of them agreed. That gave us a $260,000 head start to get the process of Save Our Saints underway.

So it was a big thing. I remember all the games there were tin rattlers. And I think your co-host, Darren Park, and said he was. Yeah. He was outside the games rattling the tins. I remember volunteers walking around the boundary line at quarter breaks before game, after game with blankets and people would throw coins onto the blankets, which I'm looking back now as an adult, you know, I was 10.

Looking back now with a kid of my eye, I'm thinking, how do you throw coins at children? Yeah, yeah. That hurts. I was speaking of Autism before. I wonder if it was inspired by this at all, but I went to see one of Tizm's last gigs before they broke up or went on hiatus, and it was called the Save Autism Radiothon or Telethon,

and it was like this fake telethon set up at the back of the stage, people taking calls and stuff, and they had a host in a tuxedo coming out and giving updates on how much money was raised, and they needed a raise a million dollars to save Autism. Autism played at all the Save OurSysm. Saints events as well through that period as well. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe they did get some inspiration from that.

But at the end, after their last song, they said, we only need one more, or before their last song, we only need one more dollar. One more dollar. And a few people threw coins at the stage. They played a song and they came back and said, let's go to the tally. Let's see if they made it. And they still needed a dollar. It's like, unfortunately, that is the end of And then the crowd just started piffing coins. No. And the host who was wearing glasses, he's the comedy writer, Melbourne comedy writer. His name just gave me now.

But he copped one to the glasses. I think he maybe even chipped his glasses. Holy shit. That's so dangerous. So dangerous. So dicey. But anyway, the kids, hopefully they weren't wearing glasses. And they were just copying them straight into their eyeballs at the footy.

Plitin said his memory. he's a bit clouded, but he reckons they raise about 600 grand overall, and because of that, the club was saved. As part of the campaign, this is still from Ed Carmine's article, as part of the campaign, sports journalist and saints fans, Francis Leach, organized a fundraising gig at the old Palace in St. Kilda, which is where bands like Nirvana played. I saw Queens of the Stone Age there. It's great venue. Saw Tomahawk and Melvin's play with Phantomers. Is that where you saw a kiss up close and personal? No, a kiss. I saw at the Palais.

Oh, Palais. Nearby, but not quite the same. For memory, Dave. But very up close and very personal. Yes. Only 3,000 other people. Yeah, exactly. So Leach put together this gig there at the Palace on 6th of September 95.

And the line-up was huge. Bands like Cosmic Psychos were there, but the headliners were Tism. And that night in itself raised over 40 grand for the club. And then a few days later, the club put on a safe. our Saints fundraiser game. I think it was called Saints versus Sinners. And it was maybe like ex-Saints players versus...

Couple of celebrities and journalists. I think Francis Leach himself played. I went to that as well. I remember getting Wow Jones's signature. Wow Jones. Yeah, you know how Wow Jones? I was going to ask you to tell us. Actually, now this rings a bell,

but I'd love me to share what it is. Well, this story is that he's got a W tattooed on each cheek. So when he, if he ever does a, drops the strides. It spells out. Wow. That same year in 95, Tism also filmed the film clip for their hit single Greg the stop sign, which featured my all-time favourite sain of Frankie Peckett, as well as one of the Wakelands and Joshua Kitchen.

And there was one other there. And then all these shots of the band singing and playing on either on the ground, but also in the club rooms. and there's one famous shot where it's got a spell. There's all these inspirational messages on the walls for the players in the rooms, and one of them's got like a real bad spelling mistake. Or like the apostrophies of the wrong spot or some of that. Very fun. Anyway, speaking of Tism, I reached out to Damien Cowell,

who may have been one of the guys in Tism, and asked him if he was up for speaking about why he loves the Saints, and he sent in the following clip. I will say if anyone's in Melbourne, or Sydney or Brisbane, and he's doing a tour of his a bit of a greatest hits tour coming up this month, I think. So I'll be there at the Corner Hotel.

You should come, Nick. Yeah, I'll come. And yeah, everyone should come. And we'll see you all there. Corner's a good venue too. Oh, so good. Great venue. Here's Damien Cow.

Hi, everyone. My name's Damien Cowell, and I'd like to start with two apologies. First of all, I'd like to apologize for the fact that I'm about to start reading a passage of my own writing from a book. Like I'm some fucker in a tweed jacket smoking a shrewt.

The second apology is that this article was written in 1998 and is full of people and places that you undoubtedly will never have heard of, especially if you're living in Saskatchewan or something like that. Anyway, so I'm doubly sorry about that, But here we go. This is an article called Sincilda Football Club must merge. It's a tough decision,

but there is no longer any running away from it. The only possible future for the Sincilda Football Club is merger. Sincilda FC must surrender its independence, lock up the club rooms one final and irrevocable time, and seek a new identity. Seekilda FC must cease to eat. because then I can lead a happy and normal life. If you're unlucky enough to be wandering the wind-blown terraces of Waverly Park on a

Sincilda match day, you might have to look carefully to find me. You won't find me mugging for the TV cameras with red, white and black paint on my face. You won't find me holding up some witless banner like sensational. You won't find me yelling, Ozzy, Ozzy, Oz. or entertaining the crowd with selected jewels of every man wit, or joining in the Mexican wave, or even wasting precious match viewing time by queuing up for beer. Nope.

I am the hooded, inconspicuous figure, quietly hunched on my gloomy expansive bench, wired with Walkman, permanently affixed binoculars obscuring a frown of deeply chiseled tension. Football isn't fun for me. I marvel at couples who go to a match wearing the opposing team's colours who's sharing a laugh or horror of horrors chatting during a match. What do they think they're doing?

What kind of liberated, permissive society love child goes to a football match with somebody who barracks for the opposition? If you lose, the object of your blind, inconsolable hatred has palpable human form right there next to you. If you win, your awful, vengeful gloating is watered down by remorse. No, no, no, no, no, far better to sit there welling up with fantasies

about Glenn Jackovich's bowels involuntarily evacuating whenever he goes near the ball, or Wayne Carey going on a Tourette syndrome rampage, nutting the umpires and exposing himself to the great southern stand. Now we're talking, I'd like to see that. If it's a close game, Bruce McAvaney's hyperbole may well runeth over, but I'm not enjoying it one bit.

You know that 10-minute pre-vomit ordeal where you feel that all the components of your digestive system were bought at the not quite right store? Imagine that stretching out to last 100 minutes and you're in the right part of town. This weekly dose of tooth pulling comes from experience. As a supporter of the St Kilda Football Club, I have learnt to accept the following.

Losing. being viewed with smoke condescension by the supporters of other teams losing expecting defeat even when leading by six goals with three minutes to play losing merger and insolvency threats

losing rumours of bottle blonde pists and kilda players assaulting team officials at the social club losing and well you get the drift of course lately success has been flirting

with poor old Sinkilda like some kind of Anna Nicole Smith, which is even more reason why we should follow the lead of a late Liberal Party leader and quit while we're having fun. Okay, so do we resign from the AFL? Maybe not. It's all very well to just say no, but I don't think I could handle cold turkey. That's why the AFL have their own methadone program, the merger.

Yep, that'll do the trick. Bit by bit, I'll lose the rule. reasons why I barracked for Sinkilda in the first place. The jumper, with its strong, distinctive red, white and black, will die a grisly death at the hands of some marketing genius who thinks the World Series cricket uniforms are plausible. Then the club's name will change. Change one letter of Sincilda FC and for me it's all over. The Sincilda Saints isn't the team I support. So when the AFL comes along and replaces the Sinkilda, bit of that phrase with, say, Docklands or Homebush, it won't be the same team.

Actually, while they're getting rid of that inconvenience and killed a word, they might as well lose the Saints bit too, don't you reckon? I mean, how are kids going to relate to saints as a marketing concept? Much better to call them the Lakers or, hey, let's cut to the chase and go for the Yankees. Then again, to make the merger completely non-addictive, why? Why not just merge Sincolver with Carlton FC? The new composite team would be called Carlton FC. They'd wear Carlton jumpers and play at the only suburban ground in Australia that the AFL hasn't condemned, which just happens to be in Carlton. I'd be clean and sober within minutes.

And just imagine my post-merger life. Want to go to the footy with some friends? Sure, I'll say. Let's have a few beers. Make a day of it. Only I hope the weather's good and it's a close game. Wow. Imagine being able to say that.

I could contemplate holidays during winter. I could appreciate the promise of a sunny winter's Saturday. I could stop reading books about migraine prevention. I could give a crap about the Olympics. It's certainly a beautiful idea. Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool, once said football was much more important than a matter of life and death. Hmm

So if they played that speech Over the loudspeakers during the Hillsborough disaster I guess everyone would have felt guilty about complaining But not me Football for me is a matter of not having a life So come on Sinkilda Rise to the challenge Raise the bar

Dare to dream Take the bull by the horns And give up Do it for me, Sainters That is brilliant. Thanks so much to Damon Cow for sending that in. He got into the Saints because I think he's his great uncle played for the Saints for a few games somewhere in the middle of the 20th century.

And yeah, as you can hear, and he's not really mucking around. He does, he bleeds the team and it's like almost to the point where it's not that much fun. It's like it's actually a curse. His burden to bear. That's right. He wrote that by the sounds of it 25 years ago. but he read it this week, and it sounds like he still means every week. Yeah.

There was a lot of belief in that. Yeah. Amazing. So the Save Our Saints happens. Get a bunch of money back into the club, but also a lot more buy-in, you know, because now everyone's in it. We're all, and the club now is owned by the club again. It sounds like it was owned by shareholders before this, Nick,

which I didn't realize until reading that article. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But now it's a member-owned club again. Now, yeah. Yeah, anyway. And then in 96, things started to turn around again. This has come up to maybe what I would call the Silver Age.

The following 20 years are pretty good. We've turned around so much. I don't know which direction you're facing in the moment. This is good? We do. Yeah, we turn these around a lot. So, 96, the Saints are on the up. And they won the preseason premiership, their first preseason premiership,

then known as the Anset Cup, which dates it. It's a now defunct air one. That's so great. Couldn't have been anything better. My family rocked up, so I don't know if you were that one, Nick, but we got there and we weren't allowed in. It was a lockout. It was packed.

We were there. It was the biggest crowd I'd seen at that stage, yeah. So great. It was amazing. It was that night, probably for another decade, was the biggest event that I'd been to, really. It was just an insane atmosphere. And Saints fans were just in party mode. Yes.

It was, it felt electric and so hopeful. And I guess it was coming out of the Save Our Saints and all that, but it just felt like a new, a new dawn kind of. But yeah, they won. The rest of the season didn't go quite as well. It was an improvement on, on the seasons prior, but didn't quite make the finals. But blotted a bunch of young players, Ozzy Jones,

Joel Smith, Tony Brown, all these guys. Maddie Lappin. You've interviewed most of them on unplugged. Jason Trinidis, keep that goal in the answer cup. Yeah. have begun. Number 32. It's funny how the players, most of their numbers are still somehow stuck in my head,

especially from back then. Back in those Waverly days, remember my auntie one time asked me a question about one of the young players, and he looks taller than last year. And I said, oh, yeah, I reckon he might be. I went home, and before the next week, she forgot about the comment, but I got out records from previous years and that year,

and I wrote a comparison of every play. height from the year before and their height that year and they're differential and I gave it to her the next week. She clearly had no memory. Thank you. Who was the player? And had they grown? I can't remember who the player was, but yeah, they had grown by a few senators. So, like, she was on the money, but it was just, that was sort of half heartbreak. She was like, oh, oh, thank you.

No, you can keep that. One game that season that still gets talked about was the game. against the bombers at Waverly Park. It was a night game and late in the third quarter the lights went out. Russell Homesby, the great man, was there that night covering the game and later wrote, suddenly Waverly was plunged into darkness as the lights failed. Television viewers were left baffled as the power outage cut off Channel 7's cameras. What the hell happened? At first people said that a car had run into a nearby power station. It turned out there was no car accident. It had just been a fault within a United Energy substation,

which caused the problem and blacked out an area from Glen Waverly to Cranburn. A huge area of Melbourne. On the field, the two teams formed huddles. Saints coach San Alves was addressing his players over the boundary fence. Fans had lit cigarette lighters to see what was going on around them. It was soon obvious that things weren't going to be fixed quickly and the clubs took their players into the room so they wouldn't get cold and be unprepared for a resumption. Many years later, then Esson and Captain Gary O'Donnell reflected on the game and said that the aftermath on that night reminded him of the book Lord of the Flies. And that was a fair enough analogy of a situation where the wheels fell off and normal civilised behaviour went out the door. There was anarchy as fires were lit on the ground and in the seating areas.

Hundreds of fans jumped the fence and ran under the Oval. The pointposts were ripped out of the ground and paraded in a lap of dishonour around the ground. But they literally ripped out of people. them around the ground. There's great footage of that. There was a guy climbing up. This big mothered man. Climbing up one of the point posts.

