Almanac Footy: The Melbourne Football Club – Recollections and Reflections (Part 2)

May 22, 2026 by Richard Griffiths 1 Comment

Sean Charles was one of the most talented junior indigenous players I had seen. He was part of St Kilda’s junior development squads as the wily John Beveridge was trying to find a loophole under the metropolitan zoning rules to secure him. Sean lived with his mother in Murrumbeena, played for Powelltown in the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League and attended Worowa College in Healesville. His father Tony Miller was a champion athlete and once competed at the Stawell Gift.

I received a call from an indigenous mentor advising me that there was a very talented young player who was zoned to Melbourne despite St Kilda’s best endeavours to claim him. Sean was fourteen turning fifteen when despite not seeing him play, I invited him to train with our Under 15 schoolboy squad under the watchful eye of Rob Dean.

It soon became apparent following a few training sessions and scratch matches that Sean was a very special talent. He was lightning quick, had uncanny ball skills, tremendous evasive skills, and awareness around goals like the Krakouer brothers.

Sean was the most challenging player to manage in my time at the club – Allen Jakovich was a close second. He was very shy, difficult to contact, lived at home one week in Murrumbeena, then with his father in the Goulburn Valley the next and attended a boarding school in Healesville. But he was a prodigious talent. I remember spending hours in the car picking him up from Healesville to make sure he got to training on time. There wasn’t much conversation on those trips despite my best endeavours.

When he eventually made his debut in 1992 at the age of seventeen, he vindicated my faith in his footballing prowess by booting five goals from a forward pocket against North Melbourne. When he finished his schooling, the club organised a unit for him close to the Junction Oval, but he struggled with the hustle and bustle of city life continually escaping to the land. He didn’t manage his football money that well and I was virtually his personal financial controller. Often, he had no money left to put petrol in his car. I would come to the rescue. He had a relationship with a young girl that was at times volatile and turbulent.

Charles had played 11 senior games since 1992 but had yet to play a game by June 1994 thanks in part to an ankle reconstruction in late 1993. Charles was one of the best players in the reserves the week before our all-important game against the West Coast Eagles at the MCG. He went to visit his father in Barmah (30km over the border from Echuca) following that reserves game and rang me on the Tuesday before the main training session to say his car had blown a gasket and he would struggle to make it for the compulsory 3pm training session at the Junction Oval. Bugger that I thought. We were hit with injuries, and we needed him to train to be eligible for selection-no train; no play in those days.

One of our most influential and connected directors at the time was Ian Johnson, General Manager of Channel 9 Melbourne. I rang him with words to the effect- “Johnno I need to get Sean Charles from Echuca to the Junction Oval by 2.30pm tomorrow for him to be available to be selected. Can you arrange a Channel 9 news helicopter to pick him up?” Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Leave it with me Griffo-I’ll get back to you.

And sure, enough I got the call back about half an hour later.

“I can’t get you a helicopter Griffo,” he said. Fuck it-what now I thought. “But I can get you Brian Naylor’s private plane and pilot! It will leave from Moorabbin airport, collect him from the airstrip in Echuca and then back to Moorabbin where a helicopter will take him to the Junction Oval. But there’s one catch. I want it as an exclusive story for the Footy Show so I want you to travel with Eddie McGuire in the plane with a cameraman so we can file a story for Thursday night’s show.” No problem.

Despite losing the Round 11 clash against the Eagles Sean Charles played and booted two goals. After another couple of losses, the Demons defeated Fitzroy by 46 points with Charles booting two goals and registering 3 Brownlow Medal votes. When Allen Jakovich booted eight goals against Hawthorn in Round 17 the Demons were in the hunt for a finals berth. It was the last game Jaka would play for the club. Despite the big bag of goals Balmey ‘dragged’ the enigmatic forward for undisciplined play. Jakovich left the ground giving an almighty spray to field umpire Queenslander Murray Bird. Murray was to become one of my closest mates in my time at AFL Queensland and we still laugh about the Jakovich spray to this day. We laugh even more the day Carlton’s Greg Williams gathered 44 possessions against the Demons at Princess Park in 1992 and failed to gain a Brownlow vote from Messrs Murray Bird and John Russo – but that is an entirely separate story in its own right!

On Saturday 4 September 1994 Melbourne took on Sydney at the SCG in a Round 24 clash that the Demons had to win to secure a finals spot. In an astonishing display of attacking football Melbourne kicked 27.5.167 to the Swans 18.13.121. David Schwarz kicked 9 brilliant goals and earnt 3 Brownlow Votes whilst Sean Charles and Martin Pike both booted 5 goals and skipper Garry Lyon 4.

The following week in the Qualifying Final at the MCG Melbourne defeated Carlton by 27 points with Charles booting 5 goals on veteran Brett Ratten. Then in an extraordinary display from Garry Lyon who booted 10 goals the Demons defeated Footscray by 79 points to earn a spot in the Preliminary Final against the all-powerful West Coast Eagles at the WACA.

The Demons were no match for the Eagles that day and were humbled by a 65-point defeat. And to rub salt into the wounds the players were none to happy to have to walk through the city streets of Perth back to the hotel in their playing gear courtesy of no water in the away room showers at the WACA.

We saw the best of Sean Charles that year but following a debilitating scaphoid injury he was never to recapture the form he showed in the second half of 1994. Between 1992 and 1997 Sean played 47 games for the club and booted 60 goals. In 1998 he was picked up by Carlton (the memory of his scintillating performance in the ’94 Qualifying Final fresh in their minds) but broke his leg in his first and only game at the club. In 2000 he made a return to AFL football at the club who first identified him as a 14-year-old in St Kilda and played a total of eight games.

Upon reflecting on the talents of our indigenous players during Sir Doug Nicholls Round I cant help but ponder how good the exciting Sean Charles may have been had it not been for a spate of debilitating injuries.

Read Part 1 Here

Read more from Richard Griffiths HERE

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