Fev: In My Own Words

by Brendan Fevola

  I experienced such a buzz as I stood in the goal square waiting for the siren to kick off the match. As I looked across the MCG, I could see superstars in every position. The match itself didn’t feature a lot of tackling, but that was perfect for us forwards. With Juddy and Bartel giving me brilliant delivery, as did North Melbourne star Brent Harvey and Hawthorn skipper Sam Mitchell, I kicked six goals to help Victoria to a 17-point victory. I was also awarded the Allen Aylett Medal for being the best player on the ground. Juddy could only shake his head and laugh at that. ‘You’re a bloody freak,’ he said to me. Everyone swapped jumpers after the game. I ran straight to Richmond star Matthew Richardson, who is one of the best blokes I have ever met. Richo’s jumper remains among my most prized possessions. We wore two guernseys during the game, so I’ve still got a Victorian one as well. Given that I never got to play in an AFL Grand Final, playing in that State of Origin game was easily one of the best experiences of my entire footy career. All the boys went out after the game and had a huge party. It was like we’d won the Grand Final. Browny and I stood on a bar at one stage singing the Victorian song. It was magic.

  I was a bit quiet in the month after the Hall of Fame match, a period during which Carlton would win one week and lose the next, but I struck another purple patch in rounds 12 and 13. We played Collingwood in the first of those games and we went into the clash in pretty good form, as we had beaten Port Adelaide the week before. That victory over the Power gave us our fifth win for the season. Against the odds, we were now within striking distance of the top eight. Ratts was very intense prior to our meeting with the Magpies. We eventually learned that he was always uptight before big games. I think he felt a lot of pressure to succeed, so much so that he sometimes struggled to communicate well with the players in those early days. Ratts knew that winning would stop the talk that a big-name coach, someone like Paul Roos, was going to be given his job. Which is why he was ecstatic when I booted seven goals and we defeated Collingwood for the second time that season. In round 12, I did my best to hand Ratts another victory, but although I continued my extraordinary run of form in matches against Essendon by bagging eight goals, we lost a high-scoring shootout by 35 points.

  By round 17, when we played the Western Bulldogs at Telstra Dome, I had my tail up to such an extent that I constantly ribbed the blokes sent to the back line to try and stop me. I always loved trash-talking on the field. Even in my junior days, I had often turned to my opponent and said things like, ‘You’re not going to believe what you see today.’ Prior to the opening bounce in the Bulldogs game, I was standing in the goal square when one of their trainers came up and gave my opponent, Brian Lake, a drink of water. I turned to the trainer and said, ‘I hope you’ve got some kryptonite in there, mate, because Superman is going to put on a show today!’ A bit later, when Lake started bumping me, I added, ‘Get ready for the Fev show, mate. You’ve got the best seat in the house!’ Brian had every right to return fire when I had just one goal on the board by half-time. But I fired up in the second half and had the last laugh. I finished with 6.5 and twelve marks, and we won by 28 points. I didn’t tell any of the boys about what I had said to Lake, but his big-mouthed teammate, Jason Akermanis, told the world about it on The Footy Show, which was a little embarrassing.

  My good form basically forced the club to hand me a new contract. My new manager, Mark Kleiman from Velocity Sports (I had parted ways with Paul Connors at the start of the season), had been in negotiations with Carlton for much of the season, but there had been a number of sticking points. One was the club’s insistence, in light of the Candy Bar incident, that a behaviour-related clause be inserted into the contract. Mark, however, demanded that it be taken out. Another was my desire for a four-year deal. I was now twenty-seven years old and I wanted the new contract to keep me at Carlton for life. However, the club only wanted to offer me a three-year deal. The back-and-forth over the length of the contract had led Carlton to declare in mid-July that no deal would be done until the end of the season. Ratts even gave me a clip at one of his press conferences, saying that I was asking for too much. A bit of an uproar followed and I decided to ring a Melbourne radio station and assure Blues fans that I desperately wanted to stay at the club. ‘To be a one-club player means everything to me,’ I said. ‘You look at the NRL. Players are going everywhere. I’ve always wanted to stay here.’