Were you there? I was there. There were people literally lighting bonfires on the ground. Like, it was just insane. Yeah, and it just, amazing how quickly things fell apart from civilized society to fires on the ground. 18 minutes of darkness. Just the lights going on. There's no light.

Well, there's no rules. Yeah. No light, no rules. That's what they think. Much like your game when you were there for the hailstones, remember I was on a dairy farm outside of Colac and I was listening to the game on the radio, which was even more confusing because it just stopped all of a sudden. I'm like, what's going? I don't understand what's happening.

Police reinforcements were called to help bring the situation under control. Police cars with flashing lights ringed around the ground and when the announcement was made that the game had been abandoned, police urged people to leave the Oval for their safety as officers occupied both ends of the ground to stop further vandalism. The lights failed at 9-25. four minutes and 48 seconds before three-quarter time, with Essend and leading by 20 points. Both clubs agreed that it was impossible to play once the delay went beyond half an hour. Newspaper reports told of the eerie and uncomfortable feeling in the crowd. One young fan said, it was a bit scary at first.

Then people started getting bored. You know what happens when people get bored. They light fires in full point. They said shit on fire. The AFL decided that the match would be completed on the following Tuesday night over two, 12, minute halves, with time on and teams changing ends at half time. Clubs could change their lineups for the Saturday teams. The most dramatic inclusion was Bomber's star James Hurd, who would miss the Saturday game due to a broken finger. The refreshed Hurd would pick up

10 possessions in the Tuesday part of the match, cupping jeers from Saints fans who were aggrieved by his late inclusion. So they would do this again. I think they've changed the rules now that they would just call a winner if it happened in the second half of the game. But on the Tuesday night, 17,500 90 diehard fans attended. And St. Kilda started the game well. Tony Brand scored the first goal of the night. However, Essendan maintained the upper hand and ran out winners by 22 points. So they went back and all that extra effort led to two extra point margin to Essendon.

Yeah, so it was a strange thing. And the Saints then got flogged the next week. So you go from every other team. The team their playing has had a week off. They've basically played two games and have a four day break. The crowd expected just to turn up for this one 24-minute match. Yeah, basically. Pretty much, yeah.

It was, I remember that night. 17,000 making that effort is pretty wild. All right, watch it. It was bitterly cold the night that the lights went out. It was so cold. That's why they did the fires. Just for warmth. I got really sick that night.

I was like 12 or something. I got really sick that night. And I think I missed like two or three weeks of school after that because I was just literally like home in bed. Yeah. Obviously, yeah. You survived. Just.

I was sick with sadness. So that was 96 and 97, the promise of the preseason premiership, the Anset Cup, that famous Anset Cup. And I think those photos, they've all got the preseason cup premiership hats on and it's pretty, they really celebrated the win. But in 97, things went better in the season proper. The Saints stormed home to finish on top of the ladder, claiming just their second minor premiership since the start of the VFL. And they won the final seven games of the season. And I remember we, I think we beat Port Adelaide in the last round. I remember watching it at home.

We had to win to finish top. And it was the, am I remembering this right? That was the day Princess Diana died? I think it was. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. Wow, he giveth and he taketh away.

Yeah. We're meant to be celebrating a beautiful day. And you take the people's princess away from us? They also, fate not only took the people's princess, but also took our two Ruckman in half an hour of football with both being big cult figures. Laser Vitovic was injured at the end of the final home and away game. And then Peter Spider Everett was injured in the qualifying final while the Saints were comfortably beating the Brisbane Lions at Waverly. The Saints then beat the Kangaroos to make it back to the grand final on a nine game winning game. streak.

It went in as hot favorites. But we're our Ruckman was really a third stringer. Third stringer. Cook. Yeah, Brett Cook. Brett Cook. Brett Cook. Brett Cook.

Brett Cook. Brett Cook. Brett Cook and Stuart Lowe had a. Family, family tragedy. Family tragedy that week. That week. Nicky Wymourn's dad died. Yeah.

So it was just a real cursed final series. Finishing on top but everything went wrong. A lot of our stars were either injured or their heads were probably thinking about more important things than football. Anyway, according to Holmesby, the red one black, now wearing a remodeled Guernsey, which featured a large-scale version of the crest. That famous Black Cross crest became the whole jersey,

which is now a version of that Sarah Waste strip. So they made it to the grand final for the first time since 1971. I remember there were 1966 Premiership Players talking the media going, we can't wait. We really, we're carrying the club on our shoulders for all this time. We can't wait to welcome some new Premiership. players into the club. The whole of the city, the whole of Melbourne became St Kilda supporters that week. It was it was quite incredible to watch. Even

Collingwood fans, Carlton fans, everybody was just reading for security. Very different to I think to the Ross Line grand finals where it sort of became a which we'll get too soon. But yeah, so first time in what seemed like a long time to fans at the time was our first chance to win a premiership in 26 years. Obviously that was one of up. But with a fit and firing side, complete with raining, brown low medalist Robert Harvey, who would take out the honour again the following year,

and the Crows didn't have their goal kicking powerhouse, Tony Godra, Modra. The Saints end of the game is heavy favourites, despite holding a two-goal lead at the main change. Remember when Barry Hall kicked? Did he kick three in a row? He had a burst of, anyway. Yeah, in the second quarter?

Yeah. And we was just like, it's happening. Oh my God, it's happening. I was up in the southern stand. Do you remember where you were sitting? I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I wasn't there.

Probably lucky. I remember it was just like watching a slow motion car crash 100,000 people there and I just remember sitting on my hands in the last quarter and a half as we just slowly got further and further behind I ended up losing by about six goals and especially because of Darry Jarman

just went off choppy I don't know kick six in the second half or something was five in the last quarter or something yeah and it was just like Do you know who else kicked a goal that day for Adelaide in the third quarter? Someone who had his face caved in a few years earlier. Oh, did he really? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, good on him. Bit of revenge. Caving. I didn't realize that. Yep. I love that he ended up being a Premiership player. He got that overplugger.

Yeah. Against us, though. Yeah, I know. Which, I'm like, stop taking out on us. Plug is not here anymore. Please. Um, yeah. Anyway, so that was another, another chance.

We made the finals again in. 98, but went out in straight sets. I think we lost the swans and then the demons. The demons, yeah. Swans in Sydney. But we, there was a weird top eight system at the time then. It was about the, they ranked the losers after. God, they've really, like, tried it so much more simple now.

We tried a lot over the years on that. We started that season pretty well from memory and then kind of fell away late. Yeah, we lost a couple of games leading into the finals and then kind of took that form. And we almost beat the swans in that first final. Nikki, we might kick to gold or maybe put us up late. again, I was listening on a radio, so the memories are, I think I was at a house party in a garage. Guys, come on, I'll come back, drink some more Jim Beam in a second, just got to go listen to suddenly buy myself in the corner. Nothing weird.

So, yeah, another era was over. Stan Elves ended up getting sacked soon after that, and we had a few new coaches. The turn of the millennium, the Saints were once again languishing at the wrong end of the ladder. but as always there was hope. According to Holmesby, the team's resurgence seemed like wishful thinking at the start of the decade with a disastrous 2000 season, which included 10 consecutive losses to open the new millennium, marking yet another wooden spoon, number 26. St. Kilda moved home grounds once again to the AFL's own Dockland Stadium, now known as Marvel Stadium,

which the AFL built themselves, notching up just two wins for the year at their new home. But things were looking better with the club. trading in gun players like Aaron Hamill and Fraser the G-Train Garrig. That's for Laura. That's for Laura. Laura asked for G-Train. That's right. There's our G-Train men.

So G-Train ends up being this gun. He wins two Coleman medals himself. He kind of came over as like a wingman slash defender. He came from West Coast. He was a running kind of wingman type guy. And I remember one of the really weird interesting stories about Fraser Garrig is that at one stage at West Coast he held the record. I think it was for the fastest 400 metre.

sprint and also the heaviest bench press. Yes. And I think he still has the league record for bench press. Something like that. Yeah. He was huge. Humongous. Yeah. They called him on Triple M radio though.

His nickname was the carpet snake. Yeah, because of the mullet. The mullet was it? The mullet. Why are the carpets smear? He's like, oh, he's snaffling another big egg. Another goal there, the carpet snake. He did kind of like skulk around.

Yeah. He was just a real enigmatic character. Yeah. He opened up a restaurant. running Karen Downs, an Italian restaurant called Michelangelo's, and I had dine there a few times. He played a season at full back as really. He played a season or two

at full back, I think, as well. Yeah, he did. Yeah. And... Did you go down there just because he was owned by him? Yeah, definitely. And, but he was, he was like a kind of a plugger reincarnated. Huge man. Kind of very reclusive. Yes. Didn't like talking to the media. Still

like talking to the media. Although I did do that weird deliveroo at the camp. That's right. That's right. that was funny. But he just said it for the club. He's like, I think he loves the club. Yep.

And the club needed him. He's like, oh, it's raising money for the club, I'll do it. But he did a few, yeah, did a few weird spots there. Just found Michelangelo's on wordofmouth.com.com. Where people review things and it says Michelangelo's. And it's got a tagline is where every dish is a masterpiece. Oh. And masterpiece has a capital M.

I can phrase phrase. I might have written that one. It's so good. What can he do? It says, restaurant dining with warm decor and tasteful displays of Michelangelo's in brackets the artist's artwork. I found that helpful when I was there. I said that underrated in bracket said the artist.

There was like a fake sculpture of David. Is that so it's still going, is it? Well, it hasn't been reviewed on this website since January 2010, so I'm not sure. Yeah. But it was on Springvale Road, Aspendale Garden. That's right. I was right across the road from the big pub tab at Karam Downs. What is it called? Not my area.

No, you're a area. I'm afraid. That's a bit further out. I'm sorry to report that according to Google Maps, it is permanently closed. Okay. You're from South of the Europe, but you rarely go south of the Mordialic Creek. Correct. Correct.

Well, yeah. All my mates, we all got priced out of Marabin, which is now kind of fancy. Obviously, you've still been able to make it work. obviously somewhere or another. We're a few suburbs still further, further from Aramon, but it's south or north? South. Yeah, right. Yeah, everyone got pushed out further.

I'm like, I just skip to the north side. Oh my gosh, you're never going to believe it. Only last month at the end of August did they have their sort of closing down sale where they started selling like everything inside. The restaurant's now closed. Everything's at throwaway prices. And then at the end, August 21, everything in the picture is free. Please come on in and take whatever you like.

and there's like Sistine Chapel, like, paintings. Wow. That you could just like buy a copy of, you know? That's so fun. Oh, man. I wish I'd continue to follow them online. Oh, my gosh. We missed out on a bargain.

There you go, Laura Baker. We talked about the G-Train way more than I think we're anticipating. But I love him. Like, he's just an all-time favorite player. He much like Pluggar, he also retired and then came back. Yes. And didn't quite hit the heights. Yeah.

Both of them were the same. But yeah, I love the story. It was like he was, he retired. And he had this great game. It was a dead rubber at the end of the season. Maybe it's the Tigers. I think I was there. He kicked nine or something.

He kicked a bunch of goals and it was fair. He took his shirt, the Guernsey off at the end of the game. It was like the perfect finale without being a premiership, of course. And then I think he was away from, again, might be misremembering. But I feel like he was on a treadmill in Europe somewhere, maybe looking out over the Alps, and he was just thinking, I wish I was at the club. And he decided to make his comeback, like before the off-season had even started, basically. I'm not sure Fraser Gary ever went on a treadmill at the club.

Yeah, so I'm not in Europe. Very possibly just absolutely making up that story. Still, good story, though. Good story. Great story. And now that I've said it on record, maybe it'll become true. Please. The Earl Sun will report on it.

Thank you. So, unlike with the Saints' first 20-odd wooden spoons, in the modern era, even probably 23, 24 first wooden spoons, there was no real prize apart from the spoon itself. But in the AFL era, you win the wooden spoon, you also get the number one draft pick. Oh, right. Has that ever been abused and people like... Tanking has definitely been a thing, and there's been teams that have found... They've looked into it.

I don't know if anyone's been officially done for it, but it's... Well, Melbourne got done for... bringing the game into disrepute or something, but they weren't actually charged with tanking. Right. But it was something. Yeah. I think without saying it definitely,

that's kind of what they were doing. So, yeah, it can be manipulated a bit like that. Losing on purpose. This year was very different from that. The two bottom teams, and the number one pick seems to be clear cut, but the two bottom teams had wins in their final two rounds. So the Eagles won to go off bottom place and put an off on,

bottom and then north in the last round won. So people like, oh, the eagles, they mucked up there, should have lost that game. And everyone's like, North, you've been handed it. They should just be making sure they don't win. And then they comfortably won the last round and saying, winning is more important setting standards than some kid who's, you know, never played before. We don't know what they're going to turn into.

