As former Fitzroy player Michael Reeves recounts the details of his wedding day – 40 years ago this Sunday – the details are so astonishing they belong in the fiction section rather than AFL folklore.
And yet it is absolutely true that Reeves flew to his wedding in a Channel 7 helicopter only hours after being knocked out by Robert DiPierdomenico in the last final Fitzroy ever played.
What is even more remarkable is that Fitzroy coach David Parkin allowed Michael and his fiance Kim permission to have their wedding during September and a possible finals campaign.
The amazing 1980s were very different times.
Hawthorn and Brisbane have never played in an AFL final until now but the last time the Lions took on the Hawks was the 1986 preliminary final, a decade before Fitzroy merged with the Brisbane Bears.
As Reeves told the Herald Sun on Tuesday, the financially stricken but tight-knit Lions had mounted an unexpected charge across that 1986 season with five wins in the final six games.
Then they knocked off Essendon (one point) and Sydney (five points) before running into Hawthorn in what was an eventual 56-point loss at Waverley Park.
“I think at one stage we lost four games in a row (four out of five) and Kim wanted to get married at Monsalvat (an artistic community in Eltham),” Reeves said.
“It was only available on preliminary final day and I said, ‘We can’t get married on preliminary final day, we will have to wait’. So she rang David Parkin and told him our predicament.
“Parko said to make the finals we would have to win six or seven in a row and then win two consecutive finals and it’s not looking good, so you are pretty safe.”
By the day of the preliminary final the wedding was still booked for a 4pm start but Channel 7 had volunteered their helicopter to get him from Waverley Park to the wedding soon after the final siren.
Reeves had suffered a string of badly corked thighs which had sidelined him for months at a time so had taken to wearing thigh pads and NFL-style thigh-length shorts to protect himself.
He should have known the danger was lurking in 1980s hard man DiPierdomenico instead of a ruck contest.
Reeves came off the interchange bench with a head of steam and as he attempted to block for a teammate he was knocked out cold by DiPierdomenico.
Remarkably, he was passed fit to return.
“It was in the second quarter and I woke up in the changerooms. I had gone to the game with (teammate) Grant Lawrie who was standing there in street clothes. Parko took him out of the team before the game when Paul Roos declared himself fit and I woke up and said, “Get changed, we are going out there to play in a minute”,” Reeves said.
“The doctor said, ‘You have been knocked out, do you know where you are?’
“I recognised the big green metal airconditioning boxes so I said, ‘Waverley’.
“He said, ‘Who are we playing?’.
“I said, ‘Essendon’. He said, ‘Have another guess’.
“I said, ‘Collingwood’.
“He said, ‘Have another guess’.
‘Hawthorn?’
“The doctor said, ‘Yep, he’s right to play’.
“I went down to play on Jason Dunstall and I asked him which way we were kicking. I was concussed and my face was the size of a football on one side. My jaw was huge. There was a picture on the front and back pages of the Sunday Press and Sunday Observer. It rattled a couple of teeth which were broken and later taken out.”
He still found a way to get to his wedding.
“The wedding was supposed to be 4pm but everyone was pretty well hydrated by the time I got there. I got there about 5.30pm or 6pm and 40 years later Kim still puts up with me.”
Reeves worked as a policeman after his career ended while playing at Box Hill in the VFA, with nephew Ned Reeves playing for Hawthorn but not picked for the preliminary final.