Fletch

by Dustin Fletcher

  Then suddenly the umpire started into his bouncing motion. This was it!

  Like a tree felled in the forest, the Sherrin crashed into the hallowed turf and I watched it sail high into the crisp autumn air as tens of thousands roared. I started moving myself towards it, keeping my eyes firmly on the ball and trying not to think about the man-mountain I was about to crash into.

  My take-off was good – very good. In fact, it was so good something bizarre happened – I realised I was going to get my hand on the ball first. Incredibly, my timing had been perfect. Unbelievably, I had Madden covered. But there was a problem. I’d never thought I would win the tap so I hadn’t really made any plans about where, or to which teammate, I should try to get the ball to. So my palm-down was perfectly executed, with just one hitch: it went straight to a Carlton gun centreman, Greg Williams.

  For the next three or four minutes I ran around in a daze before I was pulled off to the sanctuary of the interchange bench. The pace of the game was dizzying. My head was spinning.

  I managed to get my hands on the ball a couple of times when I returned, which calmed the nerves but only momentarily as it was a hot contest all day. Carlton led by one point at three-quarter time and we didn’t get our noses in front until time-on, when defender Mark Harvey, who’d gone off injured in the third quarter, came back on and looked set to be the hero after kicking a brilliant goal from 55 metres out.

  But Carlton captain Stephen ‘Sticks’ Kernahan responded to level the scores with less than a minute on the clock. Unfortunately my debut game seemed certain to end in disappointment when Kernahan had a shot to win the game after the siren. He’d marked about 45 metres out on the forward flank near the boundary line in front of the Southern Stand. All he had to do was score and the Blues would win.

  He missed everything.

  My debut – which had consisted of five kicks, one mark, one handball and five hit-outs – was memorable on a number of other fronts. For starters, the scoreline of Essendon 20.12 (132) to Carlton 19.18 (132) turned out to be the highest-scoring draw in VFL/AFL history.

  Regardless of the scoreline, it was always going to be a celebration for me. Immediately after the game I hooked up with my mates from school, hopped into a limousine and headed off to the debutante ball. Mum didn’t care about the result. Her greatest fear had been that I would get beaten up or injured in the game and wouldn’t be able to attend the dance, ruining it for my partner of the evening, Jodie. I was in very good spirits by the time I arrived, as both my teammates and schoolmates and I had already had a few quiet beers in honour of the biggest day in my short life so far.

  Little did we know it at the time, but we were celebrating the start of something extraordinary.

  ROSEMARY FLETCHER

  Mother, primary school teacher

  Dustin was a very good baby and very calm child. He slept and he ate, and he ate and he slept. In the early years we’d often be sitting there and say, ‘Where’s Dust? . . . Oh, gone to bed.’ He’d have just upped and taken himself off to sleep. Later, when Ken used to drive him home from school in Years 11 and 12, he used to drop off in the car and get his forty winks, out like a light, just like that.

  Dustin’s always been a good eater. We used to joke that he was born with hollow legs and that he took a picnic basket to school. He’d come home and cook himself a steak after classes, then front up and have a normal dinner with the family a couple of hours later. He’d cook himself lots of different things in between too. I remember he got particularly good at making chocolate puddings.

  The three kids had their normal tiffs. I think the two big ones, Dustin and Rebecca, used to gang up on the little one, Lachlan, but I didn’t realise that until later. I remember when we got this new car – new cars were very hard to come by for us in those days – and we’d been on a picnic. Dustin may have been in prep and Rebecca was probably in grade one. Anyway we went to come home and there, engraved onto the front of the car in this horrible writing, were the letters ‘D U S’. We automatically assumed it was Dustin who had written it, even though he denied it and denied it. It wasn’t until 20 years later that we found out he had been annoying Rebecca so she had used a key to scratch his name into the brand new car. Bec said she was going to own up, but when she saw how Dustin got into so much trouble she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  Dustin wasn’t really into schoolwork or anything like that. One day, Rebecca gave a ballet concert and my mother came up for it. Dustin, of course, was dragged along to watch it too. Halfway through the concert he nudged my mum and said, ‘Can you give me some sums, Gran?’ She was nearly in hysterics. Dustin wanting sums, which he’d never ever asked for before in his life? That’s how bored he was by the ballet concert.