Right. So West Coast won't end up being on the bottom. So, yeah, eagles go back to the bottom. And yet, the saints when we got that wooden spoon, we ended up with the number one pick, which turned out to be future grade of the competition, Nick Revolt. Oh, okay. Funnily enough, we actually got the number one pick the next year as well, not because we finished

last, because Carlton finished last, but what did they get done for? Brown paper bag. The brown bag is, that's why they got done for cheating the salary cap, so they lost their number one pick. They were going to have the first two, remember, because they were given a priority pick as well. And Goddard was a blue supporter, I think, and he was, but we ended up getting him, and he became, you know, one of our, and he's an assistant coach now, saints through and through.

Yeah, and a big moment that we'll probably talk about. Yes, almost one of the all-time great moments in football history. But, and I mean, it was, but the result went the other way that would have been. But anyway, we also brought in Adelaide Premiership Coach Malcolm Blight. Just a few years ago, he broke our hearts as the coach in the 97 Premiership Crows and 98 Premiership Crows. We brought him out of retirement with a huge money deal. At the time, I think it was a million bucks a year.

million bucks a year, which at the time was like ridiculous money. Written on a napkin at the flower drum. Love that. That's similar to the deal, the Chippendale's owner made with his partner, the male strip club from L.A. We talked about that story a few months ago on the show, but they wrote this deal and he, yeah, signed this napkin, and he's like, yeah, anyway, we talked about that weeks ago. I don't need to talk about it again.

Back to Holmesby. So we're getting blight. but unfortunately the same success was nowhere near close to being replicated at St. Kilda that he had at Adelaide. The Saints languished down the bottom of the ladder with a lacklust of four wins, while the relationship between Blight and the players was stretched to its limits. Blight forced the playing group to sit in the middle of Colonial Stadium, now Marvel Stadium, twice after humiliating defeats, receiving widespread media attention and culminating in his sacking midway through the season.

So like go out there and think about what you've done type of thing. Basically, yeah, just real weird, old school. sit as like rubbing a dog's face in their piss or whatever. And the crowd's still in there, sort of watching on going, this is a bit weird. I think so, yeah. Yeah, it was very odd, very odd. Just sit in the inner circle. Didn't he coach from, like, he sort of five-low coach?

He lived, he lived in the gold coach. He still lived interstate. Yeah. And he just flew in for a certain amount of training sessions a week. He'd be in Melbourne, like Thursday to Sunday or something. He'd live in the Gold Coast. But this is the deal we made with him. He had a real strong.

He's like, I'm retired. I don't want to coach anymore. Please don't. So they made him. do it. Literally the offer I couldn't refuse. He's like, I'll do it, but I'll come. I'm only coming half the week.

I'm going to need to be paid more than a coach has ever been paid. And yeah, he ended up getting sacked. And I guess we had to pay him out. Yeah, I think he lasted 15 weeks or something like that. Amazing. He says he was hard. His version of the story is very different. But people from inside the club have said since, and I've heard on your podcast,

people say that his heart did not seem to be in it. Yeah. Grant Thomas stepped in as senior coach. Grant Thomas, of course, was on the selection committee for that job at the time. Am I remembering that right? Yeah, I think he might have been... So he's basically, well, let's cast a wide net. I think my favourite one maybe is me.

I'm going to give me the job. He says that he didn't want it. He says that he tried to get out of it. Like, he got a call from one of the other directors or something and said, we've decided on you for the next three years. Probably Rod Butters, maybe, because they were great mates at the time, were they? They were best mates at the time. Um, not anymore.

Um, but he, he said he got a call, I think it was on the Tuesday or the Wednesday after or whatever and they said, you've got the job and he went, I don't want it. What job? It's not my job. It's not my job. We need a coach. Right. Um, so that's what, that's what he told us. Okay.

Oh, that's interesting. You never know. Yeah. He had won four country premierships in Warnham Bull. Yeah. Yeah, so it just, it was like quite an odd, uh, like he hadn't been an assistant AFL coach, which, you know, the 99% of senior coaches their job. the year before would be an assistant,

and a senior assistant coach. Anyway, so he got the job, and he did things a bit differently, he started rotating captains, uh, and I had a few other quirky things like, it's all around accountability and, yeah,

that's this stuff, personal responsibility. He'd have a lot of, you know, he'd have players over to the house for big dinners and stuff like that. Just a different vibe. Hamelin Garrig were huge instigators

in the club's turnaround over the next few years, continually driving the lowly club to reverse its external perception. This is still Holmesby. Along with the likes of Revolt and other top draft picks like Justin Kaczynski, Brennan Goddard and Luke Ball, they all began to build as elite players. And the Saints began their gradual evolution from a bottom tier club to a powerhouse of the competition. Even with retirements of Stuart Lowe and Nathan Burke, the Saints forced their premiership window open after a stunning 2004 season. So that was the era when I'm awkwardly shaking Shui Lowe's hand at his last trading session.

I also, did you ever go to his bar, Flaming Mose? I never went to Flaming Mose. I've seen him around. I think he still lives in Brighton. I've seen him at the New Bay, a fair bit. Oh, cool. Down the corner of New Street and Bay Street. As I've seen, he still looks ready to play.

He could still play. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there I ask is Flaming Mose still around? No. It became, it went through a few, when I was in my, you know, 18, to early 20s.

I went from Flaming Moes to, and it changed its name a bunch of times. I think it was called seduce, but spelled in a funny way, like Juice, J-U-I-C-E, and, um, sure. Yeah,

but yeah, it was like in a block of shops that you would normally expect it to be, you know, a news agency or something. It's that kind of location near a train station. But it somehow, it was successful,

he sold it as a successful business. And then I think it was one failure. owner passing it on to another failing owner for years to come. And a lot of brawls between Bentley and other local football clubs. They'd play each other that on the Saturday, then they'd both go there and get into a brawl. A bit of fun. So even before the season started, 2004, the Saints won Silverware with their second preseason premiership. They're known as the Wizard Cup. So I'd be gone from Anset Cup. I think it was Foster's Cup before Anset. Yeah. Now it was the wizard home loans cup. The Wizard Home Loans Cup.

Clint's cup. And this one had some iconic images attached to it as the coach. Grant Thomas didn't let him or Captain Lenny Hayes smile in the photo of them holding up the cup. So there's this, they're on the dice holding up the cup, but looking real sad. Who didn't allow them to? The coach. He's like, this is just pre-season. Yeah, we've got bigger things to do. Yeah. Let them enjoy it, mate. Come on. It's pretty, yeah, it's made for a pretty funny photo. But Dave, you know what was about to happen? Something iconic that I've talked about on the podcast. before, when the season proper began, it featured a then record of 10 consecutive wins. Oh, that's right.

A.k.a. The streak. DVD worthy. Box set. Special. We'd love to release a DVD when we win the last 10 days of the year. But at this point, 10 in a row was 10 in a row. I've still got it. Still got it. Yeah, the box set is in my bookshelf. It's so funny. It's just like such a minor thing to celebrate. 10 games. Oh, like, to win the whole thing. Oh, no, somewhere in the season we won 10 a row.

So funny. As Holmesby said, 2004 was simply a slice of St. Kilda Magic. It was the year that Rebalt truly broke onto the scene and took the next steps into becoming a legend of the game. He finished in the top 10 of the Coleman and Brownlow medal. And like we're saying before, it's sad for forwards to pole high in the Brownlow. He also took out his second Trevor Barker award and really, build in a league high, 256 marks. He went on to, he retired as the greatest,

he had the most marks all time. I think it maybe has been overtaken since, but. Games changed. It has changed. It's just a half-back flanker probably. That's right, yeah. Got it now. He also took one of the most iconic marks of all time that year,

a courageous grab running back with a flight of the ball against Sydney, which is still put up there with, you know, whenever you see compilations of the greatest marks of all time. that's right up there. Revolt went on to become a modern-day grade of the club, winning a record six Trevor Barker awards. He also overtook Spud as the club's longest serving captain, 11 seasons, and became only the fifth saint to play 300 games. He also earned five all-Australian nominations, and yeah, like I said, took the most marks of all time. You want a league, you want a league MVP. That's right, yeah, the Lee Matthews Award. Yeah,

he was, you know, and I still, I mean, it's hard to make. the argument anymore, but I still think he's the better Revolve. Oh, I think most people agree that he was the better individual player, but Jack had the better career. One three premierships, kicked more goals. There are things, I think a lot of people would say that means

had the better career. Yeah. The better career. Yeah. But yeah, Revo was a bit more, Nick was a bit more dynamic than Jack, perhaps. But another two Tasmania's, you know, I was talking about before Dave, how a lot of our great players, Darrell Baldock was also and was Ian Stewart, Tazzy? No.

Fernad Howell was. A lot of our legends, for some reason, have come from Tazzy. Coleman medal winning season for the G-Train, Fraser Garrig. I think it was around the time he was setting up his famous restaurant in Karam Downs as well. So we had a lot going on. That also played a big hand in guiding the Saints

to September, making the top four with a preliminary final against Port Adelaide resulting in the Colt Heroes 100th goal of the year. And you'd remember this? Do you go to this game? I didn't go to this game. I didn't go to it.

I was watching with Arnie, the guy who couldn't quite get my camera to work when I was shaking Shillow's hand. But we were watching at his place, and it was so close. Brent Weir couldn't quite get his toe to the ball, which would have levelled the scores deep in the last quarter. But we were flogging him at the start of the game. He were. And then G-Train kicked his 100th goal, and the crowd flooded onto the ground.

Play stopped for 10 minutes or whatever. and killed our momentum. Oh, no. Just unfortunate. And people said before the game, like, Saints' porters, don't do it.

I think it was Stephen Baker's dad, I think, let everybody out into the, yeah, should have known better. Yeah. But yeah, we just got done by a goal

against the eventual premier Port Adelaide. This must have happened quite a few seasons where it, in coming up, that we get knocked out by the team it goes on to win it. The customary ground invasion

following the goal, this is what killed the Saints momentum. It was close to an exact repeat in 2005. Garrick took out the Coleman again. St. Kilda finished in the top four and were again knocked out of the finals race by Sydney, who would go on to claim their first premiership as Sydney and the first for the club in, I think it was like, it was 70 something years ago. Yeah, it might have even been 80. They beat West Coast.

That was the longest, the longest drought in the AFL at that stage. Right, that's right. And yeah, they've all been knocked off. often racing is Melbourne's, the Bulldogs, Tigers. Yeah. Carlton being the second longest is so bizarre. It's only 20 years or something. Well, 95. Yeah. So 30. Yeah, 28 years. . I mean, let's round it up 50. That's not a draft. Call that a draft. That's not a drought. That's not a drought. Someone make that a meme. Yeah, and that was, I went over for the first final that year. We played in Adelaide. I was there for that one.

One of the great football memories in my life went over, caught the bus over with my cousin Rhino, and we just took Adelaide by storm, me and him, and the Saints. Frankie Peckett played a great game. The Duna, Jason Gwilt. Robert Harvey. Jason Gwilt? Yeah.

James Gwilt. James Gwilt. James Gwilt. James Gwilt was awesome. Is he called the Duna because his name sounds like Quilt? Yes. That is incredible name. There's also a defender, so, you know, we'd cover the players.

But he kicked two goals in that game. Yeah, he was awesome. So good. Yeah. It was a big fan of the Duna. And the Ute. James Blake. James Blake.

Jason Blake. Oh my God. James Blake's the tennis player. And the singer. I am becoming an old man before you're very eyes. So yeah, that was a great game. And I remember it like it was yesterday and everyone's names. And the after party after the game at the hotel bar.

That's right. And we were talking about this on unplugging. We were both at the same pub celebrating the winner afterwards because we both had a friend who was involved in the club who said, come catch up for a drink and then ended up. Yeah, I was drinking with Ozzy Jones and Luke Penny. Yeah. Robert Harvey was there and he ended up going upstairs.

Yeah, I remember the hotel bar on the ground floor. And I remember Frankie Peckett came in and cousin Rhino was, we were a couple beers deep and he knew how much I love Frankie. And he, so Frank Peckett walks in and him and Harvey are two of the old, you know, that would have been 30 years old at the time. So they were the older and more mature players at the time and everyone else is sort of partying and Peckett comes in and my cousin goes, Oh, it's Frank!

And you sort of see him do a U-turn and go straight out the other door. Be cool, Rano, be cool. So yeah, we once again knocked out by the eventual premieres Sydney. And then 2006, we made the finals again. But I think we were out, maybe in straight sets or even in the first way. We went out to Melbourne. They didn't go on to win the flag. No, that's right.

