Peter ‘Spida’ Everitt’s career spanned 16 seasons, three clubs and many headlines. We caught up with the big fellow back visiting his home town.

RHYS: You seem to have a lot on your plate these days with the TV show and other things.
EVERITT: Over the last couple of weeks I did the Variety Club bash. It’s good fun. We were dressed as sheep during the whole week. I don’t get down to Melbourne that much. When we do the caravan and camping show – The Great Australian Doorstep, which started on September 4 – I come down. It shows families how they can travel. We do a radio show up in Queensland that runs in conjunction with it. My daughters are 8,10 and 16 so they fly up to Queensland and see us.

RHYS: Do you still have a travel company?
EVERITT: We started leasing a hotel in Bali, but then the bombs went off. It’s probably worth looking at something like that again, but I’d prefer to take my show over to New Zealand. My wife is from New Zealand. I love my travel.

RHYS: And the TV show?
EVERITT: Our caravan and camping show is on 7TWO on Saturdays at 5pm, starting September 4.

RHYS: People said that with all the things you’ve done to your hair with dreadlocks and different colours that it would fall out by the time you were 35. It looks OK and still growing well.
EVERITT: It’s grey. I remember when Caitlyn, who is 16 now, went to school for her first day, I had green hair. Then I had the dreadlocks and they went white and virtually broke off. With TV if you keep it cut short at the same length and same greyness so you can film any episode in any order.

RHYS: Of all your coaches, who did you get on with the best?
EVERITT: I reckon there’s two – Stan Alves. Even though we had a sort of love-hate relationship, I’d still love sitting down and talking to him today. If there were any issues later in my footy career I’d ask Alvesy. He was a little bit ahead of his time. And Roosy – I like the way Paul Roos coaches because he has such a good relationship with his players. You can see it when you walk in there and the respect they show each other. I was only there for two years; it would have been nice to get three or four years. Roosy was very approachable and would pick you up from the airport, and still today he’ll walk up and say g’day. He always makes the effort to ask how the family is and remembers all their names.

RHYS: And who could you never get on an even footing with? Grant Thomas?
EVERITT: It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with Thomo, it was just that I thought he couldn’t coach. The same with Blighty – I thought he wasn’t really interested at the time. I would never be able to get along with Alastair Clarkson. It’s more personalities and the people we are. With Thomo, I could go and have a beer with him but I couldn’t be coached by Thomo.

RHYS: Now that you’ve been out of footy for a couple of years and living in Queensland, do you retain many close friends from your footy days?
EVERITT: Obviously I speak to Milney (Stephen Milne) a fair bit. And if I’ve ever got a function where they ask me to bring someone, I take Milney because he is such good value. After last year’s Grand Final there were a couple of functions and people would ask about that time his foot hit the ground when he was having a shot at goal. I still see Steven Sziller a fair bit, and I usually park the motor home on his front lawn for a couple of nights. The sad thing is that when I go and see him, I have to cancel a couple of days! I see Kris Barlow from Hawthorn and Nick Davis.
RHYS: What is Nick Davis doing now?
EVERITT: He’s working for the Swans. They have been able to promote a lot of guys like that. I host their chairman’s lunch every home game and interview one of their coaches. Nick has gone into one of their academies as a skills coach – obviously not as a discipline coach.

RHYS: Back in 1993 you had a big first game at Geelong and the Saints had big hopes for you. People say ruckmen don’t mature for a while. Was that the case with you?
EVERITT: I played 13 games in 1993. For years and years I’ve thought that I kicked a goal with my first kick but someone bought me the DVD this year and I watched it and it was a grubber kick out of bounds! I didn’t play at a consistent level. In 1995, I was voted No.49 or 50 out of a 50-man list under Ray McLean’s program. In 1993 I had nearly been dropped from the seconds. We had an injury and I got back in then played a couple of games at the end of the season.

RHYS: A couple of weeks later was the famous win at Collingwood where Nicky Winmar lifted his jumper. What are your recollections of that day?
EVERITT: I remember Cuz doing it and then, when we walked off, I remember getting things thrown at us, getting spat on. You never forget walking off that ground (Victoria Park).That was the only game I took a mark that got on one of those Cazaly cards. It was over Gary Pert, but I dropped it! It was a significant time for Nicky and probably came to light six years ago when I was done for racial vilification myself. In my first training run, I was with Jimmy Krakouer. As we ran along he said “I’ll tell you if I’m going left or right because you’ll never keep up with me,” and he was right. The photo in the paper after that day in 1993 showed how proud Winmar was. He was a great fella.

