The Age Footy Legend no 7: Gary Ablett Snr

[Pure_Ownage]

When almost 40, a 20 year old groupie was killed by hard drugs he supplied her on a massive bender one-on-one in his private hotel room.

He also assaulted his ex-wife’s new partner.

This is serious stuff. The threshold for “legend” is a lot higher than for that for “not in prison”.

I don't disagree about GAS specifically but to be fair the afl gets criticised because they don't apply that as a rule 100 % of the time when it comes to honours for past players. If they did then they wouldn't be criticised but they pick and choose based on where the media narrative is going and that's why people lambast them.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

There has to be SOME point at which you draw that line. I mean, surely no matter how good a player was, if he murdered someone, he's not getting in.

I get that but when you have guys like Leigh Matthews having respected industry positions (Neville Bruns anyone) the afl loses a lot of credibility on this stuff.

You really should have the nominations (hall of fame) controlled by an external body that has no link to afl hq so there's no bias in regards to the media and off field issues that way it would be more consistent.

 

[Jhye Clark 13]

When almost 40, a 20 year old groupie was killed by hard drugs he supplied her on a massive bender one-on-one in his private hotel room.

He also assaulted his ex-wife’s new partner.

This is serious stuff. The threshold for “legend” is a lot higher than for that for “not in prison”.

I'm going to make one last post before i go to England. You're a fool. I've said this before and nobody listened.

I knew the girl in question - RIP - she was on hard drugs well before she met snr.

STOP LISTENING TO CRAP MEDIA.

 

[iameviljez]

I'm going to make one last post before i go to England. You're a fool. I've said this before and nobody listened.

I knew the girl in question - RIP - she was on hard drugs well before she met snr.

STOP LISTENING TO CRAP MEDIA.

Yeah, I'd believe that she was on hard drugs before. But I don't think that changes much. She's still a footy groupie half his age on a four-day bender who died in his hotel room from drugs he supplied.

Also, it's kind of hard to remember what you have said before per se - because you've changed your username. (Though I'll forgive you if you originally picked, say, Murdoch 21).

 

[iameviljez]

I get that but when you have guys like Leigh Matthews having respected industry positions (Neville Bruns anyone) the afl loses a lot of credibility on this stuff.

I don't think that what Lethal did was nearly as bad as GAS' rap sheet. GAS is lucky in particular that the assault on his ex-wife's partner happened in the early 90s before we took that kind of behaviour seriously - nowadays, you'd be talking year-long bans, if not life.

Don't get me wrong, what Matthews did was bad - but it was in the ballpark of, say, Denis Banks on David Rhys-Jones the year after (with the exception that Rhys-Jones more than earned a whack).