The Eagles won that following year because I was over in Europe backpacking and I remember watching the score of the Melbourne game on a computer in the hostel computer area and it was just like a line you know, it wasn't like watching a scoreworm it was a score worm I'm watching

slightly tick over. It was a brutal way to watch a team loose. I think we lost about four players injured that game as well. Right. Aaron Hamill. I'm pretty sure I think that day or that week, Steve Irwin died. I was staying at that hostel when he died. And Peter Brock died around that time as well. I remember after that game, actually, there was a rumor going around the ground that

Robert Harvey had retired in the rooms. I don't know where it came from, whether someone on Twitter said it or it was on the radio. I don't remember, but someone said Robert Harvey's just retired in the rooms because obviously our season's over. Yeah. Grant Thomas got sacked after that game as well. That's right.

But someone had started this rumor that Robert Harvey retired and a bunch of us just sat down in the stands and like, bawling, like just crying. Crying about it. Not because the season was over, but because Robert Harvey was right. And then, of course, it turned out that he hadn't. And he played on for another few years. Did you go to his testimonial, which would have been

around that time? I was that Doc Lands. I've still got the little, the invite, which came in like this sort of weird puzzle, box puzzle. Yes, I've got the puzzle. Yeah, I've got a couple of those puzzles for some reason. Yeah. Was it the Harvey? The Harvey. It's Harvey Testimonial, wasn't it? Harvey 350? Yeah. Yeah. I've got a T-shirt, I think.

as well. So, hey, we've been in the same room multiple times. So, yeah, Thomas gets sacked after that final series, which is pretty wild. Normally three final series in a row is and what gets you sack. But his best mate, who was the president, they became frenemies and then basically just enemies, I guess, around this time. Is that part of the reason why he was sacked? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I think there was a lot of, there was a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes there, but I think there was money involved and there was business deals and whatever, and they became, yeah, hardcore enemies.

Yeah, which isn't. It's not ideal for a president and your head coach. Yeah. I remember I was at Octoberfest when I heard that Ross Line got the job. So I had you sort of place yourself around the world when that sort of stuff's happening. A quirky game involving the Saints in 2006 is now known as the Siren Gate match. Do you know anything about this one, Dave? Siren Gate.

Siren Gate. Just that very lazy name and convention putting Gate at the end of. No, that's not ringing any bells. It's off the time ahead. So I was played in Launceston in Tasmania. You would remember this. It's the place Long Dave set the world record. Yeah, of course.

He booted a beauty that's that. He booted a beauty, right up the guts. So basically the siren sounded when Fremantle were leading by a point, but the on-field umpire didn't hear it, and the match continued until Saints player, Stephen Baker scored a point to level the scores. Then All Hell was sort of breaking loose, and then the umpire gave him another kicker goal for some reason.

He got pushed over as he kicked. it as he kicked the point. And so that leveled the score. And he got another shot at it. He got another shot. Which he missed as well. Which was directly in front. Yeah.

35 meters out. Like every AFL play should kick that goal. But he missed that. Missed it again, got a point. But leveled the scores. But this was like 30 seconds after the siren went. But the on field umpire just didn't hear it. Did everyone else hear it?

Like it sounds like a few people, but not many. The siren was pretty low. Right. Like the Fremandle coach walked out onto the field. There was a bunch of people that just walked out. But the rule technically is that it's not when the siren goes, it's when the umpire hears the siren and blows the whistle, puts his arm in the air or her arm.

But it ended in a draw. And it wasn't until the AFL commission had a hearing during the week that the result was overturned and the dockers were given the win. I think Fremantle appealed, I think, on the Monday or something. Which is fair enough, you know. Did they win? In other scenarios. Not officially.

Yeah, in other scenarios, you know, you can see that going the other way. If like this year there was a bad one where a goal was awarded a point, which meant, oh, yes, all that one. That the crows lost and the swans won. And that really affected the finals. Crows would have ended up playing finals, but they missed out because of it. But that did. Well, they lost the last week anyway, which meant that they wouldn't know.

No, they beat the Eagles. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they'd have been. So they would have, the efficient, if that result changed, they would have made finals and the swans would have dropped out. but there was like a minute to go in the game, so you can't say that the swans would have kicked another goal after that, whereas in this game was the very end of the game.

So that's where you, I mean, I'm like, it's hard to take when it's against you, but it made sense. But for some reason, Dave, the Saints and Dockers have a history of sharing quirky moments together. Another one happened during the first quarter of the team's round 15 match in 1999 at Subiaco, oval when field umpire Peter Carey took a chess mark in general play. So the ball was... Sorry, the umpire. So the ball was kicked and I was going past him and instinct kicked in and he just marked it on his chest. It's so great. And he was, he just, he sort of looked a bit shocked and he just blew the whistle. Game was up with your red guard. Doesn't even

know what sport is playing. So he just ended up bouncing the ball. Yeah, that was a bit of a funny moment. And then another one has become known as the Whispers in the Sky controversy. It's very dramatic. Yeah, I think that's a way better name in Saurangate, though. Wispers in the sky. So in 2005, the week prior to the Saints' Dockers match, Saints coach Grant Thomas made disparaging remarks about the quality of umpiring

and gave some advice to the umpires on how to improve saying they should, quote, leave their ego in the locker when they start their career. Thomas ended up being fired 20 grand by the AFL for the comments. So this is the week before the game. Then before the game, Thomas and assistant coach Matt Rendell, who you've also had on your show, I believe Matt Rendell? No. No, we didn't have Matt Rendell.

We've had Tomo on a couple of times. Yeah, but Tom on there. But so both of the coaches noticed that when the umpires came through the rooms, so that's before the games, the umpires would come through the rooms when we shake coaches hands. It's just this weird old tradition, I guess. And they noticed that the umpires were very cold that day. They didn't shake hands.

They didn't say good day like they normally would. They didn't chat. And, uh, this is what Thomas later told S.E. And he said, I was leaning up against a wall with assistant coach Maddie Rendell, just talking about some matchups and some particular strategy. And the umpires walked in in single file, regimented like they do when they walk out on the ground. They walked up to the end. end of the change rooms, did an about face, turned around and walked out without shaking anyone's

hand or recognising anyone. It was just basically a token jester to say, yeah, we're here, we've been in the rooms, but that's it. Maddie Rendell dug me in the ribs and said, I think we're in for a tough one, Tomo, which proved to be the case. The cameras during the start of the match caught Randall and Thomas laughing in the coach's box at the start of the game. If it wasn't so serious, it'd be funny, but we were caught on camera in the first five or ten minutes of the game laughing our heads off, which I think a lot of people thought, what are they, laughing for? We're laughing because of the decision making. We just thought, what is going on here? It's just not right, Thomas said. It's just the umpires were making strange decisions. Right.

They were all going against the Saints. He said, something was really off that day, really off. The players felt it. Everyone felt it. In a lot of ways, you can say it's my fault because I tried to give that advice and they weren't happy. So basically it sounds like it was just the umpires taking revenge, which is very unprofessional, obviously, and quite odd in a professional sport. The game ended up being a thriller with the docker's just winning in a nail-biter, but there were quite a few contentious decisions that went against the Saints on the night. The following day, Channel 9's Tony Jones reported that umpire Matthew Head had said to him while boarding the post-game flight back to Melbourne, quote,

Now I know what a victory feels like. So the umpire supposedly said to the journalist. Right. Saints... That's a stupid person to say that comment too. That's true. That's true. Saints fan Mitch Rentesis was also on the flight and heard the conversation. He said he couldn't be certain at the time who said what comment or who head was, but was adamant he saw and heard the conversation take place so much so that he wrote the quote down on his boarding pass. And there's a photo in media reports at the time of him with the quotes written down on his pass. He said, Tony Jones, who was a row behind me and putting his gear away and settling himself in,

made a comment to the umpires along the lines of, you boys at a good night tonight or where's that effect and i heard the famous words yep it's nice to have a win or now i know what it's like to have a win rentex has said i did a double take and had a look and i thought i gotta write this damn i just got to remember this so i did another saint's assistant he wrote it down but then he also said two different versions of the quote it's like can you just read the quote you've got written down another saint's assistant Mark Parker was also in the vicinity of the playing conversation saying, the umpire had got on and he'd said something to the effect of,

that'll teach them, four points and 20 grand or something like that. Everyone's got a slightly different version of it. I heard this conversation. I wrote it down on my point. I heard this conversation. Then I saw Tony Jones stand up face to face with the umpire Matthew Head and say, you can't say that.

And he sort of mumbled something and then went back. Head wasn't sitting in business. They were down in economy. So Jones looked at me and looked at a couple of others and asked, Gee, you already said? Umpire Head admitted it wasn't his best umpiring performance, but denied that he was cold in the change rooms. In fact,

he said the Saints weren't in there at all when he walked through. He also denied saying anything like what Jones, Rentesis, or Parker quoted him as saying. So it's funny, his, Grand Thomas is like, he came through, just ignored us all, and he's like, they weren't even in there. So I'm wondering, whether,

maybe the Saints invisible. Like, it feels like was there like some sort of glitch in the Matrix or something? He's walking through around there. like he's being so cold, it's just because he didn't see him. The only logical explanation. Well, they ghost all along. An AFL investigation was launched, but ultimately cleared head of any wrongdoing,

which is weird. The AFL don't normally cover up stuff like this. So many witnesses saying that something like that was said, it is, yeah. Matthew Head's done a bit of a media tour in the last couple of years as well. He's finally started talking to media outlets about it, and he's adamant that it never happened.

Right. adamant that it never happened. Yeah, it's one of those ones where both Tony Jones still swears that it definitely did happen. They had, they interviewed each other. They did. They had to sit down, they had to sit down. And they both agreed to disagree, I think, at the end. It's just like, it's not the kind of thing where people are just slightly remembering a thing different. It's like, one of them is lying. Complete opposites. Yeah. And Grant Thomas says that, I don't know if it was Mark Parker or one of the other assistants or someone that was nearby, called him when they got off the plane and kind of reported this thing to him and GT was like that kind of happened.

Right. That couldn't have happened. Yeah, right. Yeah, it doesn't. Nah, that doesn't. Nah. Let's go back to Holmesby. So Ross Line comes into the folder senior coach.

Revolt is now fully handed the reins as captain in 2008. And the Saints continue to impress with their dominance, winning another preseason premiership. What was this one called? We beat the cats. I can remember what was called that year. But, you know, more silverware. I can't remember all these preseason premierships.

Some new, some other. defunct business now. Like the Bilo. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, they went into the season going really well. They finished in the top four after a stunning 108 point victory. NAB cup. The NAB cup. Of course it was. Whatever happened to NAB. Speaking of the big four, they finished in the top four winning by 108 points over the bombers in the final round, which brought them from seventh to fourth and gave them the double chance. But although a different year yielded an all too familiar result as Hawthorne ousted the Saints and went on to win the flag. That Hawthorne game was Harvey's last game.

It was. Yep. Which was announced before the rooms. Yes. But I remember being up in the sand as such a hollow feeling. Yeah. We beat the pies the week before. I think maybe Frankie Packett retired that day too.

Maybe. I think that might have been his last game as well. Yeah, so Harvey retired after 383 games, still a club record. and peck it after 252 games. Even with the Legends time at an end, the red, white and black would piece together its best season to date in 2009. And that's of all time, home and away, best season.

Saints won 19 straight games to start the season. They lost two games late in the year, but only just. And basically... With multiple games to spare from second place, the famous game in the middle of the year is now known as the Battle of the Unreuxed Unbeaten, which went down as one of the club's most enthralling matches against Geelong in front of a record crowd at Dockland Stadium of 54,44.

Widely accepted as the best home and away season game of all time. It's such a great game. The big Gardner, Mark, had all the iconic moments. So with the two unbeaten juggerna's level with just over a minute on the clock, Gardner, rising like a colossus, another great bit of commentary. Really in an unbelievable pack mark. the Saints up to carry on their incredible winning streak. Unfortunately, the Cats had the last laugh, though. We played them in the grand final,

and we won every stat on the day, apart from goals kicked, which then had a bit more important one. They ended up being decisive, did it? Yeah, and so we had the, in 66, it was the iconic wobbly punt from Barry Breen, but unfortunately, the iconic moments in this one went the other way, like Matthew Scarlett's,

toe poke, the famous toe poke people still talk about. If it just got past his toe, we were out. And probably... Zach Dawson just got a hand on it. Yeah. And then Paul Chapman sealed the game in the final minutes after that. And yeah, it was the... We should have won.

We were easily the best team of the year. Yeah. But just couldn't quite get it done on that big day. We're better in the first half as well. More scores, I think as well. Yeah, which we couldn't convert. Yeah, exactly. Another moment in the game.

included Geelong's Tom Hawkins being paid a goal despite it clearly hitting the post. Because of that goal, goal reviews were later introduced. Again, the rule changes soon after. If it was reviewed then, you know, that wouldn't have been a goal. Like, I was sitting behind that end as well, and it just ricocheted. It was so clearly hit the post. Also, the Norm Smith medal winner for the best player on the field was Chapman, and he'd been receiving a controversial blood injection therapy

to help him get over a hamstring injury. He ended up kicking three goals being best on ground. He was the difference. He kicked the winning goal. The following season, this type of therapy was banned by the oiled anti-doping body. Right, because they're turning into some sort of mutant ex-man. That's right.