RHYS: St Kilda has a long history of super-star individuals who had their own way of doing things. Do you think in your younger days that other clubs would have handled you differently?
EVERITT: You never know until you go to other clubs to find out. You go to Hawthorn and it’s a different era, and at Sydney it’s totally different. Would we be able to play today? Fev’s finding it hard because of the way footy is. I don’t think any club would have done things different. St Kilda had the trait of people thinking they were the party club. Yet through the mid 1990s we would train as hard as anyone else, and we were nearly as successful as anyone else. We’d go out in groups of two or three and some clubs were out in groups of 30, like North Melbourne. I don’t think the club could consistently control those individuals and I don’t think at the top they were strong enough. Through the early 1990s, when they started to get it right through Andrew Plympton and Trotty (Stuart Trott) they got into line. But then they left and the top started to collapse again. You notice that the hierarchy at Sydney and Geelong is so strong. But saying that, I was always the first at training and the last to leave.

RHYS: People don’t see that, though, you get tarred with a reputation.
EVERITT: Sometimes you make that perception yourself because that’s the person you want people to think you are. Even though you are not. The club probably couldn’t understand it and thought I had some off-field issues but it wasn’t right.

RHYS: You were also a good organiser in the club.
EVERITT: One thing I am proud of is that I wrote back to all the kids who wrote to me. You run into them now and they are in their late teens or are parents and they say: “I remember when you wrote to me.”

RHYS: When Puma gave out 5000 Spider headbands you were getting huge media exposure. Did some people at the club try to rein that in?
EVERITT: They didn’t at all. There was such a controversy with the AFL because it wasn’t AFL endorsed – we gave them away across the road at the Mulgrave Country Club. We looked at it as a bit of fun and a gimmick promotion for Puma, who had been a long-time sponsor. Hesh (manager Robert Hession) has still got one in its packet.

RHYS: The Leading Teams philosophy has come under fire lately through the Jason Akermanis situation. St Kilda was one of the first clubs to use it and I believe you were pretty shocked when you saw how others rated you.
EVERITT: I agree with Jason a little, but not in other ways. It has its place at a footy club. It’s about the older guys being judged. All of us went on and played 200 games and I think that was part of the journey. As a young kid it is definitely worthwhile. As an older player it can become a bore. You never judge Brett Kirk, Brad Johnson and Scott West because they are going to do everything right. Some of the young kids need a rev-up and Jesse White got one a couple of years ago. Suddenly Barry Hall leaves and he can step in and go to full forward. If you are doing it every day, it’s a waste of time. Every couple of weeks is OK. If you are going to sit around for another hour and a half for a meeting, you are going to get nothing out of it as an elder statesmen, but you have to try not to show them. I used to be like Jason and showed it –“Oh shit here, we go again”. But you have just got to embrace it. Sometimes the older blokes don’t enjoy it but it’s something you have to do.

RHYS: Is it justified? Do you feel sorry for Jason?
EVERITT: I think it is justified. But the Swans have been doing it for years – they did it to me and they did it to Barry Hall before he left. So for the Bulldogs, why not do it for Jason too? I think as a football club you don’t want your leaders being the only ones asking the questions. If it’s in front of everyone, you’ve got nowhere to hide and you can’t tell a little group something different to what you’ve told everyone else.

RHYS: Are we getting players too much to be a Craig Bradley or Robert Harvey as an ideal. It’s not going to suit everyone.
EVERITT: It is sad because you are taking away the individuals and fun from the game. When I do the radio, I’d never get a player on (to interview) – the same with the NRL – because you know exactly what you will get. You may as well get a player who has been out for a couple of years. The only way they can express themselves these days is like Dane Swan and Dayne Beams through body art and hair colour. I think in every sport there is a place for individuals, and the more people can express themselves the more comfortable they are going to be. Go back through Aker, myself, Jacko, even Crackers Keenan – when they are doing that they are playing their best footy. When they are restricted, they become more reserved.

RHYS: Was there ever a time when your media profile and involvement had a negative effect on your footy?
EVERITT: I think towards the end during the Grant Thomas time when you were doing The Footy Show, a couple of public speaking things, clubs were starting to ask players whether they preferred to train in the morning or the afternoon, because I knew exactly what I was going to be doing. I’d say “let’s train in the morning” and guys were like sheep and said “yeah, yeah, OK let’s train in the morning”. You did it to suit yourself and because I didn’t get along with Grant to start with, I began to put more energy towards that. When I went to Hawthorn I said I’d quit the whole lot. I used to enjoy The Footy Show, but The Footy Show changed a bit – they’d be putting a heap of stats in front of you. If you don’t know your footy well enough, then don’t go on there.

