The AFL Coaches Association recently reached a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ about spying on other clubs, namely that you are allowed to spy ... unless you get caught. Now, not getting caught is kind of what spying is all about, a point famous WWI spook, exotic dancer and courtesan Mata Hari knew all about. She got caught spying for Germany in 1917 and was executed, but not before using her powers of seduction to extract vital secrets from powerful men – a tactic club spies have yet to employ, so far as we know.
2. Greta Garbo
If club scouts looked anything like the Swedish femme fatale, who famously played Mata Hari in the 1931 film, there is every chance the powerful men of AFL would indeed ‘vont to be alone’ with her to divulge the make-up of the half-forward line, or anything else for that matter. Garbo, who died on the same day her beloved North Melbourne fixed up the Lions at Carrara (15 April 1990), actually began her working life in a barber shop . . . but not the Geelong establishment favoured by Chapman, Ablett, Johnson et al.
3. The man from Ironbark
Banjo Patterson’s Man from Ironbark had an amusing story to tell after his first, and last, visit to a barber shop. The barber – small and flash and bubbling with innocent mischief – decided to play the side-splittingly funny practical joke of pretending to cut his client’s throat! Laugh, he nearly choked! Banjo’s big man would be zoned to western Sydney if he was around today. And, judging by the state in which he left the barber shop (not to mention one unfortunate gilded youth), would be a handful for opposition ruckmen.
4. John Ironmonger
One opposition ruckman who would not have been intimidated, though, is John Ironmonger. The former Swan and Lion was a 200cm giant with a beard that would have seen him elected mayor in Ironbark. Indeed, Ironmonger summoned the spirit of the famous shearer one day at Princes Park when he mistook Graham Wright for a gilded youth and pile drove him into the ground with a ferocity Banjo’s hero would have been proud of.
5. Hayden Ballantyne
Like Ironmonger, Ballantyne is a Sandover Medallist. Unlike Ironmonger, Ballantyne is not in possession of a jaw pelicans could nest inside of. The speedy forward was picked up by Freo in the 2008 draft, but if he thought he would be the only draftee with a first name sounding like a last name and a last name sounding like a thing, he had another Ironmonger coming.
6. Steele Sidebottom
A 2008 draftee like Ballantyne, Sidebottom – a former Murray Bushranger, no less – can grow a mean beard. Which can be a useful disguise for spies.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