  We lived in a two-storey house in Tatura for a while and I think Dustin enjoyed being there.

  He was desperate to get a pocket knife so one year for Christmas we gave him one. Shortly afterward something caught my ear and I said to Ken, ‘What’s that noise?’

  It was the tap out the back running. When we went to have a look, there was Dustin, blood all over him. He sheepishly told us he’d been slicing a bit of the tree and the pocket knife had slipped. He’d slit his pointer finger right down the side vertically and there was blood everywhere.

  He knew he wasn’t meant to be using it which is why he’d kept quiet, toughing it out and staying out there trying to wash away the evidence and make it right. In the end we took him to hospital and he was very lucky he hadn’t cut the tendon. Dustin ended up having his finger in a splint for the entire summer, which meant that when he was in the pool he had to hold the finger and splint out of the water. He wasn’t very happy with that situation.

  At Tatura there was a little man-made lake, not very deep – just with water up to their knees. One day when Dustin was about seven years old he had a little friend, Michael, with him and they went fishing – they got the fishing rods and marched off over the road to the lake.

  They were gone for a while but then I heard screams and looked out the window to see this incredible procession coming up the road. Both the boys were in hysterical tears. Michael was in front and Dustin was running behind him, holding a fishing rod which was hooked right into Michael’s ear.

  Michael was crying because it was obviously hurting and Dustin was crying because not only had he hooked his friend with a fishing rod and hurt his little mate but he was going to get in trouble. We were able to flick the hook out pretty easily but I still laugh at the memory of it!

  When it came to sport Dustin was very coordinated even when he was little. He was good at athletics, the high jump and running the 100 metres. He was what they call ‘a good all-round athlete’.

  Having a former Essendon player as his dad never seemed to bother Dustin. Ken never pushed Dustin with the football but he’d help him if he needed extra work in his school games.

  I didn’t think Dustin was going to play in his first year at Essendon and probably didn’t want him to. I thought he’d be knocked over like a feather! We were quite unprepared when it happened.

  His first game was the afternoon before his debutante ball night and I thought he’d turn up in pieces! I was worried about the poor girl he was taking as it is really the girl’s night and she’d have been all dressed up and had a footballer as a date who might not turn up. Anyway, it all worked out. In fact, half the school turned up to watch him play rather than go to the pre-debutante ball event.

  I didn’t really expect Dustin to play that many games, but he seemed to have certain knacks and skills that got him through in those early years. As a mother I didn’t really like him playing on those bigger, stronger, more solidly built full-forwards. I thought he’d get crushed . . . but somehow he didn’t.

  That first Grand Final day in 1993 I remember well. He was still at home and we had phone calls and phone calls coming in throughout the morning. I said to all of them, ‘You can’t talk to Dustin because he’s still in bed asleep.’
No-one could believe it. All Melbourne was awake and buzzing for Grand Final Day but Dustin was still dozing. That’s what an easygoing character he is.

  CHAPTER 3

  SCHOOLBOY FOOTBALLER

  ‘Fletcher?! FLETCHER! FLEEEEEETCHERRRRRRR!’ I looked back at the taxi driver, who had jumped out of the cab and was yelling at me. How did he know my name? This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. My friends Tommy and Damion and I had done a runner from cabs a couple of times in recent weeks and there hadn’t been an issue.

  This time, we’d been out all night in the city at the Tunnel nightclub and flagged a taxi for the long and expensive trip all the way out to Greenvale. We thought it was a good idea to skip out on the fare just a couple of blocks from Tommy’s house.

