Sorry about the shithouse editing but here is the Landsberger article:
Michael ‘Magic’ McLean opens up on the horrific abuse he was subjected to while playing football and how he helped drive change
Michael McLean had never experienced racism when he moved to Melbourne as a football prodigy. Within months, he was subjected to vile abuse, including from children as young as eight.
Sam Landsberger
@samlandsberger
10 min read
June 1, 2022 - 7:56AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
Michael McLean opens up on the racial abuse he was subjected to.
Michael McLean lived up to his nickname on the footy field. He was ‘Magic’. But there is a horrific dark side to his career which was largely kept in the dark – until now.
Michael McLean says not many people know about the racism that marred his magical 183-game career.
Teammates at Footscray and Brisbane were largely kept in the dark. He played in an era when eyes turned the other way and ears were deaf to insults.
So when McLean spoke to about 60 Western Bulldogs staff before Sir Doug Nicholls Round, the painful memories flooded back.
“On the ground it was horrible, horrible,” McLean, 57, told the Herald Sun in Darwin.
“Every week racially taunted, urine thrown at you. B*ng, a*o, c*n, should’ve hanged the lot of you – they’d say all that sort of sh.
“I had players say to me yada yada yada … and I’m like, ‘Mate, are you right? You’ve got Indigenous blokes playing for you. You’re a f****** dog mate’.
“They’re like, ‘Hey, if it’s happening to our blokes, why not you?’ I said, ‘OK, you’ll see your name in the paper next week’ and that’s when it all started.”
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Grant Lawrie chases Michael McLean during the 1988 season.
What started was the introduction of the AFL’s vilification code of conduct, known as Rule 35.
In 1995 the league flew McLean down from Brisbane to meet executives Ian Collins, Rod Austin and Tony Peek after being inadvertently spooked into taking action.
“I said to them, ‘I’ve got three boys and they’re not going to play this game. This is my workplace’,” McLean said.
“There’s no way they’re going to do what I’ve done. They’re not going to go through this sh**, they won’t last.
“I said you could get any walk of life in here and when you’re racially taunted or abused or disrespected everyone feels the same way.”
Two weeks later the league congregated players of diverse ethnical backgrounds – understood to include Jim Stynes, Anthony Koutoufides, Tony Liberatore, Mil Hanna and Jose Romero – and Rule 35 was drafted.
“The AFL were never going to do it just for Indigenous. It’s about equality in the workplace,” McLean said.
The episodes McLean endured were horrific.
The boy from Darwin won the under-14s medal, under-16s medal and played senior football at 15 and became the first player to go straight from the Northern Territory to the big time.
McLean‘s childhood dream was to feature on ABC’s The Winners program.
What greeted him in Melbourne was unacceptable.
“I was touted in the media here as a young football star,” McLean said.
Michael McLean at the Bulldogs.
McLean at training in 1989.
Maurice Rioli and McLean in 1988.
“I get to Melbourne and I’m a young Aboriginal football star. So straight away you’re tagged with that and people are fanatical in Melbourne and they read that.
“And it’s, ‘Oh, so he’s an a*o, b**ng, c**n’. And then you had little kids running on the ground when the siren blew – eight years old, 10 years old – saying, ‘You’re an a*o, you’re a b**n, you’re a c**n’.”
McLean had never experienced racism before he packed his bags.
Living with a host family in Yarraville as a teenager it became inescapable almost overnight.
If it wasn’t for wife Linda, who McLean has been with since the age of 15, the trauma might’ve swallowed him.
“I was the only constant in the house and all these guys came down from the zones from Gippsland or wherever,” he said.
“They’d come in and play under-19s with me in the first year. But they were only trialling, so they could be there for three games, one game, five games – whatever.
“I was copping stuff from them and they’re transient through the house. Early days when they were lippy I’d get a couple of them out the back and give them a smack.
“The old man would say, ‘How’d your week go, son?’ and I’d say, ‘You’d be proud of me, dad, I gave this bloke a hiding and this bloke a flogging because he was cheeky or disrespectful’.
“And he’s like, ‘Hey, hey, hey, son. You can’t be doing that. You’ll never beat the world. You’ve got to educate people’ – and it was the best advice I ever got.
“So thereon the next person who was into me I said, ‘Hey, come on, out the back. This is how I feel, this is why I feel that way’ and they’d explain what they experienced as well from where they came from.
Mick Malthouse and Michael McLean.
“It was like – no worries, shake hands, respect each other. That’s how I operated from them on.”
