OVER my journey in many years of football, it’s obvious to me that history does repeat itself at football clubs.

In all the successful clubs I’ve been involved with, there has been one thing in common: strong leadership in the boards, administration, coaching and playing.

I was very fortunate to be involved in seven premierships from nine seasons in my junior days. From under nines through to my second year in under 13s, we lost one game and won a flag each year. We had a fantastic committee and coach that were totally focused on developing us as footballers.

The club provided good equipment and facilities, a fantastic coach and really embraced and involved our parents.

From BBQs, picture nights, great presentation nights and camps at the end of the season - it was a great family-based club.

Kids were developed by playing in different positions and we also mixed players through the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sides.

Interestingly enough, when our president and committee changed -during our first year of under 15s - the focus went from developing players to winning games. A lot of the fundamentals that made us successful unraveled.

This created disharmony among the club and ultimately we weren’t as successful.

From juniors, I went straight to Carlton and played in the under 19s as a 17-year-old.

I started in the under 19s in 1981 and finished at Carlton in 1988. During this period, the seniors won back-to-back flags in 1981-82 and the 1987 premiership. The reserves also played in four successive grand finals from 1984-87, winning two.

The success was predominantly because of the leadership at all levels. The Blues had ruthless presidents and boards, very high expectations internally and externally, and very high playing and training standards. These standards and expectations drove the players to become high achievers.

The leadership from a playing point-of-view was outstanding with Mike Fitzpatrick, Wayne Johnston, Mark Maclure and Stephen Kernahan all captains during my time at the club. They all demanded excellence.

I went to Footscray (now Western Bulldogs) in 1989 and stayed until the end of 1990. That was during the period when Mick Malthouse left to coach West Coast (at the end of the 1989 season) and the merger with Fitzroy was proposed at the end of the ’89 season.

The unrest was obvious when I got there - leadership and stability were lacking. There wasn’t that great guidance from the top. We had little chance of success as we were in survival mode.

From the AFL, I went to Sandringham in the VFA, playing in its 1992 premiership.
To this day, the same people are running that club. It’s no coincident they’ve been successful for a long period of time - they provide stability and great leadership.

I then went and coached my own team at St Pauls East Bentleigh. We had a great president and a hard-working board. But we just lacked a key ingredient I have yet to mention at this stage: talent.

From there, I went to the Northern Bullants and coached from 1998-2003.  Again at a club in survival mode, we had little chance of success.

I went back to Sandringham, which had a great alignment with Melbourne. We got some really talented players through the door and had a great board. Chad Liddell was a fantastic captain and we had a really solid group of Sandringham players, while the likes of Guy Rigoni, Peter Walsh, Daniel Ward and Chris Lamb provided great leadership through the Melbourne connection.

We had high expectations, a solid plan, great leadership in all areas and got results, winning three premierships in a row from 2004-06.

If I move forward to the period we’re in now, history is repeating again.
The board we’ve got at Melbourne is outstanding, with Jim Stynes at the helm, the unity is obvious.

Cam Schwab as CEO is a fantastic leader and has got a great plan. He has everyone at the club heading in the same direction.

Bails is very even in everything he does. The coaches and players are very clear on his plans and direction. Our talent is blossoming off the field in our administration and on the field through our players. We have some remarkable people within our club.

You can see we are heading in the right direction. All we need to do now is have some luck with injuries and keep our players together and I believe we will head into a very successful period for our club.

To me it’s history repeating.