Why an investment banker with Roos blood in his veins stormed into John Elliott's office with a cheque

The Age

2 days ago

Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. This is our series on the football world's movers and shakers. See all 11 stories.
Statues at football clubs are typically erected for champion footballers or the game's greatest coaches.
At North Melbourne, the two chairmen who preceded Sonja Hood – James Brayshaw and Ben Buckley – are adamant a white knight who fits neither category deserves one at Arden Street.
They will tell you there is no one more important to the Kangaroos' survival than philanthropist and businessman Peter Scanlon, who tipped in more than $10 million during Brayshaw's stint by the time he announced Scanlon's life membership nine years ago.
It was no coincidence, then, that Scanlon was seated next to Brayshaw and Buckley on November 19, 2021, when they proudly revealed that North Melbourne were debt-free for the first time since 1987.
That milestone day, Brayshaw reminisced with Scanlon and the club's former chief executive, Eugene Arocca, about eyeballing almost $9 million of debt – which threatened to get more out of hand from a crippling interest rate – and their fears about how they would ever wipe it.
It was proof the Roos had come a long way since the dark days of 2007, when the AFL wanted them to relocate to the Gold Coast.
The league's then-CEO, Andrew Demetriou, and commissioner Colin Carter even took North Melbourne's major shareholder (more on this later), Peter de Rauch, out for breakfast at a Collins Street haunt to extol the virtues of the Kangaroos moving north.
De Rauch, like many others at Arden Street, had no interest in relocating. On December 7 that year, North's board voted to remain a Melbourne-based club – and for Brayshaw to be the new chairman.
Brayshaw's brother, ex-player Mark, and fellow board member Ron Joseph were instrumental in him becoming president. One of Brayshaw's first pledges was to change their name back to North Melbourne, after they officially became the Kangaroos eight years earlier in an attempt to broaden their appeal.
The original name change was targeted at recruiting new Australians, recalled then-CEO Greg Miller.
The club even brokered a deal with a removalist company, whereby every time a migrant shifted their furniture to Australia, they got a North Melbourne membership.
Reflecting on dodging the Gold Coast threat, Scanlon deflected credit to others, from Brayshaw, Buckley and Arocca to long-time directors de Rauch and Trevor O'Hoy, as well as rank-and-file club members.
'It was clear to James, Ron Joseph, myself and others that although it looked financially attractive, moving to the Gold Coast [would have been] the end of the 'Shinboners',' Scanlon said when the debt was wiped.
'The decision those guys made was we'd rather try and fail to keep that than give up, and I think, on behalf of all the members – if I can be so bold as to represent them – I just want to thank the people who did all the work … I've had so much more back than I've ever put in.'
The Scanlon connection extends to Hood, who is the Scanlon Foundation's CEO and had his considerable support to be Buckley's successor as club president three years ago.
Scanlon's son, Brady, also served on North Melbourne's board from 2012-21, while the club's community arm at Arden Street, The Huddle, was Scanlon's idea.
'The real truth has always been that without the towering backing of Peter Scanlon,' Brayshaw said at the 2016 Syd Barker Medal function, 'it didn't matter what else occurred or who else was involved – there would have been no option but to relocate.'
Scanlon's contributions, including and beyond that torrid period, were not purely financial. He attended critical meetings with AFL heavyweights and provided counsel to Roos officials.
'When we walked in that room with the great Peter Scanlon, the air suddenly went out of the room and the AFL's whole demeanour changed,' Brayshaw said. 'It's very easy to stand out the front of anything with confidence when you have someone like Peter Scanlon standing behind you.'
Buckley, a former vice captain who played 74 games for North Melbourne before serving as the club's president for nine years until early 2022, echoed Brayshaw's sentiments, while highlighting Peter Dwyer as another key contributor.
'Peter [Scanlon]'s always there and always giving of his time. He's been hugely influential in supporting the club through some pretty tough periods,' Buckley told The Age.
'I would stress that people like Peter, whether it's North Melbourne or at other clubs; a lot of the public commentary turns to financial support. But a lot of times, you just need that sounding board, to stress-test some of your decisions beyond the boardroom, which can get emotional.
'I always found Peter's counsel to be very objective – but with a great care for the people involved.'
