What about a whole lap, Buddy?

Buddy was back amongst the Hawthorn fold yesterday and it was all a bit emotional. You just had to be in the right two bays to enjoy it.

It was so good to see him. As we watch the 2024 Hawks collapse into the ladder’s dark basement, and fans worry about Tasmania’s imminent arrival and draft picks dwindling and rebuilds imploding, it was just very good to see him. The walk, the carriage, the confidence. Buddy Franklin is a sublime football body of work in a sublime football body. I remember there was a day in about 2013, it was towards the end of his Hawthorn time, and I saw him walking down Bridge Road in a white singlet and jeans. It was a sighting ‘in the wild’ as it were. He sauntered past, chest and arms, sunglasses and muscle, something approaching a perfect human specimen. I swung my head around and just stared shamelessly, like I’d been cast in a hammy Big M or Razzamatazz commercial in the late 70s. Then I glanced further afield and we were all staring, men and women alike, all of us mortal humans, pausing on a Richmond footpath to allow one of gods of Mount Olympus to make his way through.

One of the reasons for Buddy’s aura is that he never showed that he wanted or needed our attention. He glided above the clamour, saying as little as he could to the wider world. I never had the sense that he was shy. I think there’s a swagger to Buddy, a twinkle in his eye as he gave those same, turgidly uninteresting media answers on the rare occasions he could be dragged towards a microphone. My sense was always that if Buddy let the footy world in, beyond the walls of the football club, a precedent would be set, and the squeeze for more and more oxygen out of the era’s most compelling star would become unbearable.

So he set boundaries. Said very little. And for mine, it was all quite understandable. I remember my friend Cam said on the day of his retirement, ‘has there ever been a bigger sporting star in Australian history we’ve known less about?’

With all that mind, and knowing he knocked back being a part of the grand final motorcade last year, I was pleased that he agreed to this idea of a farewell in front of the fans of the two clubs for whom he played 354 games and kicked 1068 goals. (What would he have kicked in the 80s and 90s? Surely it translates north of 1500 goals, given the predominance of team defense, clogged leading channels and outnumbers? I reckon Tom Hawkins would also have kicked 1000 goals in any earlier era, and he’s a substantial 280 goals behind Buddy, in just four fewer games).

It was good to see him, but he didn’t drop character yesterday. He was sleek and stylish in his overcoat. He gave polite, predictable answers in his Q & A. And then he embarked upon his ‘lap’, waving to the tens of thousands who began to rise as one.

He walked about 75 metres, waved to two ecstatic bays, then walked back and disappeared. If you were behind either sets of goals, or in the Shane Warne Stand, tough luck. Given his appearance had been billed, and tickets were sold on the back of it, would a full lap have killed him? I don’t know for sure, but it seems impossible that Hawthorn, Sydney or the AFL wouldn’t have offered him a car. Or he could have just walked the perimeter.

Instead he did the cool Buddy thing, again, by downplaying and minimising. A farewell lap that was a farewell stroll of 100 metres. We won’t complain too much in the end, only because we’re used to it by now, and beggars can’t be choosers, and it’s Buddy.

Still it’s a shame. Our champions give a lot to the game, but the game gives them a great deal too. We supporters could have hardly have loved him more.

Do a whole lap, Buddy.

I wrote a foreword for the 2009 Footy Almaanc about Buddy Franklin. It was called ‘Buddy Makes me Laugh’ and I’ll reprint full text below for paid subscribers.

2009 The Footy Almanac cover image by Nick Howson

Buddy makes me laugh

DERMOTT APPARENTLY organised an intervention. The Hawk No. 23 guernsey, which has in its lineage a league leading goalkicker, a dual premiership captain and a centre half-forward who played 189 games, about 3 per cent of which were winning Grand Finals, was just not attracting the right yearlings.

“No offence to Simon Crawshay,” Dermott said at a Grand Final eve event, but then didn’t say any more, which might have led Crawshay to take some offence. “No offence to Michael Collica or Justin Crawford either.”

Eventually, the only AFL player to ever kick eleven goals wearing a life-saving vest said his piece to the coaching staff.

“Any chance of giving the 23 a bit of quality? Have you got one for me?”