Living History

Barry Price: Comparing Australian Football in the 70s to the new millennium

Australian football in the 1970s underwent significant change, but that was nothing compared to the full professionalism of the late 90s and 2000s. I played in the famous Grand Final of 1970, a record crowd of 121,000 plus watched stunned as my team Collingwood let slip a half time lead of 44 points to suffer a disappointing 10 point loss. It was an age of innocence in Australia, although the Vietnam War and continued migration was drawing us abruptly from our relatively safe isolation.

In 1970, we began pre season training in late January, trained 2 nights a week in season, enjoyed companionship on and off the field, the latter usually involving a few convivial drinks and party pies. Little or no attention was given to sports science and dietary considerations. We still ate a steak 2 -3 hours before a game. But, we still felt the pain of that loss, many of us still to this day.

In 1979, the ethos was to train hard, often recklessly, and sports science was in its infancy. Often we just trained hard because we thought that was best, with little thought of recovery or rehabilitation from injury. Training involved weights, boxing and numerous sprint repetitions and endurance runs. It was not unusual to do 25 x 200metre sprints or 10 x 400’s. We even started pre Christmas. We were told that success was hard earned and it was!

Contrast this with 2007, where AFL players are fully professional and have the ability to set themselves up for life beyond football. Collingwood is now fully entrenched at the Lexcus Centre, a state of the art training facility within walking distance of the much loved MCG. This facility has a weights/boxing gym, indoor training area for set plays etc, an altitude training room, a pool, ice recovery baths, private eating and relaxation areas for players, a ratio of 1 coach to 6 players with other specialized experts on hand, and including appropriate diets for individual players to maximize performance and recovery.

These modern players liaise electronically and in person with coaches on a daily basis providing mutual information from a myriad of experts from data following regular blood and urine tests. They begin pre season training in late October, some never really stop, often doing 10 sessions per week prior to the commencement of pre season matches in February.

Sports science and my beloved game of Australian have come a long, and long may it flourish.

Barry Price, Melbourne, Victoria

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