RHYS: Obviously you were older when you were at Hawthorn and Sydney, but how did they differ from St Kilda in the way they handled your media involvement?
EVERITT: They didn’t say no. I left St Kilda and wanted to change that perception of me, move on and play football. You do that but at the same time whenever a club has a function and they want someone to get up and talk, they get you up there because you have a bit of character and can crack a gag and relax the whole room. A lot of guys in Sydney weren’t used to public speaking.

RHYS: You were an off-field leader in terms of organising functions and activities. But would you have found captaincy too much of a restraint?
EVERITT: I think because of the person I am, I don’t think it would have ever worked. I was in the leadership groups. At Hawthorn, Buddy Franklin was only able to go out with a leader. Franko went a bit far at times. Franko would only ring me to go out with me! It was good to have that relationship but you think as a club figurehead something could have happened. At St Kilda, I spoke to Andrew Plympton and the board, and never had a real close relationship so they never knew exactly what sort of path you were taking.

RHYS: Early in 1997, you were on the verge of getting dropped but you had a talk with Stan Alves and asked why you hadn’t been playing in the ruck.
EVERITT: Alves had been around a few years and I’d played up forward. We went away in 1996 and they asked me to put on a bit of weight, but I put on the wrong sort of weight and came back with skinfolds of 112. It’s a long way back from there to get back to 50. I just ate dim sims and chips! I never really got myself up and running and fit enough, Stan said I had to be a little bit stronger and harder, and Lazar Vidovic and others were ahead of me.

RHYS: You were crunched by Darryl White in the first week of the 1997 finals. Did you realise immediately that you were in a lot of trouble?
EVERITT: A heavy shoulder from somebody built like a beanpole! I knew I’d broken the collarbone – there’s no doubt about that. I remember Mick Vladiveloo, the physio, coming out and saying he’d have a look at it. I said you don’t have to, I can tell you it’s no good. You don’t think of the whole Grand Final thing when you are 23 or 24. We had a couple of OK years and the feeling was that we were going to be around the mark for a few years yet. You don’t make much of it. I trained the last training session, but realistically it was only three or four weeks after I had done it and I would have been against Shauny Rehn, the All-Australian ruckman. I did all the club functions and thought there could be another year, you don’t think that in 16 years of football you’d have that one chance. If I had my time again I would chase anyone to staple it – pin it.

RHYS: OF course St Kilda barrackers think that if you had played in that 1997 Grand Final, the Saints would have won.
EVERITT: There’s no doubt about that!

RHYS: Have you thought about that over the years?
EVERITT: I look at it as history. On that day we had 22 guys out there versus 22 guys, and you can’t change the side. We had Lazar Vidovic out and Joel Smith had done a knee earlier. The next final we played the Kangaroos and Brett Cook, who came in for me, tackled Corey McKernan and dislocated his shoulder and we won by a few goals. If Brett Cook didn’t tackle him, Corey McKernan would have kept on playing and they might have won the game.

RHYS: In 1998, you landed in trouble for racially abusing Scott Chisholm. You received a $20,000 fine, a self-imposed four-match suspension, a racial awareness training program and loss of match payments. It was huge.
EVERITT: The hardest thing about that was that we went to the tribunal and didn’t know what we were going to get. We came out and (AFL football boss) Ian Collins was doing the speeches. I’d taken the four weeks, a week on the indigenous program and learned a lot. I didn’t know about the $20,000 fine until the cameras were turned on and Collo said “… and a $20,000 fine”. As much as I regretted what I said, it was a big learning experience for me. On my travels running around, I ran into Scotty’s mum when I was up at Darwin and watched the footy with them.

RHYS: How did that come about?
EVERITT: I was nervous. I was just at the footy and they said Scotty Chisholm’s mum is over there. I said I wouldn’t mind saying hello if she didn’t mind. It was good and his sisters got a couple of things signed. It was good. Once when I was in the Northern Territory with my wife, four indigenous guys just rocked up on the footpath, and I thought I was in trouble. But they just wanted to give me a hug. For that 10 seconds you reflect back to that time, and you are not quite sure, Now I’ve travelled through countless communities, the Tiwi Islands, and it’s been great.

RHYS: The previous year you had a run-in with Michael Long. What happened there?
EVERITT: For Longie to grab my throat there was no doubt banter between us, but what was exactly said I can’t remember. I do remember the Scotty Chisholm one and he was not going to do a lot about it until Longy spoke to him on the Monday and that was reflecting the 12 months prior.