  But the cabbie calling out my name spooked me. I nearly went back and paid up when he yelled it the first time but instead I did the dumb thing – I put my head down and kept running. By the time we got back to Tommy’s place it was 6 am, and my young and addled brain had twigged to the realisation that my life had changed forever. I was no longer just one of the boys out having a good time. My days of being anonymous were gone. Even though I’d only played a handful of games for Essendon, people knew who I was.

  Embarrassed and contrite, I told the boys that would be the last time we’d jump a cab and do a runner, and we should thank our lucky stars we’d got away with this one.

  Not long afterwards we were woken up by Tommy’s parents, who had two policemen standing next to them. The cabbie had reported the incident to the local cops and given them my name. The boys in blue knew where I lived so they’d gone around and knocked on the Fletcher family front door. My parents told them I was staying at Tommy’s and gave them the address.

  Between the two families we came up with some cash – I think around $300 – to pay the driver. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. Essendon found out about the incident and called me in to let me know they were less than impressed with my idiotic behaviour. I felt bad because at the time it hadn’t occurred to me that I was hurting the cab driver’s business and affecting his ability to care for his family, not to mention damaging my reputation and that of the football club. It was a lesson learnt – but I still had some more to come, on and off the field, in 1993.

  It turned out that playing AFL and turning 18 were a dangerous combination.

  Of course I loved most of what my new status brought me. Every weekend after games I’d hit the city with school-mates and party hard at the most popular clubs in town, such as Santa Fe or the Tunnel. Being a frontline footballer opened doors and put free drink cards in our hands, but it also blinded me to the realities of adulthood and its responsibilities. Upholding a public profile continued to be a problem for me.

  The re-match with Carlton came around in late July in Round 17, again in front of over 67,000 people at the MCG. This time we came up trumps, kicking seven goals in the final quarter to win by 21 points. It was an important victory as it moved us up to third on the ladder. Suddenly people were starting to talk about the Bombers being serious premiership contenders.

  The mood was very jovial when I hit the town with my best mate from school, Curtis Stone, and his older brother Lucas. We partied into the night and at around 11.30 pm we changed venue. As we were walking into the next nightclub, a group of guys out the front started mouthing off at us. With more than a few beers under our belts already, we didn’t take kindly to the abuse and made it known. Luckily a bouncer intervened and told us to go inside as he’d just kicked this group of guys – who we figured were disgruntled Carlton fans – out of the club.

  Four hours later, after lots of laughing and carrying on in the club, we went to leave and I noticed the group of guys still sitting there. I thought it was a bit weird but kept walking along King Street trying to flag down a taxi to get us home.

  Before we knew it, the guys had jumped us. I was grabbed from behind and pulled to the ground in a headlock. As my attacker dragged me over he slipped and I was able to break free and get a few into him. Curtis and his brother had four guys on them and as I went over to help, a couple of bouncers from across the road also arrived. They’d seen us get jumped and had come over to break it up.

  None of us was injured, but the incident reinforced the fact that I now had a target on my back.

  *

  The Carlton game was my 11th for the 1993 season and I was no longer a ruckman – I was now Essendon’s fullback. And like my shock debut in Round 2, the positional switch had come out of nowhere.

  I hadn’t played in Round 3 because I had a school game on the same day. This caused a bit of a stir at the club and in the media, but Essendon Grammar was playing Ivanhoe Grammar in a big game for the school, and even though there had been a considerable change in my circumstances, I wanted to make good on the commitment I’d made at the start of the season. I’m not sure Sheeds was over the moon but he accepted it, and importantly Essendon Grammar won the game.

  Loyalty to my Grammar mates was very important to me. I really enjoyed school and, in a way, being there helped my confidence in my ability to deal with everything that was coming my way in big-time footy. I enjoyed the fact that I could revert to Dustin the student during the week: it took my mind off the pressures of being Dustin the footballer at the weekend.

  I wasn’t the smartest student or the best behaved, but I got the work done. Maybe it was because I was the son of two teachers. Mum had been a primary school teacher and wherever she went her children followed as students. This meant my siblings and I attended five different primary schools growing up. I started school in Keilor and then went to Tatura for three years before coming back to Greenvale. Mum then landed a job at Craigieburn Primary School and all us kids followed her there, before I went to Essendon Grammar for grade six.