He's out there shooting webs from his arms. This is not fair. Yeah. In 2009, that was allowed. 2010, no longer allowed. Yeah, it was having some sort of super soldier serum. So we were desperately unlucky, but in the end, should have won the game anyway. Outplayed the cats.

But, yeah, all those little things. Any of those little things don't happen. We probably win that game. Two of you guys there that day? Yeah. Was it as devastating as it sounds? Yeah. Oh, gosh.

But it should have been probably a comfortable, like it was the kind of game at half time. We should have had a pretty good lead. We had a small league, but it should have been like a match winning league. I think we were nine points up at three quarter time. I think we'd missed probably four or five shots of goal that normally they'd kick, you know, whether it was just wet and it didn't quite dribble through. Yeah, there was Milne trying to dribble it through?

Yeah, I think McWilter had one. I remember the right, was it when Gilbert went forward or was that the next year? That was the next year. That was the next year. The disappointing games blew together a little. Although people are like, hate losing ground finals. I'd never, I'd take losing ground finals over being finishing 12th on the ladder. For sure.

Because you can't take away the pre-lim wins. Some of the best nights of my life were celebrating those premierships. And then having that whole week as a grand finalist team. Do you remember who we beat in the 09 pre-lim? Yes, and the 10 pre-lim. That was Dave's Bulldogs. Still hurts, guys. Right.

And in 97 when we played it, you were ripped off by the crows beat you when you should have won. They called a point, a goal. That's right. They called a point. Liberatore kicked. And, yeah, it should have been a Saints Bulldogs, 97 grandfinal, but brutal. Anyway, Holmesby continues.

We're getting close to the end here. If anyone is still listening, send us a tweet. It'd be interesting to see if anyone got through this far. Holmesby continues. It wouldn't be the last grand final birth from the red one black, but even with all the agony,

heart-wrenching sorrow and long-standing suffering suffering across the club's history, few rivaled the pain that was to come in 2010. Desperate not to let their shot at grand final glory slip through their fingers. The Saints returned with a vengeance in 2010. Another strong season saw the red white and black finish third, advancing to an identical preliminary final against the dogs again, which they won. This one slightly less convincingly. Or was it the other way around?

This one was more convincing. 09, we were, we just got overlawn. St. Kilda seemed destined for their long way to triumph. with the 2010 grand final mirroring so many facets of the fabled 1966 victory. So here are some of the things that were mirrored 66. There was Premiership Heartbreak the Year Before, off the back of a final quarter fade-out. It's another chance at the ultimate glory against Collingwood. One kick, spelling the difference between agony and ecstasy, the script was perfect.

After going into halftime, 24 points down, the Saints began to turn the tide. Brendan Goddard's iconic screamer, which would still be seen as, I think, one of the all-time Great Ground Final moments. And also, Lenny Hayes' ruse from long range, outside 50, had the red, white, black, just one straight kick from their second premiership, and could have joined Barry Breen's match winning point as part of the Immortal Club history. I mean, Goddard took one of the all-time great pack marks, went back, kicked the goal, which put us in front with a handful of minutes to spare.

But unfortunately, we went defensive. I'd love to, that's a sliding doors moment where we stayed on the attack. Yeah, put the foot down. Put the foot down. Yeah, well, I think that would have changed it. Anyway, what ifs, huh? So with two minutes on the clock, the Saints found themselves a point down. So we went defensive and Cloak kicked a goal from long range, which gave them an narrow lead again.

Yep. One point down. And then in a final moment of desperation, a tumbling punt from Lenny Hayes went inside 50. It bounced over the Collingwood defense and a vacant Stephen Mielan was, lying in weight just outside the goal square. Milne was centimetres away from putting the Saints one step closer to a stunning triumph before that bounce. In a cruel twist,

the ever-un predictable Sharon, which is the brand of the football, bouncing at right angles, darted past the St. Kilda Gold Sneak and scurried through for a behind, leveling the scores. The siren rang to the sound of pure disbelief from the Collingwood and St. Kilda armies. Game had ended in a drawer.

Most commentators have since said, and at the time said, the Saints were finishing on top. If the game went into overtime, they surely would have won. But unfortunately, the rule was drawn grand finals must be replayed the following week. The depleted Saints couldn't muster enough strength to challenge the following week and ended up getting flogged by nearly 10 goals,

even though Lionel Richie played a fantastic set before the game. So was there two halftime shows then? Two pre-game shows, yeah. John Farnham in the first week. I think they get Lionel with only one week's notice. Yeah, I think he was just on tour. That's great. Yeah, so it was pretty handy.

Gee, that's a win? Oh no, Fonzie was 09. I'd get a lot of details between those two years mixed up. Which was meatloaf? Meatloaf was there 11. 11. 11. Okay.

Okay. Which is infamous for all sorts of reasons. Absolutely worth a look online if you haven't seen his performance. Yeah. It's incredible. There's some audio issues and his voice is not covered by any back and track. There's some meatloaf issues. Yeah, there's some life issues.

His voice isn't quite what it used to be. but yeah Lionel Richie was good though Lionel Rich was really good I was definitely the peak of the day we I reckon that game and I haven't had the guts to go back and watch it

but I remember that game going quite similarly to the first week where they started well didn't quite put it all on the scoreboard and then we started working our way back into the game

and then like a thief in the night Heath Shore Heath Shore Nick Revol was running into the open goal didn't realize that Heath Shore

was closing in on him and he smothered him and that was the end of the game which it just felt like we would work our way back into the game at that point but that broke our hearts anyway it's hard to argue any moment leads to a 10 goal loss I still I still maintain that had had we won that first one after Goddard took the mark and kicked the goal it would have been the greatest

AFL moment of all the time you break the drought with a mark like that and a goal to win the grand final that becomes the greatest moment yeah it's like And it was a better mark than Leo Barry's famous mark. Jezelenko's mark. I think it would have been the great grand final mark. And it should be, but they don't remember the losers, unfortunately. So yeah, the AFL changed the rule the next season.

Again. Yeah. So grand finals now go to extra time. Even Collingwood fans say that if they played five more minutes, they'll win, probably by a couple of goals, like not just by a couple points, but it's how dominant they were in the last quarter. Yeah, so, yeah, pretty brutal. But yeah, it's just a long history of rules that went against us being changed straight after.

Robbed. That's so St. Kilda. But like I say, every other supporter would have a list of these things about their club as well, I'm sure. Sorry to the Commonwealth supporters listening. I don't think you would have made it this far, but just having a bit of fun with you here. Although you are all cowardly racist dogs. The following decade, was rough.

So Ross Lyon and another link to Freo, he left. It seems like the Saints weren't really paying him that much respect as a pretty handy coach. Well, he was, when he signed, when he became the coach at Security, he was just a rookie, he was a first time senior coach, he was on essentially minimum wage for, I think he had a four-year contract. He made the finals again in 2011, which we lost to Sydney. Yes, at Docklands.

I had a ticket to see the DC3, Damon Cowell's band that night, which I booked in advance, not knowing the Saints be playing that night. And I had to make the decision and ended up going to the gig, which was the right call. Was Damon Cowell there? What did he go to the game? Damon Cowell was there. I think he was also glad. But for a while, because that was our last final for nine years.

I thought I'd cursed us by not going to knock out of the footy. But yeah. So the story goes that Ross had had some. investments fail. It was the global financial crisis a couple of years earlier, and his pretty much entire investment portfolio had plummeted or whatever. And he'd lost a lot of money. His family was struggling. And he asked the club for a raise. Yeah, he'd taken them to two grandfinal, three grandfinals in two years, three final series, four final series, eight, nine, ten, one. Yeah. And was essentially outside of the 66 premiership, the most successful St. Kilda coach

of all times. He still is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, the club just said we'll deal with it later. And, you know, we're not going to talk about it. We're not going to make you an offer. And he's stressing, like,

yeah, I didn't realize the money issues, but I just, yeah, they're dragging him out. He's like, eventually. And a lot of Saints fans have never forgiven him for it.

Even though he's now come back to coaches again. There's other things, reasons not to forgive him, I reckon, but that one, I think fair enough. If you, it's your job.

Yeah. And your boss isn't, isn't coming to the party. That's right. You get a, other offer that is securing your family and whatnot. And people forget about the other coach that got shafted in that case as well, because Mark Harvey was under contract, I think.

That's right. Yeah. And behind closed doors, I think, was it Ross's manager and Mark Harvey's manager with the same person? And he had to like withdraw because he was. Yeah. Something like,

I don't remember the story exactly. Yeah. So anyway, he leaves and, yeah, that was the beginning of a rough decade. and I'm not going to go on it to it too much but rather than the bottoming out of the 80s

we only won one wooden spoon that year but obviously winning lots of them meant we would have had a bunch of number one draft picks but so we won one we won one wooden spoon and the number one draft pick we picked up ended up having to retire just retired this year

again for the second time because of concussions oh yes Um, he, so yeah, it was an unlucky pick whereas, who was that, sorry? Patty McCarton. Whereas the, probably the guy that everyone else would have picked at number one, Petraca. Petraca, sorry, said his name weird, but he, um, he's gone on to be a modern day great. He's a partnership player at the demons.

It's, yeah, that was a, in hindsight, who knows, Patty McCarton was going to be a really great player as well, I think. So, you know, there's bad luck and this was just a bad luck. I think, but it is funny because everyone said everyone, like all the experts were saying, Petrarch is number one. Whereas the other one that people talk about a lot is we picked Billings before Bon Tempelli, but no one was saying Bonapelie. No.

That was the choice. No. It's only in hindsight everyone's saying that. Even the Bulldogs, I've spoken to a few people inside the Bulldogs, and they've said that if Billings had been there at four, they would have taken Billings over Bonapelie. So he was a consensus pick. Yeah, that's right. So I think people going on about that is.

silly. The Petraco one's different, but anyway, it was a tough decade, the teens. Yeah, but instead of bottoming out, we're doing a lot of middling, finishing just out of the eight down and, you know, sort of from 9th to 12th-ish, a lot. And at one point, Alan Richardson, another Alan coach, was the second longest ever coach of the Saints, and he never coached a final. We just kept Yeah. We had a couple of years in a row where I think we had winning seasons. We're like 12 and 10 and just missed out. He was building, but drafting and play development through that decade wasn't too good. Yeah.

But he also left and won a premiership with Melbourne as an assistant coach with Petraca. Anyway, he would have had something to say about Picking McCartner. He wanted to draft Petraca. Did he? Yeah. He got overruled by the, oh, good. Yeah, that would have been frustrating as the head coach. Anyway, so yeah, it was a pretty tough decade day.

We don't need to go on it too much. Maybe the most... Here's another hour of details about it, though. Probably the most positive thing to happen that decade, though, was the formation of our women's team. So the AFLW was announced in 2017 and 13 clubs, including St. Kilda, applied for a license. Annoyingly, the Saints were unsuccessful in the bid.

As it felt externally, at least, or to me, that the Saints were one of the most proactive clubs in pushing for women. women's football at the top level. Obviously, the Bulldogs and the demons were right up there. But I felt like the Saints were really doing a lot of good things. And I think we thought we were a pretty good chance. They've done a lot in the community around inclusivity and bringing people together.

And I think they thought that a really good shot at getting one of those initial licenses. But yeah. Yeah. And I mean, who knows? Again, it feels like we missed the jump on that. And it's probably hurt us a bit. We ended up getting in on the third intake of clubs in 2020. But unfortunately, the women's team thus far has started off in the traditional saint style

without a lot of on-field success. I haven't played a final. But the team is really well supported with some of the highest membership numbers in the league, which is quite different from the men's team, which is traditionally in the lower third of the league for members. Though the club this year hit a new – does this include women's and men's? I think so. We hit a new record this year over 60,000 for our biggest amount of members ever.

still has us in the bottom half of the membership ladder anyway. Collingwood broke the new record with over 100,000. 106 something, 106, 7. Pretty wild. Good luck getting finals tickets if you go for the pies. Other landmark moments for the club happened when the men's team played the first match for Premiership Points outside of Australia in Wellington, New Zealand on April 25th, 2013.

I was there. It was great fun, apart from losing. We played there again in 2014, 2015, lost both of those games. although we seem to lose like the spuds matches we always lose those wellington matches yeah do it did you go to any of those Kiwi games no no I had a great

I had a great trip over there but yeah the footy was unfortunate I message Cal Wilson another great saint supporter who's a Kiwi to see if she'd be up for telling her saint story but unfortunately she's in the middle of shooting Great Australian Bake Off but she said I could tell her story anyway

that's just a bit of a nice story So she was new to Australia as a Kiwi And she went to a game With some friends who were barricing hard for the Saints Kana-saintas, Kana-Sailers, right? And as the game went along She started getting into it as well Kana-Sailers, kind of sails, kind of sails

But she wasn't saying sainers Like the rest of the crowd, she thought Everyone was saying sailors. So she's screaming Kind of sailors, carna-sailers. And it wasn't until later in the game She realized that, yeah, she got it wrong But that was a bit of a fun story.

