THE ANCIENT rivalry waged by North Melbourne and Essendon threatens to flare again on Saturday as they fight for a spot in the top eight.
In a similarly crucial encounter many winters ago, the late Kangaroos star John Waddington was a central figure in a controversial episode that further fuelled hostilities between the two clubs.
Waddington, who died recently aged 81, inadvertently triggered the second of only three player headcounts in League history.
And it was a debacle, but it also made for great theatre.
North Melbourne and Essendon players line up for a headcount. Picture: As depicted by The Age
In the second-last round of 1958, the fourth-placed Bombers hosted the fifth-placed Kangaroos at Windy Hill in a virtual battle for the final berth in the top four.
Late in the last quarter the Roos seemed set for a rare finals appearance when they led by 28 points – 11.14 (80) to 7.10 (52) – but those hopes were sensationally put on hold.
The catalyst for all the commotion was North big man Bryan 'Skinny' Martyn's heavy landing in the centre. Martyn, the father of club great Mick Martyn, was still receiving treatment in the middle of the ground when Waddington, a 20-year-old first-year player from Bendigo, left the bench and raced onto the field.
This aroused the attention of Bombers officials, who believed North now had an extra player on the field. This conviction was strengthened when they overheard a boundary umpire say: "North has 19 men on the ground."
John Waddington played 132 games for North Melbourne between 1958 and 1966. Picture: nmfc.com.au
The Dons officials, suddenly sensing an opportunity to win via a Kangas clanger, immediately sent their runner Frank Clark to ask the sole field umpire, Bill Barbour, for a headcount.
The experienced Barbour dismissed the Essendon runner, telling him any such request had to be made by Essendon's captain, Jack Clarke. So runner Clark rushed over to captain Clarke and alerted him to the situation, after which the Dons leader approached umpire Barbour to officially request a player count.
As procedure dictated, Barbour stopped the game and informed North's captain John Brady that Essendon had demanded a count, before ordering the Kangaroos players to line up.
"We couldn't believe it," North star and future League chief Allen Aylett recalled in his 1986 autobiography My Game: A Life In Football.
North Melbourne and Essendon clashes are always spicy. Picture AFL Photos
If the Shinboners were found to have had more than 18 players on the field, they would have had their entire score erased and suddenly they would have been 52 points behind and with no chance of victory or a finals berth.
After what Aylett described as "a strange five-minute-plus delay", Barbour cleared the visitors of any wrongdoing, the decision being greeted with a mix of cheers and jeers from the stunned crowd of 27,500.
The Bombers' bewilderment turned to embarrassment when they learned Waddington had legally replaced North's injured vice-captain Albert Mantello, who'd already walked off the field a considerable distance from the Essendon bench.
So rather than having 19 players on the ground, as the Bombers alleged, North momentarily had only 16 able-bodied players before Waddington dashed on.
Essendon officials were reportedly "disturbed" by the affair, and its coach, the legendary Dick Reynolds, was adamant he hadn't played any part in the blunder.
Essendon's epic comeback in 2001 is among the greatest games ever played. Picture: AFL Photos
Meanwhile, the Kangaroos hierarchy insisted they'd been more amused than concerned when the home side demanded the count.
It seemed an honest mistake by the Bombers but many North supporters took it as an affront to the integrity of their club.
"North supporters wouldn't let their Essendon counterparts forget that incident for years after!" Aylett wrote.
And in the meantime, the Roos made the finals while the red-faced Dons missed out by a game.
Drew Petrie was the hero when the two sides last met in a final in 2014. PIcture: AFL Photos
The two other captains' calls for headcounts were also unsuccessful. As were their teams in the games in question.
St Kilda great Wels Eicke was the first to do it in a 1924 game between the two bottom teams at Carlton. When the umpire told Eicke the Blues had 18 men, he replied: "You didn't count yourself!"
Most recently, West Coast captain Guy McKenna demanded a headcount in the final round of 1999 when the finals-bound Eagles trailed 10th-placed St Kilda 85-36 in the third term at the WACA.
Then there was the contentious drawn game between North Melbourne and Sydney at Docklands in 2008 when the Swans had an illegal 19th player for up to 40 seconds in the dying stages, during which the player who was meant to have left the field, ruckman Darren Jolly, started the chain of possession that resulted in the match-equalling behind.
It prompted a new rule empowering stewards to alert umpires to infringements, and led to a short-lived system involving Post-It notes before sanity prevailed and interchange movement was tracked electronically.
Swans and Roos look on after playing out a draw in 2008. Picture: AFL Photos