  The Blues eventually had to abandon their stalling tactics when the Sydney Swans started sniffing around. My manager took a number of calls from the Swans, who were keen to find a replacement for Barry Hall. A few of their blokes even came to my house and offered me a massive contract. But before that progressed too far, the negotiations with Carlton were restarted. Amid all this kerfuffle over the contract, Dick Pratt said to me that if I signed with the Blues, then he would let me take Alex and the kids on a holiday, anywhere in the world, using his private jet. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to take him up on the offer because Carlton’s administrators became worried that the AFL would classify the trip as a gift to me from the club, meaning it would have to be counted in the salary cap. Pushing the limit of the salary cap was not an option for the Blues.

  In the end, I agreed to a three-year term, and Carlton relented on the behaviour clause, probably because I’d kicked so many goals that year. I signed my new contract, which was worth more than $2 million, at the end of July. It was such a relief to get the deal done then and not have to wait until the end of the year. I was rapt that the club had shown so much faith in me. And given the amount of improvement we had already experienced under Ratts’ leadership, I felt certain that the following three years were going to be very successful.

  The absence of the behaviour clause was the first thing the media asked the club about when the new contract was announced. Stephen Kernahan responded by saying, ‘Fev’s told me he’s not going to have any more issues, not that he had that many. He’s confirmed to the footy club that he will be very well behaved over the next three years. I think Fev can do the job for us.’

  The Herald Sun ran a phone poll in the wake of the club’s decision to re-sign me, posing the question, ‘Was Carlton right to sign Brendan Fevola for another three years?’ Sixty-eight per cent of the respondents voted ‘Yes’. In an article accompanying the poll results, Mike Sheahan summed up his feelings about the deal:

  At halftime on Sunday night, Brendan Fevola’s price was in free-fall. More like $700,000 for the next three years rather than $700,000 a year. At full time, with the Blues triumphant against the Western Bulldogs and Fevola a six-goal hero, $7 million for three years didn’t seem out of the question …

  Yesterday, Carlton announced it had re-signed the star forward for 2009–11 for $2.1 million. Not quite as much as he might have wanted, yet a healthy increase on the $1.5 million of his current three-year deal.

  Fevola now will be a one-club player. One with obvious flaws, yet a player of extraordinary talent and charisma, and marketing value. As one of his more recent admirers said last night: ‘He’s going to do more dopey things, but, geez, he can play.’

  We dropped out of finals contention late in the season, but my confidence remained high and I kept kicking goals, which meant that by the final home-and-away round, the AFL had a huge event on its hands. Carlton was playing Hawthorn and there was a chance that two players, myself and Buddy Franklin, would each kick their 100th goal of the season in the same game. Buddy had kicked ninety-eight goals going into the match, which drew a Friday night crowd of almost 50,000 to Telstra Dome. Bagging a century shaped as a tougher gig for me: I needed eight to reach the milestone. Before the game, I said to Alex and the kids that, knowing my luck, I would probably get stranded on ninety-nine goals.

  All the attention was focused on Buddy during the early stages of the match, and he delivered. He booted an early goal, then registered his century with another accurate kick at the 26-minute mark of the first quarter. Buddy’s effort caused a bit of pandemonium as thousands of Haw
thorn supporters ran out on the ground, despite the AFL having warned people not to do so. A few Carlton supporters even ran out, patted me on the back and wished me well. Buddy was actually rushed off the ground for a couple of minutes while all the people were herded back over the fence, and the crowd went nuts again when he came back out. The attention subsequently shifted to me, but by half-time it looked like my dream of kicking a ton was over, along with Carlton’s hopes of finishing the season with a win. I was goalless and we were 39 points down. I’d had four chances to get a major, but they’d all failed—one of the shots hit the post, one went through for a behind, one went out on the full and the other shot just shanked off the side of my boot.

