“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
William Faulkner

“About 8000 more than at Windy Hill.”
Carlton great Greg Williams, when asked how many fans were at Carlton’s last grand final training session in 1999.

Anthony Koutoufides knew why the runner had come to him, early in the final quarter.

The Carlton superstar had been constrained for three quarters, marooned mainly in the back pocket, playing as defender on Steven Alessio.

He’d still found the footy 19 times, remaining in reserve – a weapon in the holster – as the Blues, on the back of Brett Ratten, Scott Camporeale, Lance Whitnall, Fraser Brown and others, had stunned Essendon to lead by four goals at half-time in this “unlosable” preliminary final.

Hundreds of Essendon fans had chosen to queue up for grand final tickets in the CBD rather than attend the game.

Now, the Blues were behind following an Essendon avalanche in the third quarter that had seemingly restored the natural order in this 1999 preliminary final. Trailing by 17 points early in the last quarter following a goal to Alessio, they needed their most gifted footballer and athlete, Koutoufides, to be unleashed on the ball.

“I felt like I was a little bit handcuffed in what I could give to the team,” Koutoufides recalled this week. “But at three-quarter-time, I was like, ‘Please just put me in’ but the call didn’t come. But in the last quarter, I had that feeling they were going to have to call for me at that stage.”

The runner duly came. “He said ‘Kouta, you’re in the middle’.”

No longer shackled in defence, roaming Kouta would produce one of the most startling quarters by an individual in a final, with 10 telling possessions – plus six marks, three interceptions, some key clearances and two goals – that would reverse Essendon’s momentum. Koutoufides would be the difference in an extraordinary final that Carlton fans of a certain age will never forget and Essendon people wish they could.

Almost 25 years has passed since Carlton’s monumental upset, by a solitary point, on a grey, bleak September Saturday, the same day when Victorian premier Jeff Kennett was swept from power in a shock of similar magnitude.

Unlike most finals – and quite a few grand finals – the ’99 prelim has endured in collective memories, its details etched into folklore. For Carlton people, it represented a kind of last hurrah before the fall; the Blues, despite winning 13 games consecutively in 2000, have not appeared in a grand final since.

Essendon would turn the failure of that afternoon into a mission, a year of atonement beginning on grand final day 1999, when Kevin Sheedy ordered his whole list to sit through the game. They stormed to the 2000 premiership, losing just once.

But neither Carlton nor Essendon would see another top-four finish from 2001 until 2023, both empires levelled by salary cap (Carlton, 2002) and drug scandals (Essendon, 2012-13) that took the leviathan clubs the best part of a decade to recover from. The 1999 prelim – and the subsequent Bomber flag – retain a hold on the respective imaginations of each club, Camelots for their faithful.

“It’s unheard of – it’s like Manchester [United] and Liverpool not performing for 25-30 years,” said Ang Christou, the running defender who played in the 1995 flag and ’99 finals, of the shared droughts. “Why has it happened?”

The ’99 prelim was treated like a premiership by the Blues, who fell well short of North Melbourne in the grand final. “We’d played our grand final, or mini-grand final, the previous week” said Christou, who watched from the bench, in wonder, as his friend Kouta “dismantled Essendon″⁣.

Matthew Lloyd’s explanation for the 1999 prelim’s enduring power was characteristically straightforward. One is that the Blues beat Essendon. Second? “It’s one of the biggest upsets in history.”

Enemies

In 1999 and then Essendon’s supreme 2000 and near miss in 2001, the Blues and Bombers were the Ali-Frazier combination, the game’s most intense, high-stakes rivalry. Carlton were Essendon’s greatest foe and vice versa, especially after the latter’s triumph in the 1993 grand final; Lloyd, who booted five goals on another champion in Stephen Silvagni in the ’99 prelim (two in the eventful final quarter), recalls an induction briefing by senior player Gary O’Donnell when Lloyd joined the Dons in the mid ’90s. “He sat us down and talked about the history of the club and his hatred of Carlton.”

Carlton’s bombastic president John Elliott had fuelled the enmity in the rooms after his Blues had beaten West Coast in the semi-final seven days earlier; in full view of the (Seven) broadcaster’s camera, Big Jack told the assembled players that Essendon had cheated in their 1993 premiership. “They were over the salary cap,” he bellowed – a statement that took considerable gall, given what was to befall the Blues in late 2002, when the wooden spooners were deprived of Brendon Goddard and Daniel Wells, effectively barred from two drafts and fined nearly a million dollars for cheating the cap, as Elliott was overthrown.

The Blues, sixth in the regular season, had been the beneficiary of a finals system – ludicrous even then – that saw them thrashed at the Gabba, yet retain a double chance and home ground advantage at the MCG v the Eagles due to the MCG deal with the AFL.

“We’re talking about a fair and equitable competition – how does that sit today?” said a chuckling Ratten, who had 24 disposals and figured in the prelim’s denouement, when Bomber hardman Dean Wallis tried – and failed – to run around Fraser Brown in attempt to launch on goal and was caught and dispossessed in Brown’s bear-like tackle.

Shock and awe

The Blues had stunned Essendon in the first half, leading 6.3 to 3.5 at quarter-time and 8.4 to Essendon’s profligate 3.10 at the main break. Whitnall cleverly got away from his opponent Paul Barnard, Aaron Hamill provided an athletic foil. Ratten, Camporeale, Brown and Justin Murphy were the prime movers from the midfield. Michael Sexton and Koutoufides were steady in defence.

“Most people thought it was going to be a landslide, like the Liberal government in Victoria,” said Seven’s caller, the late Drew Morphett, mid-first quarter, noting the swing to Carlton.