In 1995 when Brisbane played Essendon at Princes Park days after Michael Long’s mediation session with Damian Monkhorst, who had racially vilified Long on Anzac Day, it was heartbreak before the ball was bounced.
“We were doing the warm-up and the ball goes over the fence, so I ran over to get the ball out of the gutter,” McLean said.
“I reach over the fence and this bloke gets up and goes, ‘You f****** b**ng. You’re nothing but a c**n’.
“I’ve looked up and said, ‘How does get f***** sound, mate?’ So he’s given it to me, and I’ve said, ‘Hang on a minute, is that your daughter or your granddaughter?
“‘She’s going to grow up just like you. Are you proud of that? Well done, mate. And don’t forget you’ve got four playing for you, mate. You’re a dog’.
“The boys knew I was upset. I said it’ll be right, I’ll sort this after the game.
“After the game I said to Mick (Long), ‘How you travelling?’ He said, ‘Not real good’ and I said, ‘Leave it with me, brother’.”
Interviewed by a newspaper in the rooms, McLean threatened to name and shame offenders — triggering the AFL’s decision to fly McLean down and finally take action.
Sometimes McLean took matters into his own hands on the field.
“It was horrible going through it, don’t worry about that,” he said.
“Jimmy Krakouer used to get suspended, but myself and Maurice Rioli got away with it because we were smart about it.
“We’d square up. Cameras are up the other end where the footy is, we’ll get into a couple behind the play. Jimmy would just do it when the ball was there.
“It was dog eat dog and it wasn’t nice. But the grounds are so different now, the crowd is way back.
“At suburban grounds they were right on you, and they were into you. You could hear it, you could feel it.”
McLean was a beautiful player. As smooth as a strawberry shake, wonderfully skilled and courageous in that famous No. 51 jumper.
But when Terry Wheeler replaced Mick Malthouse as Footscray coach after 1989 he effectively sacked McLean.
It was strange. The Bulldogs at that stage were well off for graft, but light on for class.
When the Dogs tried to haggle for a blockbuster trade McLean decided to retire.
He went back to Darwin, winning the medal in a representative side against the benchmark team in Hawthorn.
Michael McLean coached Tracy Village in the 2015.
McLean at the National Indigenous Carnival.
McLean coached the Waratahs in the NTFL.
“After this rep game 10 clubs call me saying we’re going to pick you in the pre-season draft, and one of those clubs was the Bulldogs,” he said.
“I’m sitting on 95 games, I was deputy vice-captain, I’m on the scrapheap and you’re going to re-pick me? I’m like, ‘Wowzers, don’t waste your pick’.”
Malthouse wanted to get ‘Mago’ to West Coast.
“I would’ve won two premierships. Might’ve won three with me,” he said with a wink.
But Brisbane swooped with the No. 1 pre-season draft pick as coach Robert Walls allowed McLean to train remotely.
“For six years at Brisbane I virtually ran my own show in terms of preparation,” he said.
“First year we won three games and I got the best-and-fairest, fifth in the Brownlow.
“My first return game against the Bulldogs at Western Oval we lose by five points, they cheered me out, booed me throughout and then cheered me off.
“I had 40 touches. I had four opponents and they couldn’t stop me. I was really proud that day to get it done against ‘Wheels’.
“It was a bit of, ‘There you go, mate, this is what you missed out on’.”
Ankle injuries cruelled 1992 – McLean’s career included 17 operations – before a young boy named Nathan Buckley bobbed up.
“I was pretty much on the scrapheap in 1993, because Nathan Buckley came to the club and virtually pushed me out of the midfield,” he said.
“But I knew how to play down back because I used to play everywhere for Dogs.
“I said to ‘Wallsy’, ‘No worries, mate. The young bloke’s won a Magarey Medal, best-on-ground in a (SANFL) grand final, he’s the flavour’.
“I play 17 games for the year off a halfback flank, he plays 20 in the middle, I beat him for the best-and-fairest.”
“He gets up and says if anyone’s going to beat me I’m glad it’s you, Mago, because I respect you. I said, ‘Thank you’.
“Ten years later he writes a book that says, ‘I was robbed’. Which is cool.”
When McLean returned to the Bulldogs in May ex-teammate Alan Thorpe, speaking alongside him, talked about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“I was like, ‘That’s what I reckon I have!’” McLean said.
“You don’t realise it. I look back and go, ‘I was going through some sh**’.
“But you get through it. You build up all this bravado and safeguard and you work it out as you go and you go, ‘I’m going to roll with these guys because I feel safe here’.”
Indigenous Bulldogs Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Arthur Jones were in his audience at Whitten Oval.
