AFL legend Tom Hafey's family list coach's Sorrento holiday home

News.com.au

4 days ago

AFL legend Tom Hafey's family are selling the Hall of Famer's beach house in Sorrento that hosted other Tigers greats from Kevin Sheedy to Kevin Bartlett and Francis Bourke.
And they've revealed how the famously sober footballing great transformed into the ultimate entertainer whenever he was at the weekender, often sharing it with 20 guests spread across its five bedrooms and sleeping in tents in the back yard.
Hafey played 67 VFL games with Richmond before commencing one of the most decorated coaching careers in the game's history, collecting the Jock McHale Medal as the coach of a premiership winning side in 1967, 1969, 1973 and 1974.
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He also took the reins at Geelong, Collingwood and the Sydney Swans, with the latter two sides both making multiple Grand Final appearances under his leadership.
Hafey was also famously a fitness icon known for starting every day with an 8km run, 250 push ups, 700 crunches and sit ups, plus a swim – a feat he seen was seen doing frequently along Sorrento's Tideways Beach as well as the St Kilda foreshore.
Today, Hafey's grandkids are still using his original set of free weights, kept under the deck at his former weekender at 20 Lister Ave.
His daughter Rhonda Hafey noted her father always said while they were rustier than when he bought them, they still weighed just as much.
The now five-bedroom Sorrento home has continued to be the site of push up, chin up and weightlifting contests between latter generations of Hafeys, who regularly gather at the home with as many as 20 there at a time at Christmas.
But it started out as a two-bedroom house, part built by Hafey's brother Peter, a runner for Richmond, while his football champ sibling was 'pumping weights out the back'.
Renovations and expansions added to the bedrooms over the years, with a granny flat out the back creating a fifth as the most recent addition — though the family have often had a small tent city in the back yard as Hafey maintained an open door policy to guests.
The result could be up to 20 people staying after barbecues with family and friends, and the occasional visit from Richmond legends like Sheedy, Bartlett and Bourke, as well as the likes of Demons' great Steven Smith.
However, Ms Hafey said there were no sleep-ins, with her father getting home from his morning fitness routine and immediately setting about making Vegemite toast for everyone in the house — and turning the radio on 'full-bore'.
'Then we'd go to the beach and he'd have the cricket blasting,' she said.
Once he stopped coaching, the AFL legend began spending more time at the Sorrento home that became the base for surfing lessons for multiple generations of the Hafey family, and he often said, 'There's nothing better than being on a wave with your grandsons'.
When he was back in Melbourne, he was happy to drop his grandkids at school or even at the train station to go to university as they grew up.
While the family might be parting ways with the Sorrento holiday home that's had a wooden 'Hafey' sign out the front since the 1960s, they scattered his ashes at nearby Tideways Beach and they'll be taking the laughs and the memories with them.
Ms Hafey and her husband have recently bought a new home not far away, where her father's open door policy will continue and they still expect many guests.
Marshall White's Adam Kenyon is handling the sale of the home, listed with $2m-$2.2m expectations, and said he'd had a lot of inquiries already.
The 1148sq m block is significantly larger than the average for Sorrento, he noted.
Mr Kenyon said much of the interest was coming from buyers seeking their own weekend getaway — though a few were considering it as a potential home.
Renovations or replacement are both likely for the property that's walking distance to the beach and the yacht club, though he noted Hafey would be remembered for a long time to come around the town.
'Tommy was very iconic in this neck of the woods, everyone saw him running down to the beach and doing his exercises — everyone knows he was a Sorrento man,' Mr Kenyon said.
'And for a bloke who didn't drink, he was always entertaining. The barbecue was on every night with an open invitation.'