RHYS: Was that the turning point in the way Aboriginal players were accepted on the footy ground?
EVERITT: I think Winmar started it, but then there was Monky (Damian Monkhorst) and Michael Long. Every year there is something and I think Dipper’s recent penalty was a bit hard and so was (the reaction to) Mal Brown’s. Theirs is different to mine which was on-field issues and I believe the AFL took the right step in that. There’s 12-15 per cent of players who are indigenous, which is great. There’s been some mediation which people don’t even know about, with Brownlow medallists, and that’s great. The public don’t know that the AFL is still working really hard on the issue. It’s great that everyone is heading in the right direction.

RHYS: In 1999 there was a famous game at Waverley where St Kilda was miles in front of Hawthorn early then lost the game. You were criticised for giving away a couple of crucial 50-metre penalties. Did that sour your relationship with Tim Watson?
EVERITT: Yeah, it was a tough day. We were 50 points up and gave away two 50s. The relationship was stretched from there. The hardest thing was that we never won a third quarter for the rest of the year. Sides would come out after half time and think we were vulnerable. Tim would warn us at half time, then it just happened. I don’t think we ever had a great player relationship anyway. After that we had a bit of a run-in about discipline and where you are at with your footy. I might have given away one 50 but I never gave away two. I kind of toned things down after that.

RHYS: Looking at the James Hird situation now, do you think the Watson exercise showed that you need an apprenticeship as a coach?
EVERITT: No doubt. You need that bit of experience. But when you get to a different club, you have four assistant coaches wanting to eventually coach.

RHYS: I suppose Grant Thomas never came through that system either.
EVERITT: But he had coached at Warrnambool. Thomo was running the whole lot so he was never going to be sacked because he was football manager, media manager, the lot. Tim brought a lot to the footy club. But he wanted to do things like media training for the young guys – the main thing is winning games.

RHYS: Tell us about the time when you wanted the team to put bets on a West Coast game at the end of 1999. I believe Nathan Burke wouldn’t let you.
EVERITT: We were playing West Coast in Perth in the last game of the season under Timmy Watson. We were $4.30, and $21 for over 39 points. I said if everyone puts in $100 – $80 head to head and $20 for over 39 points – we would put the bet on. We had players, officials who were in. We had the bloke ready to run down and put it on. Nathan Burke had cracked the shits and said you shouldn’t have to bet on yourselves to win. Everyone pulled out and we had to give the money back. But five of us got on and we won by 43 points. The five of us were pumped! At the “wake” after the game the five of us were celebrating. Guys were filthy on Burkey! I hate when people get excited when they are not winning games during the year and people celebrate winning the last game as if it’s a Grand Final. I hate that because they should have done that in Round 1, 2 and 3. But the five of us couldn’t hide how excited we were.

RHYS: The Malcolm Blight time at St Kilda was an amazing piece of history. You were in the group of players that went to Queensland to convince him to come. Tell us about that whole thing.
EVERITT: We got up there and (CEO) Brian Waldron didn’t want us to have a beer while we were waiting for the phone call to go to the Chinese restaurant at Jupiters and get Blighty as coach. Hally and I ordered one and he went nuts. When we walked in, the first thing Blighty said was take off your ties and get some beers. We had quite a few … Hally let the crayfish out in the restaurant that night! We sat at a circular table and there was Blighty, Rod Butterss, Thomo, Ron Joseph and us players. Burkey was holding the contract and and they were pushing him to get Blighty to sign it but Burkey was saying “No way” (because Blight had had a few drinks). The hardest thing during the Blight era was when we had a dinner after the game, he, Wally and Thomo would be sitting in the corner having a few wines and a few darts and wouldn’t talk to the players at all to have a relationship.

RHYS: People say Thomo had his eye on the job from the start.
EVERITT: Well, look at the type of person Thomo is. He liked to do the contracts, and do everything. He always wanted to coach. He was saying let’s get Blighty, and if it did work, well he was going to be under Blighty, but if not, he knew he would be next in line.

RHYS: Earlier this year when the Melbourne Storm controversy broke there were some questions over your 2002 deal at St Kilda because Waldron was CEO at the time. Has anyone from the AFL questioned you about that?
EVERITT: We rang them and they just brushed it off. What happened was, I finished at St Kilda in 2002. In 2003, even though I went to Hawthorn, I didn’t have to play anywhere because I still had a contract. No-one knew that contract wasn’t submitted anywhere, yet St Kilda still had to pay me a sum of money. They never paid it – I only received a small part of it. It hadn’t been submitted to the AFL.