That's fine. I guess it makes some killed as sailors. Yeah, I quite like it. The sailors as a... Base side, yeah. I like team names that are unique as well. Like, that's what I thought Giants was a bit disappointing when at the newest AFL club came in. Why don't be the wombats or something, you know?

Like something that there's no world team with that. Why are we going for these existing American franchise names? We also played in Shanghai and China. We were the third team to play a game over there in 2019. It's a real cursory. trip though. The whole team or half the team got food poisoning before the game. Still played anyway, but got flogged by Port Adelaide. Well, clearly the team was not at full health. And then the following year, we were meant to play them again, but that was also a little cursed

because there was a little thing called COVID. So the game got cancelled. And I don't think there, there's no real plans to play in China again. I think so. No. I think Jaran Gehiri also, You'd have one of the, you had this weird thigh. That's right. There's this iconic photo of Geary with the stitches all the way up his leg. He had like compartment syndrome or something. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. It's gross. Yeah, the China curse. But yeah. So in some ways, I wouldn't be surprised if the Saints brought on COVID. Yeah. Some people talk about pangolans and bats and so. I don't know.

Made the stop in Wuhan on the way back. Yeah. Yeah. The Saints were put, they did a captain's run at Wuhan that week. But I love the idea of the Saints trying to build an international following. And I also love the idea that in our own small way, this podcast has started doing that a little bit. Oh man, if you're this far in and you don't have a team yet. Come on.

Yes. You're a Vos. And I know there are already a bunch of Dugan listeners around the world who are Saints fans because of this podcast, including Paul Meller, who's one of our great. Patreon supporters. He lives in England and he's become a Saints member, which I love. And I message him to see if he would, um, had anything to say about that. And he's sent in this clip. Good morning, guys.

It's Paul Miller here. Marks asked me to give you a few words about my interest in the Saints. So I'd record your little voicemail. Well, I'm on my walk with my dog, Rosie. in the wild of all them. Yeah, so I think listening back to the podcast, or in 2018, I think when I got into it, probably second or third episode I listened to

was Matt's podcast on the AFL. So, and I've never really been into that sport, I've not even really heard too much about it. And, yeah, kind of intrigued by Matt's fast. with the Saints and the fact they only won their one flag in 1966 kind of the same as the England senior men's team football team that is I know as you support football I don't support rugby for some reason it's kind of weird and then yeah kept my eye on the scores but didn't really do anything about until the pandemic hit and then I guess

pandemic year I didn't really get a year off I was in work constantly because of what I'd do as an engineer had to keep the factories running. So therefore, you know, it wasn't really a year off for me. It was just a weird year, but that weird year, most people took up languages and knitting and strange hobbies and I took up a new sport, which was watching AFL and following the Saints. I think they were doing quite well that season, so I thought I'll get on board with this and watch it, And I was kind of surprised at how easy it was to become an international member, which is not the easiest way to watch the games live and on playback.

So, yeah, sort of went from there, joined as an international member who's quite reasonably priced, sent me out a lovely good impact on the club, and I've watched them ever since. Now, a third-year member, and I like the fact that you get a little badge for every year that you're a member, but loving it and yeah it's just a really fast interesting

you know game it's you know football English football can be very much stop to start AFL doesn't seem to be that I thought it's very fast

even though there are lots of stops in the start in the game it's a very fast game and quite a long game but just just really excited I love an underdog

I follow all the map I think they're my team, and they're not done well for a long time. But it's a little thing. It's a little nuances. The now and again success that gives you a hope. And it's a hope that kills you, I guess. And I guess that's why I went for the Saints.

You know, something about the underdogs that screams to me as, you know, someone who needs support. And it's just more exciting. You know, people support around here, there is to support Manchester United, Manchester City. They're right on my doorstep. Why would I support them? You know, who got millions behind them, you know, the guarantee of success. You know, it's not for me. I'd rather watch the underdog and enjoy the smaller successes, but it's more exciting that way.

So, yeah, this year for the faints, you know, as we're calling this, they are, you know, into finals, which is just awesome to see. It's been a really exciting season. I think stand-out moment for me, you know, some of the Jacks, there's lots of Jacks in the team. Jack Higgins pop in the collar at the 150th game for 150th anniversary game. And that was an amazing game. The game the other week against Geelong, you know, again,

the standout performance. The team is doing really well. Jack Sinclair is awesome. Jack Steele playing with a broken collarbone. What's that about? We wouldn't get out in football. They'd hurt the knee and they go down like they've been shot. So it's just incredible.

Hang on to me, guys. I need to go find my dog. Just carry on. One minute. Just carry on. So, yeah, so when I watch the Saints, it tends to be an odd hour, usually early in the morning. If it's too early, I'll just get up and watch the game.

later or sometimes I watch the game. Player in a night with a couple of beers just relaxing, playing for a wave, no. I'm probably know what the outcome is. I enjoy listening to Sink's TV podcast. I think that's awesome.

I just enjoy calling them from my far. I hope to get there next year. I'm 15 December. I didn't get there this year, but I'm kind of a family holiday so next year, maybe around east of time. hopefully that can coincide with the start of the season

and get to the game but if not you know it'd just be nice to go over there and visit Australia anyway and yeah it's good to be a saint's man right now so uh go on go on your mind to saintsers cheers bye bye bye

oh thanks so much for that Paul I love that he took us out for a little walk with the dog that was really nice wasn't it a little walk with the underdog there relaxing I think anyone who can who can honestly say on record, success is not for me. You are a single fan.

Oh, it's weird that he was drawn to the club. My favorite line was, it's the hope that kills you, I guess. There's been a through line with all our guest, our guest supporters that we've heard from today. Oh, that's okay. We met Paul last year when we did a show in Manchester, and yeah, we're talking about how he's a fan of Oldham Athletic who play in the, in the, the,

they were the Premier League then I think that's second now they're in the National League the fifth tier so he's really following I follow him on social media and he's very passionate about the Saints and Oldham

he gave me an Oldham hat when I was there as well flat cap which I love and yeah Oldham are definitely my fifth your fifth league team fifth league team yeah no that Yovil's not in that league

is they oh look it up for you I've got so many English teams that are like, it's okay when they're in separate leagues, but what if they, Yoville or Charlton, they're not in the same league, are they? Some of the teams would be absolutely mortal enemies of each other anyway. We're so close to the end now, Dave. Let me tell you about just the last thing.

So the team made the finals in 2020, the COVID year, like Paul was saying, we had quite a good year. Won a final again, sorry, Dave, against the Bulldogs. We've got a good finals history against the Bulldogs. Yeah, we do. realizing as we go on. You are. Except for 92. Yes, that's right.

They knocked us out in 92. And we never let them. We never let them back in. Dogs. Even though they've won a premiership in that in the year since. So yeah, that was our first time back in nine years. Unfortunately, it was during COVID and there were no crowds allowed. That was in Queensland.

That's right. And we again lost the eventual premiers in Richmond. We did. Then this year, to celebrate our 150th year, we've made the finals again. Like I say, at the time of recording, we're a few days away. Actually, we're now one day away. Nick and I'll be at the MCG tomorrow. Yep. Playing the Giants at the MCG. And whatever happens in that game this episode will forever exist in a time where we're about to play finals and anything is possible. And I quite like that. Even though you, dear listener, are listening to this in a time

where the game has resulted. You can't affect me from here. I'm in the past. Untouchable. and stoked that the mighty Sainters are once again playing in September on the big stage. One thing the Saints Faithful is very good at, it's continuing to believe and hope that the second premiership is around the corner. And I believe that to be the case. Come on you once mighty Sainers. Beautiful. Beautiful. You know, I was thinking about this the other day.

How you can bottle hope? How do you bottle hope? Because this is the thing that we're not really used to, right? Going to finals, hopefully winning finals. but we generally lose. And so that hope is gone, at least for another year. This is a way. Yeah.

This is eternal hope. Captured in the moment. That's right. We can't be touched from here. Not now. This will be out on the internet forever. Eternal hope. Exactly.

This is bottling. This is bottling it. Thanks so much for joining us, Nick. Do you like being involved in world records? Because this is, I believe, unless the edit is really brutal. This is by some. margin the longest ever episode we've done. I'm honored. I'm absolutely honored to be here. It's my favorite thing to talk about. I do it all the time anyway. So, yeah, thanks for having

me. I've loved it. And yeah, I was thinking, I don't know if we think of a quirky story from the history after this, you'll have to come back and tell it. But I think we have covered nearly everything. Some people will be out there going, I can't believe that. I didn't mention the 1949 blimp disaster. Remember when the Saints had that blimp? We probably did. But thanks so much for joining us. No,

loved it. Thanks having me. I guess if people are looking for a way to get into Ozier Rules and AFL, they can check out zero hanger.com. That's right. Yes. The GM himself is here.

And unplugged podcast. Yes. The episode that came out on August 31st, please give it a listen. And, yeah. and yeah, I love listening to it every week. The thing I love about it the most, it's just, it's a safe place for Saints supporters. I hate consuming footy media after a loss, apart from unplugged, because it's like a debrief

with people who care about it as much as you do, probably more, to be honest. And it's hard to think of people who would care about and wear a Saints loss harder than I do. But yeah, you three do. And I love how I was saying this to you after I was on the episode. I love how the three of you have such unique voices. You all look at the game a little bit differently. And you seem like you're probably from three totally different worlds. But the Saints bring you together.

Yeah. And the debrief and the pre-brief, or is that just the brief, every week about the following week's game, that's always exciting. And you're able to put it into words things about the game that I cannot enunciate, let alone. It's generally lucky that we don't record straight after a game or kind of first thing in the week, that we kind of wait until midweek when some of the things, especially when we've lost and we've had a bad loss, that kind of the storm has settled and are able to kind of look at things a little bit more objectively. But I think we can still be fairly critical when it needs to happen. But yeah, we're all from different worlds, different experiences, but the one thing that's kind of always bound us together has been this footy club.

So good. And yeah, we'll catch up for prehist. drinks tomorrow. Sounds good. Forever. We're about to be having pre drinks forever. It's my favourite bit. Almost having pre drinks.

Eternal drinks. Yeah. Dave, have we converted you? I know you've been a lifelong sort of Bulldogs fan. You know, my passion of the Bulldogs runs deep. But this final season, I know who I'll be rooting for tomorrow. Yeah. Dave now knows more about Sincilda than 99% of Sincolta fans.

It's amazing. It's amazing. I've wound up on a football podcast. Look at me go. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Nick. We'll let you go. But in a moment, let's do everyone's favorite section of the show where we thank some of our fantastic Patreon supporters.

Yeah, so this is everyone's favorite section of the show. And obviously, people like that first bit. And they sit through it. Yeah, it's just like it's a four or five hour warm up. Yeah. But now we've got to the big dance. They're like the preliminary finals. Exactly, which we won.

And this is. nail about us. We got into the granny. And what we do here is we thank some of our... Many grand final. Many grand final. We got into the granny. Yeah, that does sound a bit sus if you don't know the context.

But what we do in this little section at the end of the episode, we spend about half an hour, maybe 40 minutes, thanking some of our great Patreon supporters. And these are the people who, you know, keep the show alive. And they do so by signing up at patreon.com slash doganon pod. And that supports this show, Dugan, but also the back from hiatus book cheat where Dave consumes a book and then he spit like a bird. He regurgitates it into your mouth in bite-sized chunks so you don't have to chew for yourself. That's right, two brand new episodes out for the new season already. A Good Man is hard to find by Flannery O'Connor, a spooky gothic tale.

And more recently, I just covered in Brisbane, goodbye Mr. Chips. Oh, man. And I was meant to be there. But I don't know if people can hear in my voice. I'm just recovering from a bit of a sickness. And I missed it. I didn't get up to Brisbane, which means that Dave also hosted my show, which is on this network, Who knew it with Matt Stewart?

Yeah, what's it going to be with Dave Warner Key? I love that so much. And yeah, we've just got to our one year anniversary, I think, for Who Knew it. And so we're 50-odd episodes deep. Recently had guests, including Tommy and Carl from the Little Dum Dumm Club, Meso has been on it a bunch from the weekly planet. Jess and Dave have been on it the most. I think Dave maybe is the records holder for at least games played, if not games one.

That's probably both. Definitely. I don't think I'll be up there for games one, but I've been on the ground more than times than any other. But you've given yourself the nickname of the carryover champ. So that does sort of feel like you're a winner even if you're not. But anyway, if you support us there, you're supporting all these shows. And you get bonuses like.

bonus episodes. We do three extra episodes every month. We're about to record one now. So if you sign up, you might hear the most unhinged bonus episode we've ever done. It's just me and Dave, one-on-one. Mano-imano. And we've already been talking, this episode will be edited down, but I'm looking at the clock. We've been recording for over five and a half hours. And we're going to roll straight into a bonus. And I've got a tail. It's a wild tale, too. I'll tell you that. Even without delirium, it'll be wild. I'm really excited to hear it. So yeah, good bonuses like that.

