AS OUR thoughts turn to the summer game, many St Kilda fans will be casually mentioning, as they have done for more than 20 years, the club’s link to Australia’s greatest bowler.
It is part of St Kilda folklore that Shane Warne was a handy Under 19s footballer in the late 1980s before turning his focus to cricket.
With his bleached blond hair and stocky frame, Warne held down a position as the Saints’ full-forward in an Under 19s side that included Robert Harvey as well as other players who went on to play senior football such as Gordon Fode and Brett Bowey.
A broken ankle to reigning Brownlow and Coleman medallist Tony Lockett mid-way through 1988 resulted in the Saints’ season going from bad to worse and the club was headed for its fifth wooden spoon of the decade.
Coach Darrel Baldock took a youth-oriented approach at the selection table and Harvey, Fode and Bowey all made their senior debuts. Warne was not considered ready for senior football but was elevated to the reserves for one senior game.
After booting seven goals in a match for the Under 19s, reserves coach Gary Colling elevated Warne to his team to take on Carlton.
The Blues had plenty of depth, having won the previous year’s senior and reserves premierships. There was no easing into things for Warne, who struggled to keep up with the extra demands of playing at a higher level.
John Beveridge was the Saints’ development officer at the time and recalled Warne’s only reserves game more than 24 years ago.
“I can’t quite remember who his opponent was, but I think it was David Kernahan who had about four bounces down the wing and kicked a goal,” Beveridge told saints.com.au.
“Meanwhile Warnie was still around the goal square in what turned out to be his one and only reserves game.”
The youngster from Mentone Grammar in bayside Melbourne was delisted at the end of the year and turned all his focus to cricket. But if the 1988 football season had panned out slightly differently, the world may never have known Shane Warne – cricket legend.
“He had some ability, Warnie. He had lovely hands and he could kick it well,” Beveridge said.
Beveridge has worked for decades in identifying football talent and is still with the Saints as a recruiting advisor.
He says Warne’s strengths as a footballer were evident in his cricket, where he took 708 Test wickets and became universally acknowledged as one of the game’s all-time greats.
“He wasn’t gifted athletically in a speed and agility sense. He had enough football skill and I think that followed through into the way he bowled,” Beveridge said.
“He was always beautifully balanced and used whatever height he had well but we didn’t know a lot about his cricket back then.”
Beveridge remembers Warne as a well-liked member of the team, with a family who took a keen interest in football.
“He was always a popular young fellow who got on well with the other players,” he said.
“His mother Bridgette had quite a good football brain. Myself and Gary Colling were quite impressed with her knowledge and we used to bounce a few things off her.”
Despite the pain of his football career coming to an abrupt end, Warne has maintained a strong affiliation with St Kilda as his profile blossomed.
He worked as an unpaid consultant with the club in a brief cricket hiatus in 2003 and last August he pulled on a red, white and black jumper as part of a Saints’ legends game.