  Dad, who had met Mum when they went to Niddrie High School together as students, was a secondary school PE teacher.

  Having Dad working at my school had its pros and cons. I’d only once been put in his class, but thankfully for both of us that didn’t last long and a change was made. I copped it a bit from students who didn’t get along with him but you just had to deal with that and it became easier the older I got. The biggest issue for me was that word travelled quickly to Dad via the staffroom whenever I was kicked out of class for goofing around. I was like most kids, I guess – a bit of a smart-arse. But even though I’d muck around from time to time, Mum and Dad had raised me in such a way as to make sure I never truly disrespected people. I found myself gravitating towards kids who were getting picked on and I liked to help them out. There was nothing worse than bullies and that emotional and caring side of my personality came out when I saw kids who couldn’t defend themselves getting pushed around.

  As a schoolboy AFL player it was doubly important for me that I kept everything in perspective. This wasn’t a worry for me. I was never too big for my boots and never developed a big head about playing AFL at the relatively young age of 17. If anything, it was the opposite.

  I had a good ally in the Essendon Grammar principal, Rae Pierce, who was a big supporter of my football career. She was always able to get through to me when I was sent to her office. ‘Just sit there and think about it, Dustin,’ would be her instruction every time I slunk to her door.

  Principal Pierce was a big footy fan, which helped my situation enormously. She wasn’t shy when Sheedy himself gave her a call to touch base about my welfare, always being sure to give the coach her thoughts on not only my form but also the state of play in the AFL at the time.

  As well as Mrs Pierce knew her footy, I’m not sure even she would have predicted my move to the last line of defence for my second career game in Round 4 against Sydney.

  My theory is that Sheeds saw something at training during the squad’s long match simulation drills. The main team would always have the ball and he’d throw in a few of us young guys as defenders. A couple of times during these drills I’d managed to hold my own against
some of our more experienced forwards and that must have registered in the coach’s mind.

  Plus I think he was desperate. At the time, Essendon didn’t have many tall defenders and we’d been using the likes of James Hird, a highly skilled forward, down back and slotting an undersized Harvey into the key position posts. I wasn’t big enough to play in the ruck full-time, and with Paul Salmon at full-forward we were well catered for ‘talls’ down there. However, Anthony Daniher – younger brother of Terry – who had been the regular fullback, was coming to the end of his career just as I was starting out in mine.

  So began my career as a fullback. Because I hadn’t played the position at all I had to play to what I knew and that was pretty simple – use my pace to spoil. I figured if I stuck to that I might be able to survive, given I was a boy playing against men, and if I got a kick that was just a bonus.

  My next game – a Round 6 clash against Geelong – wasn’t exactly the ideal match for learning how to become a defender. It became an old-fashioned shootout between two of the best full-forwards in the game: the men known as ‘God’ and ‘The Big Fish’, aka Gary Ablett and Paul Salmon.

  Thankfully I was spared from having to stand Ablett that afternoon, but I still got a close-up view of his 14 goals. Phenomenal as Ablett’s performance was, ‘Fish’ kicked 10 goals for us at the other end to get us home by 24 points in a bizarre game that finished 23.18 (156) to 19.18 (132).

  As a kid I’d never found my eyes drawn to watching defenders, and fullback was certainly never a position I had thought about playing. Assistant coach David Wheadon sat down with me and showed me some videos of the best fullbacks in the competition. Carlton’s Steve Silvagni was the benchmark fullback of the era. Obviously I knew a bit about him, but it wasn’t until I watched him specifically on the videos that I was able to pick up certain things. He was a different cut to me but a great spoiler and very good at wrestling with his opponent. Spoiling and wrestling were never going to be my strengths, which is why I also watched a lot of West Coast’s Ashley McIntosh, a fullback who relied on pace to contest for his edge.