Episode two of ‘The Bloods’, presented by QBE is now available for download.
The 1980s were a turbulent decade for the Sydney Swans and for likes of Dennis Carrol and Barry Round who made the move north to Sydney, they were greeted by some dark times. Literally.
“We felt we were definitely under resourced when we moved to Sydney. We were sent up there on a shoe-string budget and we were trying to cut corners at all costs,” Round recalls in the second episode of the new podcast series ‘The Bloods’.
“You look back at the expansion clubs like the Gold Coast Suns and GWS, and what they were given, it just makes you realise how tough we did it. We got virtually nothing.
“It got dark in Sydney at about 5 o’clock, and we didn’t have a training ground with lights on it. All the guys had to have jobs, so you’d knock off work, get to training and it would be bloody dark!” he recounts.
But from the darkness, a star emerged. Well before Isaac Heeney was launching himself into the sky, there was another blonde flying high at the SCG. Warwick Capper.
“We was a vital player, not just for Sydney, but he was a vital player for the game,” teammate and Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy recalls.
The game had taken on this challenge of going to Sydney, it was the expansion phase of the game. And Warwick was one of probably only half a dozen people prior to 2000 that transcended the sport.
“At one stage, I’m firmly of the belief, that he was probably Australia’s second most famous sports person. The number one was Greg Norman. But here at home, he was such a magnetic figure and had such publicity in the biggest town in Australia, let alone the southern towns, that collectively he was a PR machine,” Healy explains.
Healy is among a host of big names who recount the ups and downs of the 1980s in episode two of ‘The Bloods’, presented by QBE.
Swans fans will also hear from greats including Tony Morwood, Dennis Carroll, Barry Round and the man himself, Warwick Capper.
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01:06
The Bloods - Leaving South Melbourne, Episode One
'The Bloods', presented by QBE, is now available via Apple and Spotify. Tune into this snippet from Episode 1 which begins in the turbulent times of the early 1980s, with South Melbourne facing severe financial distress and relocation to Sydney.
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