Doug Hawkins, Steve Wallis, Stephen Wallis, Peter Foster and Michael McLean in 1989.
“They just heard my story and thanked us for what we’ve done to make life easier for them and their journey a lot safer and hopefully a lot more enjoyable,” McLean said.
Scott West’s touching moment at a function in Ballarat the next day, on the eve of the Dogs’ win against Gold Coast, meant a lot to Magic.
“That’s when it hit me,” McLean said.
“We were up on stage yarning about our careers and right at the end Scotty’s just silenced the whole pub. You could’ve heard a pin drop.
“He started talking about myself and said we should be honoured to have this man in the room. I just started welling up.
“He said we’re going to hear from him about his journey, and I couldn’t talk. I didn’t talk.
“And then a lot of people came up to me after and said you didn’t need to talk. We apologise.
“For someone like Scotty West to do what he did for me – I never played with Scotty – showing me great respect, you can’t put a price on that and how powerful that is.”
McLean takes heart from on-field racism being silenced.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said.
“It’s not foolproof, but it’s a lot safer now for our mob and for all cultures.”
McLean met some wonderful people and played under brilliant coaches.
These days he’s the AFLNT pathways manager, helping talented Top End teens unlock their potential.
“I had Mick Malthouse as coach for six years, Robert Walls for seven, Royce Hart at the start and worked with Leigh Matthews for two years,” he said.
“I played finals footy, I had leadership roles, I captained the Aboriginal All-Stars after the then-Collingwood president Allan McAlister said if they conduct themselves like white people they’ll be respected.
“That’s why we played the game in Darwin against Collingwood.
“So I coached my people, captained my people, leadership roles at clubs, a couple of best-and-fairests. I could cut the mustard.”
McLean was a “father figure” to Carlton coach and ex-Brisbane teammate Michael Voss.
“He taught me a lot about growing up, but also the Indigenous culture and respecting his background and where he’s from,” Voss said.
“He was an incredible player to play with and a great man to be alongside.”
But sadness casts a shadow over it all.
“It wasn’t a lot of fun,” McLean said.
“Goodesy’s documentary, Nicky Winmar’s The Ripple Effect … I don’t have to watch them.
“I’ve got my own journey, and that was horrific enough for me.
“It’s good to get through it. But I don’t know how I did.”
Michael ‘Magic’ McLean opens up on the horrific abuse he was subjected to while playing football and how he helped drive change
Michael McLean had never experienced racism when he moved to Melbourne as a football prodigy. Within months, he was subjected to vile abuse, including from children as young as eight.
Sam Landsberger
@samlandsberger
10 min read
June 1, 2022 - 7:56AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
Michael McLean opens up on the racial abuse he was subjected to.
Michael McLean lived up to his nickname on the footy field. He was ‘Magic’. But there is a horrific dark side to his career which was largely kept in the dark – until now.
Michael McLean says not many people know about the racism that marred his magical 183-game career.
Teammates at Footscray and Brisbane were largely kept in the dark. He played in an era when eyes turned the other way and ears were deaf to insults.
So when McLean spoke to about 60 Western Bulldogs staff before Sir Doug Nicholls Round, the painful memories flooded back.
“On the ground it was horrible, horrible,” McLean, 57, told the Herald Sun in Darwin.
“Every week racially taunted, urine thrown at you. B*ng, a*o, c*n, should’ve hanged the lot of you – they’d say all that sort of sh.
“I had players say to me yada yada yada … and I’m like, ‘Mate, are you right? You’ve got Indigenous blokes playing for you. You’re a f****** dog mate’.
“They’re like, ‘Hey, if it’s happening to our blokes, why not you?’ I said, ‘OK, you’ll see your name in the paper next week’ and that’s when it all started.”
Watch every blockbuster AFL match this weekend Live & Ad-Break Free In-Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now
Grant Lawrie chases Michael McLean during the 1988 season.
What started was the introduction of the AFL’s vilification code of conduct, known as Rule 35.
In 1995 the league flew McLean down from Brisbane to meet executives Ian Collins, Rod Austin and Tony Peek after being inadvertently spooked into taking action.
“I said to them, ‘I’ve got three boys and they’re not going to play this game. This is my workplace’,” McLean said.
“There’s no way they’re going to do what I’ve done. They’re not going to go through this sh**, they won’t last.
“I said you could get any walk of life in here and when you’re racially taunted or abused or disrespected everyone feels the same way.”
Two weeks later the league congregated players of diverse ethnical backgrounds – understood to include Jim Stynes, Anthony Koutoufides, Tony Liberatore, Mil Hanna and Jose Romero – and Rule 35 was drafted.