We also get shoutouts. You get early info about tours. Like, for instance, our patrons heard that we were so close to locking in an American tour this year. But they were also the first to hear that that didn't quite happen. Is that right, Dave? That's right. They heard it before anyone else. We almost got a visa in time.

But then we got knocked back and asked for a few more documents. But that meant we didn't have time to continue on with the application. So we're going to have to post-pacement. to next year, but now we think we know what they want. Yes. So if you want to be the first to hear good and bad news, sign up at patreon.com slash sigawn pod. We also do shoutouts, but we always start with a section called the fact quote or question

section, which has a little jingle, I think, goes something like this. Fact quote or question. Ding, ding, ding, me, me, me, me, me, bing. He always remembers the ding. And the way to get involved in this one is to sign up at the Sydney-Shineberg level or above. And then you get to give us a fact or a quote or question or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever you like. And you also get to give us or give yourself a title and I read four of

these out each week. First up this week, we've got one from Chris Torres. And I should say, I don't read them out until I read them out. No, this is fresh news for you and me. So these, these great supporters could put any words in my mouth. Oh my gosh. And I'd, and I'll refuse to edit them out, whatever they say. That's not quite true. But Chris, so far no one's ever made me say anything too offensive? Except for tongue twisters. Oh, yeah. Offensive tongue twisters.

The first one comes from Chris Torres, who's given themselves the title of official North Carolina living in Ohio with family and Gary, Indiana of the podcast. Oh my gosh, the trip ditch of amazing places. Geez, all along the golden mile. Have you told me that someone in your family also lives in Vermont? You've got access to Creamy Country? I'd be so happy to hear it.

I don't know if we've officially, until right now, added North Carolina to the Golden Mile. It was a relatively straightish line, but I think we've put a bit of a hook turn on it, and now it's going south down to North Carolina, so that is awesome. Chris, you are all over that golden mile, and Chris is offering us a fact writing,

Hey, gang, you may recall that I was on a quest to update your go-to fact about North Carolina. Since it seems like I've been successful, Venus flytraps are native to North Carolina, that's one I bring up quite a bit. enough. That one of them, maybe the blue fire engines. And also the mini golf course. Yeah.

Which was, had a punny name that I, it's called like, Have a Go. I can't remember what it was. She says, I thought I might pause my quest to follow up on David Loring's fantastic flamingo fact, triple F, from the Barbie episode, writing, as it happens, I'm a bird evolutionary biologist and paleontologist, and one of my specialities is flamingos. Oh my God. So good. David is exactly right.

They often live in places that are so extreme that only flamingos and what they eat can survive. Matt, you were partially right when you said they get their pink color from what they ate, but it's not from the fungi, it's from the blue-green algae. Damn it. So close. God, I have someone got fired by that blunder. Which are neither fungi nor algae, but bacteria. cyanobacteria directly, or by eating things that eat cyanobacteri, bacteria like little crustaceans, which brings me to my main fact, which I think is either grim

or fun. Matt and Jess, please judge accordingly. Well, Jess isn't here. She's resting on her laurels, so I'll be the judge of this fact. Dave, do you want to step up for fun fact judgment? Oh, really? You see I'm for boring facts, aren't I? Yeah, I think you could step up. If I say it's not boring, it's probably the opposite. Right, if you say it's not boring and I say it's not grim, it's probably fun. It's one of the three. As AJ pointed out on the Barbie episode, baby flamingos aren't pink. That's because their mouths are shaped totally different from adult flamingos, and so they can't feed themselves.

So they rely on their parents for food. Parent flamingos secrete what's called a crop milk, a nutrient-rich fluid that they transfer to their babies beak to beak. That much like you do with book-cheek. From book-chook beak to book-chook-beak. That's right. Baby chick. Book-chook to book-chick.

Anyway. So that crop milk is bright red. So sometimes it looks like parents are coughing up blood into the faces of their babies. There's not actually any blood in it though. Well, that's borderline grim. Yeah. As the babies grow up, their beaks change shape. Then they can start feeding themselves and they turn pink.

Sorry for the long fact, but I got very excited. What are you thinking, Dave? That's not boring. I don't think it's grim. I think it's fun. It must be fun. Uh, while I wait to see if the Venus flytrap thing sticks around, I've decided my next quest will be to find a North Carolina fact that Jess thinks is fun. She wasn't too impressed by my Venus flytrap or mini-golf facts, so I want to find one that will win her over.

Books forever. Thank you. And books forever to you too. Book, book. Um, let me see if I can find this mini-golf thing. I know we, um, hang on, here we go. What was it called? Have a go.

This'll do. This'll do. That's it. Love it. Thistle do. So it was it, as opposed to my example, it was an actual pun. Yeah. Have a go.

Have a go. And the next one comes from Lee Wright, aka Mr. Webb, Wally Webb, C. Crowell, and Dead Man 3. Okay. What a combo. And we got a quote here from Lee. Writing, I've got a bit of a quote and a suggestion for you.

Here's the quote. I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young, and particularly the days when you were first in love, when you were like a person's sleepwalking, and you didn't quite see the street you were in, and didn't quite hear everything that was said to you. You're just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?

Does that ring any bells to you, Dave? No. This... It's quite a nice thought, though. Go back to your memory. This quote... is from Our Town by Thornton Wilder, and that's the second part of my answer. Read, or better yet watch, Our Town.

Dave may have come across it in his days of theatre. It's truly a classic. The first play I ever did, and the last one I did in high school. It was also the first player ever set designed, and now I'm a technical director by trade, so pretty influential in my life, and the inspiration for my newest tattoo, a wooden folding ladder and the moon.

Cool. The play and some great scenes and quotes are also featured in the movie Wonder with Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson. Thank you so much for that. Lee, right. You're writing that down, Dave? Yeah, yeah. First you saw it was Our Town. Our town. Our town. I'm looking up Thornton, a while. I've nearly done for my Christmas episode before. He's got a play called The Long Christmas Dinner. Oh, my favorite kind of Christmas dinner. Definitely come up before when you look up stories about Christmas or Christmas stories. So maybe I'll be doing some of the third. Thornton Wilder. Do you think that? Is that a Christmas dinner with Long David and his friends? Yeah, Long David. Remember when that, remember we talked about that about three weeks ago? Long David, long Christmas.

The next one comes from Andrea Genualdi. And thank you so much for writing that out phonetically. And Andrea is known as Doctor of Podcasts. Congratulations. Yes, you did. You finish what Dave never could. I couldn't even start. For context a year ago, just before we started the podcast, I did apply to do a PhD after I did my

master's in media. And the subject was going to be podcasting in Australia. And instead of doing that, I just started a podcast in Australia. Hey, you learnt on the job. That's right. All right. And we've got a fact here. Andrea writes, hi, gang. This is my first fact quota question. And I thought I would combine a fact with a question that's close to home for you all. The fact is, episode 14 on do go on was the episode where Jess took up the mantle of arbiter of fun facts. Goes that far back. And the question is, what was the topic of that episode?

Oh, question number 14. Oh, 14. Mary Poppins, maybe. All right. Andrew has written a clue here. It was a Matt episode. Okay. Back to the future?

No. It was very Jess related. Jess got involved with this. The triple J hottest 100. That's right. Good one. That's interesting we got to that so quick. Yeah, that was in the first 14.

Hmm. Geez, yeah, that must be due for an update. Andrea says, thanks for making this show. It brings me so much joy. Oh my God, Andrea. Reading that brought me so much joy, you bloody legend. And the last one this week comes from Tessa Chilcott, aka elephant and sparkly sloth wrangler when they escape the dugon zoo.

And I guess that happens pretty regularly if we need someone on that full time. So you're doing great work. That's who you want to be. I mean, I'm up for the sloth wrangling. Elephant wrangling a little trickier. Yeah, that feels like you draw the short straw on that one. Yeah. And Tessa writes, so when I was a wee baby Tess, I was obsessed with the cartoon Baba, Baba, I should say.

I love Babbar is what we said, but like we said, but I know I've heard it different ways. I always thought it was Babbar. Babar, Barbar, Barbar. I definitely said Barbar, but I don't know that's true. There you go. I loved Babbar as I called it as a kid, the cartoon. And I feel, surely, did you learn it from reading a book? Yeah, probably.

Well, that's maybe why, because I reckon I learned it from the cartoon. So it would be funny if I got the pronunciation wrong. Definitely watch the cartoon with Cornelius, the old. That's right, the rhinoceros. No, the old elephant was Cornelius. He was like the grandfather. I don't remember much plot-wise, except that I liked it. Mm.

Um, so, yeah, Tess was obsessed with Babar and Winnie the Pooh. When you were little, what was the one show or cartoon that you were absolutely obsessed with? I mean, at different times, there's different cartoons. It does depend about the era. I remember loving the Ninja Turtles at a time. Captain Planet. Captain Planet was definitely one that came to mind for me. Widget, the World Watcher.

I love, is it definitely cartoon? Uh, yes, cartoon. Okay, because Power Rangers also. Also came to mind. But yeah, definitely. And then later in middle primary school, it was Pokemon. And then Dragon Ball Z was huge. All the Dragon Balls.

Got to catch all the Dragon Balls. You got to reunite them. I'm trying to think other cartoons. Really young, I remember loving the Lost Cities of Gold or something. It's the vagus memory. I think I watched it when I was three or something. I loved Harvey Birdman attorney at law, but that was probably when I was a teenager. Oh, yeah.

I loved, of the Hannah-like barbarous, I loved Top Cat. Oh, okay. I remember loving the Flintstone's Christmas specials when they were play TV went all Christmas in December. I loved watching some of those old cartoons. I like cartoons. I'm going to think of a bunch later. What else? Oh, I love the show called Swat Cats.

Oh. It's a more obscure one. Astro Boy. Loved Astro Boy at a time. Biker Mice from Mars. The samurai pizza cats These are all the knockoff The ninja turtle

Yeah for sure Yeah So many good ones I liked Or duck tails I loved A bit of Dexter's laboratory Which we covered an episode on your primates That's right

That was great Darkwing duck Oh that was good I enjoyed that a lot Do you remember Count Ducula Yes I had a toy of that Like of that one. Toy of that from a happy meal.

Remember. That's a good get. Hey Arthur or just Arthur. Oh yeah. Hey, I know. Hey Arnold. That's our foot two together. You're absolutely right.

Yes, I like both of those. Are real monsters? Loved that. Man, we watch a lot of cartoons. Street sharks. That's come up here. That's another big turtles knockoff. Yeah, that one had really good toys.

That was just for selling toys. Transformers. Oh, yeah. X-Men. I don't think I have a. I don't remember ever seeing X-Men. Oh, my absolute favorite cartoon Network cartoon, Angry Beavers.

Did you ever watch that? No. I absolutely loved it. That sounds like fun. Daggett and Norbert, the Angry Beavers. What about bangers and mash? I don't know that, but... Bangers and mash.

The chimps are in there and up. I did a primance about that as well once, a couple of chimps. But it was a short show that was like for little kids. Oh, what about Super Ted? Did you ever watch that? Yes. When he takes his special pill, he becomes super ted. Same as Banana Man.

So I love Banana Man. And also, way back in those days, there was Roger Ramjet. Oh, yes. Roger Ramjet and he'd men get all the cooks there after. My dad laughed at that. When he's a kid, so when that was repeated, he'd be like, we got to watch this. Well, that's the funny thing about cartoons. They didn't look as dated as other TV shows.

There's other kid shows. So, like, old kid shows could look sort of creepy somehow. I think there's something about old kids shows date really badly. But cartoons don't. No. Oh, two more I loved. Inspector Gadget. Oh, I loved Inspector Gadget.

Penny. Oh, Penny. Brain. What was the dog's name? That was brain. Pinky and the brain? Pinky and the brain. Picking and the brain, I actually liked that too.

Oh, I said two more and then I've lost the last one. Ren and Stimpy was that one of yours? I didn't get that much into Rand. I don't know. I think my mom proved of it. I feel like that was maybe on MTV. So it was Beavis and Butthead, which never really was so much. Oh, yeah. Scooby-Doo, huge into that.

What was going on. How'd a Scooby-Doo. Hat. Trying to think of other shows that were on Saturday Disney with, hosted by a champagne, James Sherry, who went on to be the Marvel Stadium MC at times. Good on him. He hosted Amazing as well. Oh, yeah, that was fun.

Which wasn't cartoon still. Oh, that was what? The Where's Wally adaptation? Oh yeah, I had that at home, the first edition. That was one of us again. Where, where, where, where, where we're, huh? And there he is. There he is.