Why Carlton bought shares in North, and the buyback
North Melbourne have long had to find innovative ways to make a buck, from starting the annual grand final day breakfast in 1967 to Friday night football, which has become the most coveted timeslot every week.
They also championed pre-game and half-time entertainment – including one occasion in 1978 where a circus elephant, with a cheer squad member aboard, briefly panicked and threatened to stampede at Arden Street – and invited women to attend the once men-only luncheons.
The Kangaroos went into a rebuild after winning two premierships with Ron Barassi as coach in the 1970s, and plunged into about $2.5 million of debt.
North Melbourne continued to do things their way under then-chairman Bob Ansett's leadership, issuing three million $1 shares and listing the club on the Hobart Stock Exchange in the late 1980s.
Ansett borrowed a significant amount of money from merchant bank Tricontinental to buy the shares, but later went bankrupt in a difficult financial climate.
At that stage, a group of investors, including ex-Kangaroos players Kerry Good, Mark Dawson and Robert Smith, Good's business partner Peter Johnstone, ex-South Melbourne footballer Greg Miller, and de Rauch bought a large number of the shares.
De Rauch's 10 per cent stake increased to 34 per cent after a deal where he helped a financially stricken fellow North director, which was why Demetriou and Carter wanted to speak to him.
'I got a phone call from Ron Joseph, and he said he wanted to come and talk to me, and he turned up with Mark Dawson,' de Rauch said. 'The club was in trouble. If we didn't buy the shares, Tricontinental might have taken over and sold the club to anybody.'
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There were class A and B shares, with contrasting voting power, which Ansett did to make sure people with the club's best interests ended up with the biggest say.
'They were interesting times. It was not quite as serious as [having to do it for survival], but we wanted to get rid of a couple of million dollars [in debt],' Ansett told this masthead.
'It wasn't like we were out of business if we didn't do it. The shares were something that looked attractive and provided an opportunity to pay off the debt at the time.'
Complications arose a few years later when Dick Pratt purchased a bunch of those shares for Carlton – some say it was 10 per cent, and others 20 – and held onto them for the next decade as part of a potential hostile takeover bid until John Magowan bought them back.
Ansett said Magowan, a former CEO of the Australian branch of investment management company Merrill Lynch, could have saved his money, given the Blues had such an 'insignificant' percentage.
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Miller, who became a long-time Kangaroos recruiter and administrator, is convinced that Ansett's innovative idea 'saved the club'. He also provided insight into Magowan's logic in buying Carlton's shares.
'The whole thing was a 'Jack' Elliott [former Carlton president] ego beat-up that wasn't reality,' Miller said.
'John Magowan went and bought them off Carlton. In the end, he said, 'The shares aren't worth anything, but Elliott carries on as if they are. F--- him, I'll go and pay'. He walked into Elliott's office, wrote him a cheque for $180,000, and got them all back.'
The shares again became a major topic during the Gold Coast relocation talks between the league and North.
Demetriou wanted the Kangaroos to revert from the shareholder arrangement to being a member-owned club, and Brayshaw and Joseph went to Noosa to meet with Ansett, who subsequently travelled south to the Gold Coast with them to discuss the matter with Demetriou.
'Both Ron [Joseph] and James [Brayshaw] didn't want me to consider selling the shares – and that was the end of it, as far as I was concerned,' Ansett said.
'My support was for North Melbourne, so I just tore them up. Most others did the same, but some with small quantities may have kept them as mementos.'
The 22 years of private ownership officially ended in March 2009 and meant all Kangaroos members had an equal vote on club matters, as was the case with Victoria's nine other teams.
The 17 people who relinquished their shares became patrons of the club, while de Rauch, Magowan, Dennis Morgan, Johnstone, Good and Andrew Carter received life membership.
'The fact that we were privately owned was a real stone in the AFL's shoe,' Brayshaw said at the time. 'They made no bones of the fact that they wanted us to have the same structure as every other club in Melbourne.
'We were in a position where our relationship with City Hall was compromised … [and] we want to have a great relationship with the AFL. They were of the opinion that we needed to sort this out.'
The would-be Fitzroy merger
If key North Melbourne people had their way, the Kangaroos rather than Brisbane would have merged with embattled Fitzroy in 1996.
Early that year at Leonda By The Yarra in Hawthorn, the AFL presented each club with a package of incentives to convince them to merge with Fitzroy, from extra players to fixture perks and a $6 million bounty to cover the Lions' $2.3 million debt and help the merger succeed.