“The AFL were never going to do it just for Indigenous. It’s about equality in the workplace,” McLean said.
The episodes McLean endured were horrific.
The boy from Darwin won the under-14s medal, under-16s medal and played senior football at 15 and became the first player to go straight from the Northern Territory to the big time.
McLean‘s childhood dream was to feature on ABC’s The Winners program.
What greeted him in Melbourne was unacceptable.
“I was touted in the media here as a young football star,” McLean said.
Michael McLean at the Bulldogs.
McLean at training in 1989.
Maurice Rioli and McLean in 1988.
“I get to Melbourne and I’m a young Aboriginal football star. So straight away you’re tagged with that and people are fanatical in Melbourne and they read that.
“And it’s, ‘Oh, so he’s an a*o, b**ng, c**n’. And then you had little kids running on the ground when the siren blew – eight years old, 10 years old – saying, ‘You’re an a*o, you’re a b**n, you’re a c**n’.”
McLean had never experienced racism before he packed his bags.
Living with a host family in Yarraville as a teenager it became inescapable almost overnight.
If it wasn’t for wife Linda, who McLean has been with since the age of 15, the trauma might’ve swallowed him.
“I was the only constant in the house and all these guys came down from the zones from Gippsland or wherever,” he said.
“They’d come in and play under-19s with me in the first year. But they were only trialling, so they could be there for three games, one game, five games – whatever.
“I was copping stuff from them and they’re transient through the house. Early days when they were lippy I’d get a couple of them out the back and give them a smack.
“The old man would say, ‘How’d your week go, son?’ and I’d say, ‘You’d be proud of me, dad, I gave this bloke a hiding and this bloke a flogging because he was cheeky or disrespectful’.
“And he’s like, ‘Hey, hey, hey, son. You can’t be doing that. You’ll never beat the world. You’ve got to educate people’ – and it was the best advice I ever got.
“So thereon the next person who was into me I said, ‘Hey, come on, out the back. This is how I feel, this is why I feel that way’ and they’d explain what they experienced as well from where they came from.
Mick Malthouse and Michael McLean.
“It was like – no worries, shake hands, respect each other. That’s how I operated from them on.”
In 1995 when Brisbane played Essendon at Princes Park days after Michael Long’s mediation session with Damian Monkhorst, who had racially vilified Long on Anzac Day, it was heartbreak before the ball was bounced.
“We were doing the warm-up and the ball goes over the fence, so I ran over to get the ball out of the gutter,” McLean said.
“I reach over the fence and this bloke gets up and goes, ‘You f****** b**ng. You’re nothing but a c**n’.
“I’ve looked up and said, ‘How does get f***** sound, mate?’ So he’s given it to me, and I’ve said, ‘Hang on a minute, is that your daughter or your granddaughter?
“‘She’s going to grow up just like you. Are you proud of that? Well done, mate. And don’t forget you’ve got four playing for you, mate. You’re a dog’.
“The boys knew I was upset. I said it’ll be right, I’ll sort this after the game.
“After the game I said to Mick (Long), ‘How you travelling?’ He said, ‘Not real good’ and I said, ‘Leave it with me, brother’.”
Interviewed by a newspaper in the rooms, McLean threatened to name and shame offenders — triggering the AFL’s decision to fly McLean down and finally take action.
Sometimes McLean took matters into his own hands on the field.
“It was horrible going through it, don’t worry about that,” he said.
“Jimmy Krakouer used to get suspended, but myself and Maurice Rioli got away with it because we were smart about it.
“We’d square up. Cameras are up the other end where the footy is, we’ll get into a couple behind the play. Jimmy would just do it when the ball was there.
“It was dog eat dog and it wasn’t nice. But the grounds are so different now, the crowd is way back.
“At suburban grounds they were right on you, and they were into you. You could hear it, you could feel it.”
McLean was a beautiful player. As smooth as a strawberry shake, wonderfully skilled and courageous in that famous No. 51 jumper.
But when Terry Wheeler replaced Mick Malthouse as Footscray coach after 1989 he effectively sacked McLean.
It was strange. The Bulldogs at that stage were well off for graft, but light on for class.
When the Dogs tried to haggle for a blockbuster trade McLean decided to retire.
He went back to Darwin, winning the medal in a representative side against the benchmark team in Hawthorn.
Michael McLean coached Tracy Village in the 2015.
McLean at the National Indigenous Carnival.
McLean coached the Waratahs in the NTFL.
