Of all of Eddie McGuire’s famous big weeks in footy,none was bigger for him than the most recent,and his last for the forseeable future.
It began two Mondays ago with two ill-chosen words addressing the release of the excoriatingDo Better review of racism at Collingwood. It was,said McGuire,a “proud day”. They were the most fateful two words of his public life.
They swamped any and every other message he tried to deliver that day,and set in motion a chain of events that led inexorably toTuesday’s announcement that he was stepping down immediately from the presidency he has held so dearly for 23 years. McGuire is a political enough animal to know that when the drums start beating,there can be only one way to stop them.
His family sat in the front row,staff and players were dotted around a room that was darkened for the sake of television cameras,but gave it a funereal air. There was a Collingwood Football Club backdrop,but not one sponsor’s logo. It was as sombre as an abdication.
McGuire’s opening words now came out in the most un-McGuire-like manner,through a reedy catch in his throat. “I try my best and I don’t always get it right,” he said,“but I don’t stop trying.”
At other moments,too,during a 15-minute monologue,McGuire’s voice wavered as it rarely has throughout his long career in media and footy,which was not so surprising,because it has been his life’s work. He had been emotional,too,when telling the Collingwood board of his decision the previous day.
But that familiar voice was its usual bold self when he came to utter the words that so many think should have been his preface last week and might have given it different direction altogether. “The Do Better report is an acknowledgement that our club,our game and our country have not always got it right,” he said,“and for that,WE. ARE. SORRY.” The pauses are his.
His mishandling of the Do Better report’s release will sit as an asterisk on his record,but won’t and shouldn’t obliterate it.
There,he seemed to say,it is said. Manifestly,it was too late,but at least it was said. If there is a moral in the last week,it is that the power of words remains undimmed.