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Blue Murder

Check out the mini-series Blue Murder (1995)

As Stingers boss Luke Harris, actor Gary Sweet surrounded his desk with Collingwood memorabilia. “Sweety” played footy for the South Australian U19 team in his youth, Glenelg in the SANFL, then Port Melbourne in the old VFA. Former Adelaide Crows coach Graham Cornes once described him as ‘skilful, sharp and with great endurance – he was a guy who liked doing the guy things with guys. I don’t think that’s changed. Neither has the fact he has great appeal to women’. Sweet’s finest moment on TV though has to be his manic turn in Blue Murder as “Rentakill” Christopher Dale Flannery. In his cocaine infused frenzy, Flannery rails against this country’s lack of respect for its indigenous game:

‘They hate their country’s greatest assets ... Carn the Saints! ... Just shut up will you and listen ... St Kilda … Grand Final 1966 ... Barry Breen kicked the winning point ... it was fantastic ... they beat Collingwood ... they thrashed Collingwood ... they thrashed them … they killed them ... they killed them ... you know why ... ’cause I was there ... I was there ... I was there ... I was there ...’

Perhaps the closest thing we’ll ever have to a Gettysburg address.

Degrassi Junior High

Check out the episode “It’s Late” on Degrassi Junior High - Season 1 - Disc 2 (1986)

As he discusses Spike’s pregnancy with Joey Jeremiah and Shane, look what Wheels (Derek Wheeler) is wearing! It’s a 1970s Footscray jumper complete with VFL logo! How did Wheels become a Doggies’ supporter? In the late 80s the VFL may have staged exhibition games at Vancouver and Toronto in Degrassi’s Canada, but that was after this episode first aired. Was the fictional character Derek Wheeler somehow related to the real life Footscray back pocket (and later coach) Terry Wheeler? If ‘uncle’ Terry did send him the jumper, why did Wheels never mention it? It remains one of life’s mysteries as to why the jumper appears, and it’s a question I’m yet to get a satisfactory answer to.

Rose Against the Odds

Check out the miniseries Rose Against the Odds (1995)

West Coast Eagle David Wirrpanda played his first AFL game at age sixteen, but made his TV debut even earlier. Okay, David played in a premiership side in 2006 alongside the likes of Chris Judd and Ben Cousins, but surely this runs a distant second to acting alongside Frankie J Holden, Vikki Blanche (the first Julie Robinson in Neighbours), and iconic lolly pop licking TV cop baldie ‘Theo Kojak’ Telly Savalas (also Jennifer Aniston’s godfather)! For more footy links, look for pub scenes shot in the old-school pre-match drinking venue The Rising Sun, located just a Doug Hawkins’ torpedo punt away from the Western Bulldogs’ Whitten Oval.

SeaChange

Check out the episode “Balls and Friggin’ Goodluck” on SeaChange-Series 1 - Episodes 7-9 (1998)

Yep, the heart and soul of many a country town is its footy team, and acceptance or rejection by it can make or break a newcomer – as Laura Gibson (Sigrid Thornton) discovered when she was barred from the Pearl Bay Football Club’s women’s auxiliary after moving the coffee urn during a game. True tragedy though strikes when young footy hero Jerome Hall (Kick Gurry) dies in a road accident before he can attract the attention of AFL scouts - possibly Geelong, as it is just down the Great Ocean Road. Laura’s son Rupert (Kane McNay) dreams of filling Jerome’s boots, but apart from kicking one goal in a game, has to be content with playing AFL 2000 on his Playstation

Good Guys Bad Guys

Check out the episode “A Bilby in Rat's Clothing” on Good Guys Bad Guys - Season 1 - Disc 3 (1997)

Before his role as the prodigal son returning home to star for the Emu Springs Football Club in the ABC soap Something in the Air, Sullivan Stapleton played a suburban footy legend in the late 90s private eye series Good Guys Bad Guys. Dry cleaner by day-sleuth by night Elvis Maginnis (Marcus Graham) bumps into his old footy coach Mad Dog Morello. Morello’s son Paul (Stapleton) is bleeding the family’s chocolate factory fortune dry in what looks to be a straight forward case of privileged-youth-turned-desperate-substance-abuser; but when he’s hired by Mad Dog to get Paul back in shape for the Grand Final, Elvis discovers some discretely hidden porn in the son’s bedroom. Could it be an addiction of a more ribald kind?

