A. A long time but it has gone very, very quick. It has been educational in the sense of getting somewhere in my life and learning a lot about the country and moving around Australia with the team – it has been tremendous from that journey point of view.
Q. How have you found the 22 years at the club?
A. I think that it has been a little bit difficult at times but history has shown it has been worthwhile staying – both the club and myself have been fairly good to each other.
Q. Are you happy to still be at Essendon?
A. I was pretty happy to still be at Essendon – there has been a lot of offers over the years where I could have possibly left at times or could have been sacked. To be quite honest you very rarely get the opportunity to coach top clubs and I am very fortunate to still be around in the job because it is a very, very difficult job and a lot of people don’t understand how difficult this job is and how difficult it has got since I first took on the job in 1980.
Q. You say you are privileged to coach a top club but Essendon weren’t a dominant force when you took over – how big a role do you think you’ve had to play in making it a top club?
A. I think probably my knowledge and perhaps benefit was learning off some tremendous administrators at Richmond. Ray Dunn actually took Richmond to the MCG in 1965 – so it took a long time after that for any other club to go to the MCG. So when you look back and you are learning from people around you it is quite remarkable. Graeme Richmond and of course Alan Schwab – they way they developed people and kept bringing on junior teams. I think at one stage we won the premiership in every competition – I think it was about 1973 or 1974. To learn that from those people are pretty good times.
You try and bring it here to Essendon and work with the people at the club. Essendon at that time really wanted to get back to where they should be and that is up there. Probably you would have to say if you looked at Carlton at the time, Collingwood, Richmond, Hawthorn and the Kangaroos – they were all ahead of Essendon at the time. At the moment I think Essendon is level on premierships with Carlton, has been on the top more times than Carlton and have won more McClelland trophies than Carlton. So we feel that we are back up there with a chance to be a strong club and we have done it where it needs to be done - that is not only off the field but also on the field.
Most people would say that you are the driving force behind that success – how does that make you feel?
A. I think the driving force really comes from the people that you work with and around the club. Whether you know it or not they are fine tuning your thinking and watching you grow as a person. There are times where you are not performing as good as you would like to and sometimes it is very difficult to realise that – I think I have had those sort of people to point me in the right direction. I think a lot of that drive comes from people that you work with. There are probably many people I have worked with over the years that I could thank – probably 30-40 people. People I worked with when I first started here, many of the coaching people, many of the board people, many of the players because the players are actually the guys that are being coached and perform out there on the ground and I think all of my assistants. I have had many, many assistants and many of them have gone onto bigger and better things and have developed themselves as people.
For the full Sheedy transcript, including his plans for the future, his best times in footy,his thoughts on the draft system and what his first salary at the club was - go to the Engine Room. The Engine Room is only $9.95 for EFC members and $19.95 for non-members. Membership expires on 27 April 2003. Join up at the BomberLand site or call Client Services on (03) 9230 0390.