  But although the Hawks ended up winning by 78 points, I enjoyed a remarkable revival in the second half. It began when I bagged four goals in the third quarter, taking my season tally to ninety-six. My teammates then did everything they could in the final quarter to get me to 100. It was quite farcical at times as our players handballed backwards and kicked sideways in an effort to get the ball into my hands. The boys helped me get to ninety-seven, then a cheap handball over the top got me to ninety-eight. A generous umpire gave me a free kick for being held at the 28-minute mark and another straight kick moved me to ninety-nine. The crowd was going crazy. I was pumped. Security guards ringed the oval, fearing that I would kick another one and there would be another crowd invasion.

  But Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson decided to be a killjoy. He sent just about all of his players into the back line to clog up the space in front of me. Even Jarryd Roughead, who had booted five goals of his own in the last quarter, was sent down there to stand in my way. It was a bloody joke. Sitting up in the stands, Dad was livid. To this day, he says Clarkson’s tactics were the worst thing he’s ever seen in football, at any level. Despite the Hawthorn flood, my teammates kept trying to get the ball into my hands in the last few minutes of the game. But it was hopeless. It felt like I had 500 players in front of me. I could have gotten a free kick for a push in the back with thirty seconds to go, but the umpire rightly waved play on.

  When the siren sounded, I slumped to the turf with disappointment. I couldn’t believe my prediction had come true: I was stranded on ninety-nine. Those four missed shots in the first half crossed my mind straightaway. I realise it might seem very selfish of me to have been so hell-bent on kicking 100 goals, but it would have been great fun to do it. And it would have been great entertainment for the fans. Footy is entertainment, after all.

  I broke my drinking ban for Mad Monday. For the big day, I dressed up in a nightie and strapped a dildo onto my groin. The dildo had been around the club for years and almost everyone had worn it as part of a costume. The players were bussed from pub to pub, accompanied by two undercover cops who had been hired by Carlton to look after us; the club did that sort of thing every year. I’d take the dildo off while getting off the bus, then put it back on once I’d gone inside a pub. At one place, I was having a chat with Bryce Gibbs when one of the cops yelled out, ‘C’mon Fev, c’mon Gibbsy, we’ve got to go.’ Everyone else was already on the bus, so Gibbsy and I got rushed out. It happened so quickly that I didn’t realise I still had the dildo hanging there. It wasn’t even a 50-metre walk from the pub to the bus, but a bloody photographer still managed to snap a photo of me. When I woke up the next morning, there was a TV news cameraman and a reporter standing out the front of my house. The reporter was yelling out, ‘Are you ashamed of what you’ve done?’ I started thinking, ‘Oh my god, what have I done?’ I called a cab to take me into the club for my post-season medical—driving wasn’t an option because I probably still had too much alcohol in my system—and as I climbed into it, the reporter continued yelling at me: ‘Are you ashamed of what you did last night?’ I thought to myself, ‘Shit, I must have done something pretty bad.’

  The TV crew followed me all the way to the club, where that same reporter accosted me again. ‘Are you here to front the coach about wearing the dildo in the middle of the city?’ she said.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said to her. ‘I’m here to get my medical.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ she shot back.

  ‘OK then. Come with me.’

  She followed me upstairs, where I was greeted by one of the club’s doctors. ‘Told you,’ I said to the reporter, who promptly headed back down the stairs and out the door.

  Later, I saw that a photo of me wearing the dildo had been published in the Herald Sun. I couldn’t believe it. The backlash was ridiculous. All of these people were carrying on about someone wearing a dildo in the middle of the city. OK, I could have taken it off, but I was quickly going from a pub to a bus. And no-one would have seen it if they hadn’t taken a photo of it. Seriously. Anyway, all you can do is laugh. None of the senior people at the club ever said anything to me about it.

  Plenty of people patted me on the back a couple of weeks later when my great season was recognised at the All Australian awards night. I was named in the team, although I had to settle for a forward pocket—the selectors had decided to put big Buddy, who’d won the Coleman Medal, at full-forward. A week after that I polled eleven votes in the Brownlow Medal. Juddy took home Carlton’s best-and-fairest, while I came third behind Marc Murphy, but in his acceptance speech he said that he thought I should have won it, which made me extra proud of my efforts that year. I did, however, take home my sixth consecutive Carlton leading goal-kicker award. I had booted seventy-four more goals than the bloke who finished second.