Blue Heelers

Check out the episode “The Game” on Blue Heelers - Season 6 Part 2 - Disc 4 (1999)

At a wake for a Mount Thomas footballer killed in what appears to be a game of chicken on the roads, witnessing his footy mates’ dangerous drunken driving Constable Jack Lawson (Rupert Reid) cautions them. Football club president Ian Waldron (Terence Donovan) ostracises Jack from the club …briefly tempting Jack to turn out for rival team St Davids. A few months later though, and Jack seems to be back in the Mount Thomas Mudlarks’ good books as they are set to take on St Davids in the Grand Final. Before he can share in any glory though, Jack must rescue Waldron from the best pre-game prank this side of Greg stealing the rival team’s goat mascot Raquel in The Brady Bunch. Then there’s the matter of stolen CDs he finds in the St Davids’ clubrooms. Who says country footy’s dead?

The Alice

Check out episode 20 on The Alice - Series 1 - Disc 6 (2005)

In Neighbours, after impressing with local side Eastside Dingoes, Paul McClain (Jansen Spencer) played in a practice match at Victoria Park with Collingwood. Any true footy fans witnessing McClain’s appalling kicking style though were left shaking their heads in wonder at how he apparently went on to be drafted by Adelaide. (Watch Neighbours today and you can still see the photo of him in a Crows jumper on Harold’s mantle piece.) Enter The Alice with their footy grudge match between rival pubs the Baa Bar and the Big Bull Bar. One team is in authentic Richmond-style jumpers, but that’s where any realistic comparison between art and life begins and ends. Most participants seem to have a kicking style more suited to rugby, although former Pearl Bay prodigy Kick Gurry attempts to reprise some of the form he showed as a potential AFL draftee in SeaChange.

The Secret Life of Us

Check out the episode “It's How You Play the Game (aka: Insecurity Blanket)” on The Secret Life of Us - Series 4 - Disc 3 (2002)

In the beginning this cool Melbourne drama for the seriously hip had its young trendsetters Dragstering their way down to the local park for ‘spontaneous’ community kick-a-bouts of the ‘world game’ soccer. In its death throes, this cool Melbourne drama for the seriously hip tried to embrace Melbourne’s number one sporting pastime – Aussie Rules. Kelly (Deborah Mailman) meets the fictitious Corey Mailins (Aaron Pedersen), a St Kilda Football Club star. Mailins thinks nothing of walking around groovy inner-city streets dressed in his team tracksuit and cap; no salmon polo shirts or Hoxton Fin hair style for this star! There were plans to include cameos from real-life Saints Xavier and Raphael Clarke, Nick Dal Santo and Brendon Goddard. Alas, we have to settle for a Nick Riewoldt clone with the ubiquitous suburban footy moniker of “Horse”.

Hey Hey It's Saturday - By Request

Check out Hey Hey It's Saturday - By Request (1971)

Before it became the dinosaur during which Daryl Somers once befuddled guest Chevy Chase with the line ‘a lot of people say we’re the Australian version of your old show, Saturday Night Live’, Hey Hey It’s Saturday had humble roots as a 1970s Saturday morning show which played cartoons. Starting out as a local Melbourne show in 1971, Collingwood full forward Peter McKenna was co-host with Somers – until Collingwood officials tuned in one morning, saw McKenna involved in a stunt with a wrestler, and decided it was not the ideal match-day warm-up for their star player.

The House Of Bulger

Check out The AFL Footy Show, The House Of Bulger (2003)

Shane Crawford must have been jealous when he heard Melbourne’s Clint Bizzell apparently spent an off-season at Lee Strasberg’s New York Actors Studio. Crawford managed to convince Nine Network honchos he was Finley’s answer to Aaron Spelling, and persuaded them to run this soapie send up during The Footy Show. What started out as a Bold and the Beautiful fashion house soap send-up then morphed into Bulger MD as Crawford scored a second season. Bullet and Gunn followed (think a sort of blaxploitation take on 70s Crawfords cop shows) as he amazingly milked a third year. Despite starring footballers current and old like Nathan Brown, Mick Martyn, Garry Lyon and Brendon Fevola, and padded out with ex-Keno presenters turned lifestyle wannabes Nikki McCarthy and Renee Henderson, Let the Blood Run Free did it all so much better in the early 1990s.