RHYS: If the AFL questioned you about that, you come across as the Fraser Brown type who would tell them to mind their own business.
EVERITT: We are not pursuing it or anything. When all the Storm stuff happened, and you look at my stuff, you think there are some similar things there. I didn’t get a boat or get a car or anything like that. Everyone has a balloon contract, and then when you leave and the balloon isn’t awarded to you, the club says no, we never did a deal with you. That was in 2002 and Wally’s been able to orchestrate that for a few years after that. I actually don’t think Wally’s smart enough by himself to be able to do it.

RHYS At the end of 2002, you were traded to Hawthorn. The public perception was that you were running your own race and Thomas was fed up with you. How much of that was true?
EVERITT: I’ve said about putting your hand up for training times. I’d put my hand up and other guys would follow. I never missed training and I did everything. I won the best and fairest in 2001. I tried to go to Collingwood in 2001 – you want to go for a reason and they wouldn’t let me go. You are still going to prepare yourself to play but the coach is always going to look at you differently. If you could join the AFL and the NRL drafting systems together, we could have a good system.

RHYS: Was it disappointing because you had been at St Kilda a long time, and your final year there qualified you for life membership?
EVERITT: I think I was fortunate not to have gone to Collingwood for that year. To be a life member of the club that you love and you used to catch a train to, as a kid, probably one of my proudest moments was getting my life membership. It was at an AGM in December and I’d only signed for Hawthorn in October and just left. But still people thanked me and embraced me. Andrew Plympton awarded it to me. When I went back to Harves’ testimonial a couple of years ago, that was the first time I’d been back after quite a few years. I had a great night, and caught up with some great people. It was hard but unfortunately that’s footy. The perception the whole footy world had of me was that I had to move. I look back now and I realise I had to change something. I ended up playing 291 games and see someone like Max Bailey who has had three knee reconstructions at 21. I know which career I’d rather have.

RHYS: It ended badly at St Kilda. And at Hawthorn there was some kerfuffle over a raffle.
EVERITT: With the Hawthorn thing, they had a raffle. I didn’t organise it – Campbell Brown did and I drew out the tickets. Hodgey got third and someone else came second, and Hesh (my manager) won it. Then they said it was rigged! I don’t know how the hell you could rig it – there were 200 people there. It was disappointing because it left a bit of ill-feeling. They knew I was going to leave at the end of the year because I had been going to leave in 2005. The funny thing is that I always buy raffle tickets wherever I go. Gee, I’ve won some raffles since. I had a falling out with some players but there’s no way known I would do something like that.

RHYS: Hawthorn offered you a fresh start, and you became acknowledged as one of the premier tap ruckmen in the competition, winning All-Australian selection in 2005. Was that the time you were happiest with your football?
EVERITT: I enjoyed Hawthorn when I was there, but the mid 1990s was the best era. The camaraderie between players, a couple of finals appearances and being able to go up in the social club after the game for a few beers. In ’05 I played some of my best footy and having Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge around made it easy. Clarko wanted to head with youth, so 2005 was probably my best form but not the most fun.

RHYS: In September 2006, it was announced you would not be playing for the Hawks in 2007. You had requested a two-year contract, but Hawthorn was prepared to offer only one.
EVERITT: When you are coming off an All-Australian year you reckon you’ll get two years. I remember Jason Dunstall saying “When do you think your money should be coming down?” and I said, “When I start playing shit.” I was strong on that.

RHYS: In your time in football the whole game changed dramatically – so much that old-timers look at the game and see it as foreign to them.
EVERITT: I reckon that a lot of players who finish now with 300 games need to be rewarded. When we started in the 1990s you could still go out during the week and enjoy yourself. You did your training on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and you’d have your VHS tape to look at the game. These days you have to know the opposition inside out. You have to keep rejuvenating yourself and since about 1998 you would have to cut something out of your life more and more each year. If footy is not the No.1 thing for you, then you won’t last.

RHYS: I finished in 1992 and you came in the next year. Even then I was starting to see there wasn’t the enjoyment.
EVERITT: You come out of school and you are playing AFL football. That’s what is good about playing QAFL now. After the game they bring a can in and I think, right, I’ll do my ice-bath now, if I’ve got a can! That’s something we never experienced. My brother played in the pre-season grand final for the Bulldogs and they never even had a drink after the game. Like I said, every year you have to start sacrificing more, and guys should be applauded for that.

RHYS: Talking about your brother, do you give him much advice?
EVERITT: My main advice was that if Rocket doesn’t like you, he won’t play you. The more you are around the footy club, the more they see you. I said, make sure you are first at training and last to leave. He’s got all the attributes. It’s always going to be hard when you are No. 18 to 22. They’ve got a good side but I hope he can consolidate the spot.

– DAVID RHYS-JONES