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The Blues had shown an audacious approach by deploying dour defender Glenn Manton forward, where he booted the opening goal on champion Dustin Fletcher (via a Whitnall handball) and then passed to Whitnall for the next.

Essendon had issues defensively, but still created enough chances to be much closer. “We kicked really poorly,” said Lloyd. “Including myself.”

Essendon’s third quarter was ballistic, as they took hold of the game from the middle, 1993 heroes Michael Long, Joe Misiti and Darren Bewick were alight, as they blitzed the Blues, booting 7.7 to 2.2.

The Dons needed just nine minutes to take the lead, exploding to boot six goals from just 11 forward entries. Bewick, beaten by Camporeale, prospered from Sheedy’s switching of Chris Heffernan on to Camporeale.

Koutoufides felt the Blues hadn’t exerted excessive energy defending in the third quarter rout. “I don’t think we did a lot of work. It wasn’t like we had to hustle and bustle getting that ball out. Basically, it was just watching it going over our head.”

Certainly, Kouta’s energy was conserved.

Miracle at the MCG

Silvagni had addressed the Blues at the three-quarter-time huddle, exhorting them to find a special effort. While neither Koutoufides, Ratten nor Christou can recall what was said, they remember the intervention by the full-back of the century.

Alessio’s goal seemed to confirm that the match was dusted. But that 17-point lead was cut back immediately when Brown cleverly twisted and snapped on his left. Murphy marked 70 metres from goal.
Enter Koutoufides.

“I just remember running from the wing,” said Koutoufides. “I was sprinting like I’d never sprinted before to be able to get to the ball.”

Kouta took a powerful mark over Sean Wellman and calmly slotted his first from 20 metres. The Blues were within a kick. Koutoufides was in the chain again, in the next stanza, as Matthew “Skinny” Lappin’s snap dribbled through. “Carlton is in front,” said an incredulous Sandy Roberts from the commentary booth. “Unbelievable.”

Koutoufides marks and centres to Craig Bradley, who can’t kick it from outside 50m and kicks short to Ratten, who bombs long to near the goal line, where Koutoufides takes a colossal pack mark and converts. The Blues are up by seven.

“Whether it was athletics or whether it was footy, it was always the big games where I stood up,” said Koutoufides, who would be the game’s premier player in 2000, his knee injury late that season – and Silvagni’s absence in the finals – halting any slim hope the Blues held of challenging Essendon.

Lloyd replied twice with ingenious goals on the deck, snapping from the edge of the goal square on both occasions. Essendon led again (by five points).

Koutoufides’ handoff to a fresh Matthew Hogg was marked by an elevated Hamill, whose 55-metre goal was then exceeded by Whitnall’s shot from the same distance, on an angle with four minutes and 15 seconds left. “You’d want to be on the Blues now,” yelled Morphett.

You would, but the final four minutes were predominantly Essendon’s. First-year player Mark Johnson marks and converts, with just over two minutes on the clock.

Two fateful moments of the last two minutes are recalled by participants. First is Mark Mercuri’s snap as he gathered a spilt marking contest as the Bombers surged forward. With one minute left, Mercuri’s right-foot snap went wide.

Koutoufides, an admirer of Mercuri’s, observed that the skilful Bomber would convert “99 times out of 100” but the replay suggests Mercuri was under serious heat.

The Blues were clinging to a one-point lead.

Unable to clear it from the kick-in, Dean Rice scrambles a rushed kick into the middle, which is taken by Wallis, who is well inside the square. Rather than kick immediately, Wallis gambles by taking Brown on, who reads his hips and takes Sheedy’s disciple down.

Murphy swoops (there is no holding the ball free) – no one would have heard whistle given the noise in any case – and scoots clear, taking a bounce to find Ratten, who chips back to Murphy, 55 metres out from Carlton’s goal.
Murphy throws the ball into the air as the siren sounds.

Carlton can’t believe it, either.

“The Bombers were stunned,” said Christou. “We were like, ‘What the hell just happened?’”

Essendon’s silver lining playbook

Sheedy had the club purchase 40-odd grand final tickets for the Essendon players, who sat through the game, including James Hird and Scott Lucas, who had missed the game (and most of the season in Hird’s case).

During the last quarter, when North were well safely ahead of the Blues, Sheedy ushered his men out of the MCG and up to Geppetto’s, a restaurant near the Pullman, which was then the Hilton, where his assistant Robert Shaw had prepared dossiers on the four teams that the Bombers felt they needed to beat in 2000. “We left early to go to dinner,” said Shaw, who recalled that the four opponents he researched were North, Carlton, Brisbane (fourth in 1999) and the Bulldogs.

Lloyd said training started early, a matter of weeks after the grand final. During the 2000 season, Sheedy persuaded his old Tiger teammate Kevin Bartlett to address the unbeaten Dons.

Bartlett told the players “they had nothing to celebrate” until they won the premiership; consequently, they would not sing “see the Bombers fly up” again until the grand day when a revived Hird was best afield and Neale Daniher’s Demons were demolished.

Essendon’s year of atonement had included a comfortable preliminary final eclipse of the Koutoufides-less Blues, a final that was – and remains – forgotten.

Shaw says Carlton deserved credit, as a “proud club” whose best players – Koutoufides, Ratten, Whitnall, Camporeale – had risen to the occasion, while the Bombers were really a team that gathering momentum in 1999.

Shaw reckoned that Essendon, who had been humiliated by North in 1998’s “marshmallow wars” – essentially derided as soft – had been keen to “square the ledger with North”. “Did that mean we were distracted? I don’t know,” he said of the prelim failure.

Nearly 25 years on, finally, these giants have found themselves back in the upper echelon. And whoever wins on Sunday night, the faithful will party like it’s 1999.

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