“After this rep game 10 clubs call me saying we’re going to pick you in the pre-season draft, and one of those clubs was the Bulldogs,” he said.
“I’m sitting on 95 games, I was deputy vice-captain, I’m on the scrapheap and you’re going to re-pick me? I’m like, ‘Wowzers, don’t waste your pick’.”
Malthouse wanted to get ‘Mago’ to West Coast.
“I would’ve won two premierships. Might’ve won three with me,” he said with a wink.
But Brisbane swooped with the No. 1 pre-season draft pick as coach Robert Walls allowed McLean to train remotely.
“For six years at Brisbane I virtually ran my own show in terms of preparation,” he said.
“First year we won three games and I got the best-and-fairest, fifth in the Brownlow.
“My first return game against the Bulldogs at Western Oval we lose by five points, they cheered me out, booed me throughout and then cheered me off.
“I had 40 touches. I had four opponents and they couldn’t stop me. I was really proud that day to get it done against ‘Wheels’.
“It was a bit of, ‘There you go, mate, this is what you missed out on’.”
Ankle injuries cruelled 1992 – McLean’s career included 17 operations – before a young boy named Nathan Buckley bobbed up.
“I was pretty much on the scrapheap in 1993, because Nathan Buckley came to the club and virtually pushed me out of the midfield,” he said.
“But I knew how to play down back because I used to play everywhere for Dogs.
“I said to ‘Wallsy’, ‘No worries, mate. The young bloke’s won a Magarey Medal, best-on-ground in a (SANFL) grand final, he’s the flavour’.
“I play 17 games for the year off a halfback flank, he plays 20 in the middle, I beat him for the best-and-fairest.”
“He gets up and says if anyone’s going to beat me I’m glad it’s you, Mago, because I respect you. I said, ‘Thank you’.
“Ten years later he writes a book that says, ‘I was robbed’. Which is cool.”
When McLean returned to the Bulldogs in May ex-teammate Alan Thorpe, speaking alongside him, talked about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“I was like, ‘That’s what I reckon I have!’” McLean said.
“You don’t realise it. I look back and go, ‘I was going through some sh**’.
“But you get through it. You build up all this bravado and safeguard and you work it out as you go and you go, ‘I’m going to roll with these guys because I feel safe here’.”
Indigenous Bulldogs Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Arthur Jones were in his audience at Whitten Oval.
Doug Hawkins, Steve Wallis, Stephen Wallis, Peter Foster and Michael McLean in 1989.
“They just heard my story and thanked us for what we’ve done to make life easier for them and their journey a lot safer and hopefully a lot more enjoyable,” McLean said.
Scott West’s touching moment at a function in Ballarat the next day, on the eve of the Dogs’ win against Gold Coast, meant a lot to Magic.
“That’s when it hit me,” McLean said.
“We were up on stage yarning about our careers and right at the end Scotty’s just silenced the whole pub. You could’ve heard a pin drop.
“He started talking about myself and said we should be honoured to have this man in the room. I just started welling up.
“He said we’re going to hear from him about his journey, and I couldn’t talk. I didn’t talk.
“And then a lot of people came up to me after and said you didn’t need to talk. We apologise.
“For someone like Scotty West to do what he did for me – I never played with Scotty – showing me great respect, you can’t put a price on that and how powerful that is.”
McLean takes heart from on-field racism being silenced.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said.
“It’s not foolproof, but it’s a lot safer now for our mob and for all cultures.”
McLean met some wonderful people and played under brilliant coaches.
These days he’s the AFLNT pathways manager, helping talented Top End teens unlock their potential.
“I had Mick Malthouse as coach for six years, Robert Walls for seven, Royce Hart at the start and worked with Leigh Matthews for two years,” he said.
“I played finals footy, I had leadership roles, I captained the Aboriginal All-Stars after the then-Collingwood president Allan McAlister said if they conduct themselves like white people they’ll be respected.
“That’s why we played the game in Darwin against Collingwood.
“So I coached my people, captained my people, leadership roles at clubs, a couple of best-and-fairests. I could cut the mustard.”
McLean was a “father figure” to Carlton coach and ex-Brisbane teammate Michael Voss.
“He taught me a lot about growing up, but also the Indigenous culture and respecting his background and where he’s from,” Voss said.
“He was an incredible player to play with and a great man to be alongside.”
But sadness casts a shadow over it all.
“It wasn’t a lot of fun,” McLean said.
“Goodesy’s documentary, Nicky Winmar’s The Ripple Effect … I don’t have to watch them.
“I’ve got my own journey, and that was horrific enough for me.
“It’s good to get through it. But I don’t know how I did.”