  14 PRESSURE POINT

  Despite all my success in 2008, Carlton’s fitness and conditioning staff decided that I needed to bulk up for a tilt at playing finals in 2009. And so the first part of my pre-season training program involved heaps of time in the gym. I put on 8 kilograms, which made my shoulders and arms look enormous. When I appeared in Alpha magazine, the headline on the front cover read, ‘The new look industrial strength Brendan Fevola’. The extra bulk made me confident that I would be able to outmuscle any defender when the footy season began.

  All that gym work didn’t do much for my aerobic fitness, so I nearly died when we were put through a tortuous training camp at Anglesea on the Great Ocean Road. The camp was run by a company called Stealth Development and their blokes hammered us for four days. But I was in a really positive frame of mind and I tried my guts out in all the drills. For one of the exercises, we were woken up in the middle of the night and marched down to the beach, where the instructors made us run flat out up and down sand dunes while carrying these enormous ropes and punching bags. Another time, we were divided into groups and I was made captain of the red team, which had the youngest average age. I led from the front and we won every challenge. I took a lot from that. I thought I could be a great leader if I put my mind to it and did everything right. The camp finished with some mountain climbing and abseiling in the Grampians.

  I was rewarded for all my efforts when the players voted me back into their leadership group. I told Alpha that the blokes from Stealth Development had pointed out ‘that I have such a presence around the boys that if I say something they will follow. If I whinge, they will whinge. I took that on board and realised that … everything I do from now on I want to be upbeat, and hopefully that will carry through to the younger boys’.

  I received another reward in late January when I was selected to go on a one-week trip to Malaysia as part of our new sponsorship deal with Tourism Malaysia. It was a chance to see some great sights and stay in some amazing accommodation while promoting the club. Most of the Carlton board members, the coaches and the members of the player leadership group went on the trip, and I think two of our best young onballers, Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs, came along too. We flew over there on Dick Pratt’s private jet, which was amazing. There was a waiter who served us Scotch and all sorts of other drinks on the way over. ‘Sticks’ Kernahan loves KFC, so there were buckets of chicken as well. We played cards and made bets using nuts instead of money. When we got sick of that
, we could go down the back of the plane and lie down on a bed. It was awesome fun.

  We returned from Malaysia on Black Saturday, when a severe heatwave sparked bushfires that caused an enormous amount of destruction and over 170 deaths across Victoria. I was very moved by how the fires had impacted so many people’s lives, and I made a large donation to the appeal that raised money for the victims. I also attended a fundraising night in Kinglake, one of the worst-hit towns, and purchased a couple of expensive items in an auction. They were often overshadowed by my off-field slip-ups, but I devoted many hours to supporting charitable causes during my career. One of my favourite memories of working with charities was when I was asked to do a favour for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which does wonderful work. An eleven-year-old girl by the name of Dilara Kaya, who had been confined to a wheelchair by a brain tumour diagnosed when she was six, had told the foundation that I was her favourite player. Well, that young girl grinned from ear to ear when I presented her with a voucher for a fully paid trip to Disneyland. I also visited many sick kids in hospital and tried to bring some fun and happiness into their lives.

  Back on the footy field, I started the 2009 NAB Cup in great form. I booted six goals in our big win over North Melbourne in the first round and kicked a few more when we overcame a 30-point deficit to defeat Hawthorn, the defending AFL premier, in the second. That set up a semi-final clash with Geelong at the newly renamed Etihad Stadium. I was rested from the game against the Cats, who were still smarting from their Grand Final loss to the Hawks in 2008, but I watched from the stands as our boys pushed them all the way before losing by 17 points. Geelong went on to thrash Collingwood in the NAB Cup decider a week later.

  I rejoined the team for a practice match against Fremantle in Bunbury over in Western Australia. However, the hit-out didn’t go according to plan, as I suffered a badly bruised heel in a marking contest and left the ground on crutches. It put me in doubt for our huge clash against Richmond in round 1 of the home-and-away season. I really hoped I’d get up for that game. It was going to be a massive one for Newy, who had been named Richmond captain during the summer.