Miller, North's chief executive at the time, went to the club's board with the proposal because the Roos had continued to struggle financially despite being an on-field powerhouse, led by Wayne Carey and coach Denis Pagan.
'Even though we were a very good side, it was an era where equalisation kind of wasn't around, and we still had a lot of financial problems,' Miller said.
'We decided as a board, 'We can do this', and we met with the Fitzroy board, and did all the things you expect behind the scenes … and then, of course, we kept winning, we were on top of the ladder, and the AFL realised, 'Hang on a minute, we're getting pushback here from what we've offered – will you take less?'
'I said, 'No, we're not taking less, we've got it in writing'.'
De Rauch, too, worked on the would-be merger with the AFL's then legal adviser and future Collingwood president Jeff Browne. The new club would have been called North Fitzroy Kangaroos, but opposition teams feared they would become a 'super club'.
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The Roos refused to budge from their stance of not accepting less when clubs met again that year at Punt Road – but by then, the league was negotiating for Fitzroy to instead merge with Brisbane Bears.
In de Rauch's words, North Melbourne's rivals 'sabotaged' the concept. The other 14 clubs voted emphatically against the North-Fitzroy merger.
'Brisbane and Sydney were the two teams the AFL needed to work for the expansion of the competition, and I had no issue with that,' Miller said.
'But you can't offer something, then renege on it and blame us, so we were not going to change. The AFL gave the merger to Brisbane, and we won the premiership that year.
'We beat Geelong the next day by 60 points, and then we beat the two AFL sides – Brisbane and Sydney – in the preliminary final and grand final. We had to start looking for alternatives [to solve our financial issues], which was selling games interstate.'
The Kangaroos won another premiership, which remains their most recent (at least in the men's competition), in 1999.
The celebrity Shinboners
There is no higher-profile North Melbourne supporter than former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting, who was the club's No.1 ticketholder at the height of his legendary career.
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Ponting was often on international tours throughout football seasons, and watching games was not as accessible then as it is now – but that did not stop him.
He would organise to receive match videos before graduating, as technology improved, to friends ringing him then placing their phone against a radio to hear the commentary. That is how Ponting followed the Roos' 1999 grand final triumph.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ponting has been overseas with coaching and other commitments for most of every football season, but he watches every game on the AFL website.
Ponting went into business with North Melbourne premiership stars Glenn Archer and Anthony Stevens, while Ponting Wines became the Kangaroos' official wine partner last year.
'During my playing years, I was very lucky to be in and around our great sides of the '90s. Many of the players became close friends, and we have stayed in regular contact,' Ponting told this masthead. 'I was like a kid in a lolly shop back then.'
Ponting has spoken to several iterations of North Melbourne playing groups, and worked with the club on charitable initiatives via the Ponting Foundation, including a Twenty20 game between the Kangaroos and Hawthorn in Launceston in 2017.
They raised more than $300,000 for childhood cancer support in Tasmania that day, which is also remembered for a Peter Siddle bouncer that hit Alastair Clarkson on the helmet.
Cricket ties run deep at North. Siddle is another passionate supporter, along with the Marsh brothers – Mitch and Shaun – who caught up with the players and coaches during their current trip to Western Australia.
The Kangaroos twice asked Ponting to join the club's board, but he reluctantly said no because of his overseas commitments.
They also offered him a semi-executive football department role after he retired as a player and relocated from Sydney to Melbourne, but the timing was not right, a 'flattered' Ponting said.
North Melbourne's other celebrity supporters include actors Sigrid Thornton and Lisa McCune, singer Tim Rogers, leading horse trainer Lee Freedman, comedians Greg Fleet and Trevor Marmalade, Melbourne Storm star Ryan Papenhuyzen, tennis player Wayne Arthurs and basketballer Chris Goulding.
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The club's ex-media boss, Heath O'Loughlin, attempted in 2009 to confirm rumours that supermodel Elle Macpherson was a North Melbourne supporter.
'I managed to hunt down Elle's email address through a friend at a talent agency who knew her brother,' O'Loughlin said, laughing.
'I almost fainted when she wrote back. It was something like, 'Oh, bless – thank you for checking. Unfortunately, I am not [a Kangaroos fan]. It's something that's always followed me around, but thank you for checking'.'