Was the wizard played by Rodney Dangerfield or a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator? Oh, good question. Hey, what's going on? Hey, Wally. That's more walking than Dangerfield anyway. Geez, that was, that question kicked us off a bit there, Tesla. Yeah. Appreciate that very much.

I know if Tesla did test. Yeah, Tessa did answer a question. Babah and Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh was on last on Saturday Disney. Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh Bear. And I always found that to be the downer of it. I liked. I might have been because I was associating it with the show coming to an end

because it was the last one they played. And you'd be like, oh no, it's finishing. Oh, what about that one I've talked about in previous episodes where Blue Bear from the Jungle Book became a pilot in a difference. The tailspin. And then we couldn't believe that that was real. And then it was. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I liked a lot of shows as it turns out. And I reckon I haven't thought about a lot of them in a lot of time. Great question. Thanks, Tessa. Thanks. Andrea. Thanks, Lee. Thanks, Chris. Next thing day we like to do is shout out a few of our other fantastic supporters. And normally Jess comes up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand. Do you have any ideas for this? I've got to say, some incredible nicknames came up on this episode with Spud. Buckets. Buckets. Nicky Elvis Hollywood Trevor which I think I put that on there

but he had his Hollywood good looks Yeah his nickname was Barks but I think Hollywood Trevor is way better But yeah there was some incredible nicknames I thought that maybe I don't know do you Banger Robert Banger Harvey

Do we come up with their nickname Or do you assign them a nickname From a Saints player Yeah The Duna for James Gwilt Because it sounds like And the Ute for Jason Blake

who, we called him the Ute because he was a utility, you could do anything. Yep. I love Blake. He's one of my favorites. He's on the board now at St. Kilda. He really can do it all. You can play any position on the ground and in the back office as well. All right, yeah, so what do you want to do?

You want to read out the names and I'll find a list of saints. Oh, wow Jones, another great. Oh, don't use them up. We've got to use some of these. All right. I've got the names here. if you want to assign them a nickname each. First one, thank you so much to Patreon supporter from Everett in Washington in the United States.

It's Dean Reichdel. Dean Reichdel. Or Rakedale could be. Dean Rakedale, Dean Rakedale. We're doing nine names, aren't we? Yeah. I've found an article, it's a listicle, and it's counting down the top 20 nicknames of Saints players. Oh, great.

So I'll just, maybe I'll just pick out my phone. Should I just do the top nine? I'll just do the top nine. Okay. I'd take it out of my hands. Starting it. Number nine, Dean Rakedale, aka. Doggy.

Doggy Dean. Doggy Dean. That sounds good. And that was Ian Rollins' nickname. He played from 60 to 66. It was a leading goal kicker in 61. Good. Good on your doggy Dean, Rekdale.

Next up, I'd like to thank from Albany in New York State. It's Alexa Riley. Alexa the Tank Riley. Awesome. The tank was Eric Arthur Guy's nickname, a tough and fearless halfback flanker. He served as vice captain for three of his six seasons, as well as representing Victoria at Interstate Footy.

Good on you. Alexa, the Tank Riley. Now, from Cran... Great name. From Cranbourne West in Victoria, it's Megan Graham. Megan Tractor Graham. Tractor was the nickname of John C. Dernan. It was a defender from...

Naranderer. So far, we're three, I'm zero from three of having heard of these players. That's amazing. But they're, they're obviously all some of the greats. Nickname wise and people wise. I'm going to go that far. Tractor. Tractor is awesome. So that's for Megan Graham. Though if she was from America, she'd be Megan Graham. Mm-hmm. You know what I realized when I was in America last month? What was that? Went to a supermarket and I've heard of Graham crackers. Yes. That isn't G-R-A-M-R-R-A-M-crackers. That's a Graham Cracker.

Whoa. What the hell is that? How about that? Oh, there was a bit of a discussion in the Patreon Facebook group a few weeks ago when we were talking about on the, Brenning, phrasing the bar episode recently about porn shop chronicles. That's right. We covered porn shop chronicles last month. And a lot of Americans were talking about how they, when we say porn shop, it sounds like

porn shop. And I'm like, yeah, I think they are. Like pornography. Yeah, porn and porn, but they must say them differently. They must hit the W more. Yeah, that also surprised me as well. Because I always thought they were said the same. I thought that often a joke would be a porn shop.

What do you mean? Pornography job. Yeah, that's right. Apparently they hit the R or don't hit the R. I don't. Yeah. There you go. Which is interesting.

It's also, it's funny because in the explanation, someone said, we say porn like it rhymes with dawn, not porn like it rhymes with torn. And I'm like, oh, they all rhyme in my head. mine exploding So who did you give us then That was Megan But next up This one is from America

From Tacoma Washington Big shout out And thank you to Drew Goodman Okay the doc And this is the greatest ever saying Darrell Baldock Okay which I've never heard the nickname before But Nick was saying

Also known as the magic one Was it? Oh yeah Something like that The Doc Daryl the Doc Bulldog But who's nickname is the doc now? Drew Goodman.

Drew the Doc Goodman. That sounds good. And also the dock works with where they're from. Tacoma. Tacoma. In Washington. Tock, the doc from Tock. Omer.

Omer. On your, Drew, I'd like to think now from a location unknown, we can only presume they're deep within the fortress of the moles as we speak, listen to this podcast. And it is a shout out to Wesley. Wesley, okay, muncher. Wesley Muncher Muncher was Brian Maloney a serviceable Ruckman originally recruited from St. Pats in Ballarat

he was a hardworking toilet Wow have you heard of him No I haven't heard of Muncher Doesn't say what era he played in Wesley Muncher Muncher's a great nickname though But remembering where these are ranked In ascending order

Do you feel like the The quality's been increasing with each one But only slightly Because we started so high Yeah that's right because the next one is probably so good. Okay, well, this one is going to go to another person in a location unknown. It's Philippa Lions.

Philippa Lions, aka Philippa Jazz Legs Lions. Oh yeah, that's great. Jazz Legs. Jazz Legs was one of the finest San Guilt of footballers of the interwar years. Cyril Gambetta, ached out of NFL career for himself despite suffering from badly bowed legs, which were a legacy of an attack of Polish. as a youngster.

Oh, wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. Still made a career. Yeah, and one of the finest to do it in that period. Even the name Cyril Gambetta's good, but Cyril Jazz Legs Gambetta is, we're getting into all-time greats territory. Incredible.

Thank you, Philippa, Jazz Legs, Lions. Now, from Dublin, I would like to thank Etain Hobson. Etain Hobson, Coconut, which is the nickname of Brownlow Medalist. Neil Roberts. Okay. I didn't realize that. Who excelled at 10-half back. I think was he the one that Nick was saying was switched from half-for-to-half-back.

And then won the Brownlow medal in 58, Captain the Side from 59 to 62. Yeah, he's one of the all-time grades of the Saints. I think he's in the team of the century. Coconut Hobbson. That's so good. Coconut, what a great fruit. Oh, yeah. Talking about kids shows, I remember it was maybe it was either on Sesame Street or play

school, you know, when they'd cut away to a video. And there was this sort of short documentary without any narration of just this guy on an island, climbing up a tree, cutting down the coconuts, and then chopping them open and drinking from them. I'm like, that just looks like, what a life. That's paradise. Yeah, really did. I wonder, that's going to ring a bell for someone out there. Yeah, let us know. And from Robinsdale, M.N. Is this Minnesota? This gets me every single time. Maine. There's so many... It is Minnesota. Minnesota. Robinsondale, Minnesota. Shout out to Bradley Borsed. Oh, Bradley Bors, aka the Golden Greek.

Okay. Bradley Bors, the Golden Greek. The original Golden Greek was Con A. Gorazidis, who had tremendous skills and flair playing in the 80s. Oh, great one. I was the biggest thing in the footie film in the 80s. The Golden Greek. And finally, I would like to thank from Stourbridge. in Great Britain. It's a big shout out to one name here only needed. Joe. Oh, Joe. Okay, Cowboy, Cowboy Joe. Cowboy Joe. That's great. And Cowboy was another one of the 66 heroes. That was Kevin Cowboy Neal, a burly, tough character from South Warnibald, who was one of the most popular players of all time at St. Kilda. His bow legs and distinctive gait and his high-flying led to the nickname Cowboy. So two of the great

nicknames had bowed legs. Yeah. I think he was also the one who, after winning the premiership, he put his premiership jumper on the statue of, there was a statue in Marabin of this guy, Tom Bent, I think. And he was, I think he maybe even was a dodgy guy. But he was who Bentley is named after the next suburb to Marabin. And he put his, his premiership jumper on, I think that was right, on the Tom Bent statue in the,

Long celebrations after the game. Another iconic moment. There's so many more. I think we're going to do another five-hour episode. Follow up coming up next year. Coming up soon. For the 151st anniversary. So thank you so much to Cowboy, Golden Greek Coconut,

jazz legs, muncher, the dock, tractor, the tank and doggy. You know who you are. OK, Joe Bradley, Attain, Philippa, Wessley, Drew, Megan, Alexa and Dean. And that leaves us only with one last thing to do, and let's welcome a few people into the Trip Ditch Club, appropriately this week. Just three into the Triptitch Club.

Dave, do you want to quickly explain how the Trip Ditch Club work? This is our Hall of Fame for people that have been supporting the club, or supporting the show. Where they do go on football club. Well, it's a grand old pod. It's a high-flying pod. We are basically to shout out to people that have already been shouted out to. Basically, these people have already had their shout-out.

But to say, thank you again. If they've been on the shout-out level or above for three consecutive years, Matt checks the records and he welcomes them in each week a new crop comes in and once you're in you can't leave but why would you want to? Because it's inside it's a restaurant it's a hangout zone. It's a live music venue. It's a chill bar. Jess has got food and drink. I've got music. You know, it's all happening. That's right. I'll play Jess this week behind the bar

to celebrate the Saints of course. All drinks come served in a replica 1996 premiership cup. Wow. And the drinks are all a red liquid, maybe cranberry juice mixed with a white liquid, which I can't think of right now, maybe cream. Milk? Milk. I can't think of a white liquid. Milk, cranberry juice, oh no.

Oh, this sounds weird. And, uh, Samboca. Oh, really stuck the landing there. Oh, beautiful stuff. It curdles in the cup, so we'll save it curdling in your tummy. Yeah. You tummy. We curdle it so you don't have to.

And yeah, the snacks are, you know, just classic footy francs, party pies, whatnot. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And Dave, you normally book a band. You are never going to believe this. If you tell me you got the fable singers. Oh, my God. You couldn't have possibly got the fable singers. I've been booking this band trying to book this band for so long.

Obviously, you've been trying to do this report for so long. So I can't believe on the same night we've just done the St. Coole of Football Club tonight, hitting the stage, legendary Australian rock and roll band, The Saints are here. Oh, my God. Can you believe it? You certainly know your product. Can't believe it. And I don't feel stranded in the Triptage Club at all. That is so good.

I'm burning just like firewood. And so hang around for the after party. Enjoy the Saints here. Yeah, the fable singers are probably dead. Although that doesn't stop you before. No, absolutely. It never stops me. So three great and proud members of the Triptage Club,

I can only assume a staunch San Quilda supporters as well. I'm going to welcome him in. I'm standing on the door. I'm the bouncer. I'm lifting up the velvet rope. You run in if you hear your name. Dave's on the stage. He's hyping you up.

He's going to do a bit of soft word play on your name or your place of origin or where you are. Oh my God. We're running out of steam. I'm not going on. All right. So three names this week. First in, please make them welcome from address unknown.

Can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles. It's Travis. Travis, I'm travitating towards you. You've got this pull. Dave, you've lifted this week. You're magnetic. You're playing on the... It's the big dance and you're doing some of your finest work.

Also, please welcome in from Glasgow in Scotland. It's Amy Moretti. Some people said they needed Lizetti, but I said, no, Moretti. Amy Moretti. He's on fire. And finally, from a popka in Florida in the United States. It's Adam Needacore. Ah, damn.

Son, thank God you're here. Come on here, Adam. Welcome in Adam. We did it. We did it, everyone. Make yourselves at home. Get ready to see the Saints. One of the all-time great.

And one of the first ever punk bands to release a single. So that really doesn't leave us with anything to do. Anything we need to tell people before we go, Dave. Hey, we'll be back next week with another episode coming up so, so soon. We're heading towards Blockbuster Tober. Oh, I can't believe. So who knows, maybe coming up soon, all the episodes will be this long. Because, you know, we've got the biggest and best.

topics coming up for October. This record may never be beaten. I think we say that every time we break it. Yeah, that's true. Who knows. But yeah, thanks for supporting the show. You can check out all our links to everything at do go on pod.com, including where you can suggest a topic, buy some merch, support us on Patreon, check out all our other podcasts, and hit us up on email and the like. But until next week, also thank you so much for listening. And until then, it is thank you. And goodbye. Later's. Carter Sinas. Don't forget to sign up to our two.

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