THOSE one-point wins from final kicks in Ballarat Football League grand finals, bringing Redan and decades later Ballarat from the wilderness to glory, etched John Northey into our sporting folklore.
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The dual Richmond premiership player said he would never forget the way Lion Brian Hepper "let fly" from a free kick in the forward pocket, right on the boundary line. The angle was "so acute that only the slightest margin of daylight could be seen".
That 1975 BFL grand final delivered Redan its first senior premiership in 23 years. It was Northey's first year as coach at the club.
"Just remember, I made you. You'd be nothing without me," Northey recalled as the words from Hepper.
In a way, Northey said Redan and Ballarat football really did help "make him" and launch him into a long, AFL coaching career.
That win was the first of three consecutive BFL senior premierships for the Lions.
It is the funny stories and the people about football clubs, from volunteers to players and officials, that Northey values most.
After years of writing down "bits and pieces" and with the help of his brother Robert, the 81-year-old has released his autobiography Swooper: My Journey. The eponymous title is the nickname that stuck from Collingwood great Lou Richards.
"I've tried to have very few stats - a few photos, but it's more about the people and jogging the memories of people from that period," Northey said.
"...It's the funny things that I think might be more things people might be interested in from my life.
"Being a football coach, I had a pen and paper beside my bed so I could write notes in the middle of the night. Some of the greatest speeches I gave were written that way."
...I had a pen and paper beside my bed so I could write notes in the middle of the night. Some of the greatest speeches I gave were written that way.
- John Northey
Northey, who grew up on a soldier settlement farm in Derrinallum, played 118 VFL/AFL games and two premierships for Richmond.
He coached 315 VFL/AFL games in 14 seasons across Sydney, Melbourne, Richmond and Brisbane and is second only to Rodney Eade for the most games coached in the league without a premiership.
Redan was not Northey's first coaching caper.
He had left Richmond at the end of 1970, aged 27, looking for a change of direction.
Northey was appointed coach of Western Suburbs Football Club in Sydney, well before Aussie Rules had any recognition in New South Wales.
Capturing one premiership from three grand final appearances in his first three years, Northey became coach of the NSW state team, which defeated a VFL seconds team coached by Essendon great John Birt by 77 points.
Northey quipped it was funny how this match was not reported about in Melbourne media the following Monday.
From the glory at Redan, Northey was back up in NSW for his first VFL/AFL coaching gig with Sydney Swans. This was an era when about half the team commuted from Melbourne by plane for training and matches.
This was also the year when mid-season the flamboyant Geoffrey Edelsten bought the Swans as a private owner. Northey was gone the next year but was recruited to Melbourne.
"My mistake (failure) was I hadn't told the players of my coaching career over the last 14 years," Northey wrote.
Most players, including Dees' great Robbie Flower, took some winning over. In his second season, Northey led the Demons to their first finals series in 23 years before the club bowed out in the preliminary finals. A grand final came a year later.
It was in Ballarat, Northey hosted his legendary training camp for the Demons. There was a lap of the lake with Steve Moneghetti and a 15-kilometre run from University of Ballarat up Mount Buninyong in which Northey joined in to help set the tone in fitness expectations of players.
But it was training in Creswick that players tend not to forget.
Northey warned players to stick together on an 8km run because there were "hillbillies" who had lived in the forest for generations.
After awhile, players her what Garry Lyon has since described as "maniacal voices screaming". Players got a bit over-confident and called back at the locals. A shot gun when off and players split up, running in all directions back to camp only to find Northey laughing.
They had been set up.
At Richmond, where Northey moved in 1993, he introduced player-led court cases to deal with misdemeanors. Tigers captain Tony Free became Judge Free and the leadership group of Matthew Knights, Wayne Campbell and Chris Naish were the jury. There were no appeals.
Players had thought it a joke - at first.
Northey was coaching Richmond when the Tigers almost landed one of the game's biggest names at Tigerland. This was the son of Northey's former BFL rival coach Howard Lockett - Tony "Plugger" Lockett.
At the end of 1994, Northey had approached the dominant St Kilda forward, having played competitive tennis with Lockett's mum Liz. Lockett was keen to become a Tiger but then-AFL chief executive officer Ian Collins knocked this on the head and Northey was left to rue what might have been of a foward line featuring Lockett and a then-young Matthew Richardson.
Northey made his way back to Ballarat via Queenland and Western Australia, coaching WAFL club South Fremantle. He returned to Ballarat for the funeral of his father in 2005 and, while he had not really been interested in coaching again, Northey agreed to a a meeting at Alfredton Reserve.
The Swans passion and professionalism, led by president Shane Manley, greatly impressed him.
This was a club that also had not played finals in years.
By 2008, they were in the big dance.
Northey recounts the discipline of his players drinking water at the Henderson Medal with a lively grand final rival Darley seated nearby. He had the support of coach-in-waiting Shaun O'Loughlin, who became head coach under his tutelage a season later.
There was also impassioned letter from Swan - and now children's book author - Dave O'Neill from London in what has become known about the club as the "Dear Boys letter".
Northey read this aloud to players before the game.
"I remember everything from that day," Northey said. "...Ballarat had been down for a long time, too. They had played finals a couple of years prior to winning the grand final.
"That's the second one I've won like that, with a kick after the siren. Redan won by a kick when Brian Hepper came up and told me 'I made you'."
The stories of football and the things that happen in clubs, they're things you learn from, whether it's about yourself or players.
- John Northey
The claw-back attitude of Northey's has been evident from the start in his first football game for Derrinallum under-16s. About six years old at the time, Northey was dropped for literally watching his player.
In his first VFL/AFL game with Richmond in 1963, Northey was dragged at three-quarter-time and the rule at the time was no return to play. His game had been a shocker and Northey was embarrased for all the people who had travelled from the western district to watch him play.
Tiger great Jack Dwyer urged Northey to show character and stick with it.
Swooper features plenty of tales of the characters that make up football clubs, including football managers and mentors, that he played with and against on his way to Richmond.
Mortlake, then in the Hampden league, had initially refused to clear Northey to the Tigers unless he play the first game of the season with them.
"The stories of football and the things that happen in clubs, they're things you learn from, whether it's about yourself or players," Northey said.
When Northey visits City Oval now, the Den still brings him great pride - even looking out on an incredible surface, far from the mud the place used to be known for.
"You need that in sport so players can display their best game," Northey said.
"Football, and sport generally, is such a thing that you can make the best of it and make a career. Young players have better opportunities to show their skills."
Northey has taken his book about all the towns that have "made" him, from little country post offices in Lismore, Derrinallum and Camperdown to Collins on Lydiard Street.
There were also later coaching stints with Central Highlands league clubs Learmonth and Skipton.
Former Redan teammate John Burt had him helping out for five years on Ballarat Specialist School's farm campus, mentoring students in farming. Northey said this was one of the most rewarding positions he held.
Northey never expected when he started out as a farmer where his decisions might lead but his career in football had been shaped by many wonderful people.
Every now and then, when he gets the chance, Northey still liked to call into a ground and enjoy watching Redan and Ballarat in action.
