“FABULOUS” Phil Carman had the talent to become one of the game’s all-times greats, but split-second acts of ill-discipline ultimately cruelled his career.

At Collingwood, Carman was suspended for the 1977 tied grand final against North Melbourne and the subsequent replay. Many believe had he played, Collingwood would have won the flag.

Then in 1980, after being traded to Melbourne for an unhappy year, he arrived at Essendon and returned to sensational form. Against St Kilda at Moorabbin, Carman was again starring when boundary umpire Graham Carberry reported him for striking Garry Sidebottom.

Carman, incensed by the report, stood chest to chest with Carberry and then leaned forward and head-butted the umpire.

Carberry’s tribunal evidence was damning: "He was looking straight at me," he said. "I thought I was going to be hit again. My head went back, and I grabbed my face. It was a painful blow and started to ache."

Carman was suspended for 20 weeks, 16 of them for his clash with the umpire.

Essendon took legal action to have the penalty quashed but were unsuccessful, and when Carman returned in 1981 he was reported in his first game back. He played just six games with the Bombers that season before moving to North Melbourne for one year.

BRILLIANT full-forward John Coleman was the key to Essendon’s success in the late 1940s and early 1950s – and everyone knew it. He had kicked centuries in his first two seasons, 1949 and 1950, and topped the league goalkicking in 1951. In the last round of the season, Essendon faced Carlton, which was out of the finals’ race.

From the start, Coleman was harassed by Blues defender Harry Caspar, and just before half-time retaliated to the persistent provocation by striking Caspar. Both were reported.

In a sensational evening at the VFL tribunal, Caspar’s case was held first and he was outed for four weeks. As the retaliator, it was thought that Coleman would receive a significantly lower penalty, even though the VFL did not acknowledge provocation as a defence.

Although a boundary umpire gave evidence on Coleman’s behalf, saying that the Bomber champion was only defending himself and that the umpire would have done the same, Coleman was suspended for four matches and missed the finals.

A newspaper picture of a tearful Coleman leaving the tribunal is one of the most poignant in VFL history, and to this day it is commonly accepted that Essendon would have won the flag with the great full-forward in its ranks. In the end, the Bombers lost the grand final by 11 points.

FIRST came Terry, who would captain the club to two flags; then Neale, whose brilliant career was cut short by injury. Third in line was Anthony, who like Terry transferred from the red-and-white to join the red-and-black. And finally came Chris, who was also to play in a premiership.

Four boys named Daniher made their indelible mark on the Essendon Football Club, but it was round 22, 1990, that set the seal on their status.

It seemed like this day, when all four would take the field for the Bombers, would never come. Neale’s knee injuries had kept him to only 80 games in 12 seasons, and his return in 1989 had seen him struggle for form and fitness, but that great promoter of football Kevin Sheedy had a vision.

And so it was that the four brothers ran onto the ground against St Kilda, the only time they would play together in VFL/AFL football, though they had already done so in a famous win for NSW over Victoria.

Essendon was comfortably on top of the ladder, and Sheedy knew he had nothing to lose in playing the brothers. They entered the field through a special banner, and left arm-in-arm with the Bombers victorious.

WITH Waverley Park reaching the end of its usefulness as an AFL venue, Colonial Stadium, later to become Telstra Dome, was constructed in the burgeoning Docklands Precinct of the city at a cost of $460 million.

Ground was broken on the development in 1996, and the stadium opened for business on March 9, 2000, when Essendon, one of the stadium’s key tenants, hosted Port Adelaide.

The AFL season began a month earlier than usual because of the Sydney Olympic Games being held in September, but the early start didn’t faze the Bombers, who thumped the Power by 94 points, 24.12 (156) to 8.14 (62), with full forward Matthew Lloyd kicking seven goals.

The match attracted 43,012 spectators, an excellent return given that one of the combatants was an interstate team. The retractable roof was a major talking point, but it was not required on that balmy first evening.

There were teething problems with the stadium, with long queues for entry at some matches, worries about the state of the surface and concern that corporate business was being promoted at the expense of the ordinary football follower.

But eight years on Telstra Dome has become a successful part of the AFL landscape.

FOOTBALL met showbiz in 1985 when the VFL sold the Sydney Swans to flamboyant medical entrepreneur Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and his consortium for $2.9 million.

Edelsten immediately set about selling the Swans to a reluctant Sydney market. Warwick Capper, all tight shorts and flowing mullet, was marketed as a high-flying sex symbol, the Swanettes cheerleading troupe was introduced, and Edelsten’s wife, Leanne, was flown about in a pink helicopter.

The Edelsten regime hired Tom Hafey as coach, and lured Gerard Healy, Greg Williams, Merv Neagle, David Bolton, Bernard Toohey and Jim Edmond to the club. The team played exciting footy, and drew big crowds.

But Edelsten’s relationship with fellow owners was quickly strained, and he resigned as chairman of the Swans after less than one tumultuous year at the helm.

In 1988, three years after Edelsten and his partners outlaid almost $3 million for the club, it was sold back to the VFL for $10, with the Swans massively in debt.

Edelsten was struck off the NSW medical roll in 1987 for over-servicing and having unqualified people carry out laser surgery. In 1990 he was jailed for six months for attempting to pervert the course of justice for hiring an underworld figure to assault a former patient. And in 1992 he was also struck off the Victorian medical roll.

AFL RECORDS show that North Melbourne defeated Hawthorn by 23 points in the second qualifying final of 1994. What the bare figures don’t indicate, however, is that this was the first match in AFL history to go into extra time.

In 1991 the AFL had decided that to ensure the grand final was played on the scheduled day, all other finals would go to extra time if the teams were level at the end of normal time.

Just 38,000 were on hand at Waverley Park to watch a seesawing battle that North superstar Wayne Carey sent into overtime by goaling just seconds before the final siren.

Extra time – comprising two five-minute halves – proved something of an anti-climax as the favoured Kangaroos drew away from their young opponents, scoring 3.5 to nil for a comfortable victory.

The only other occasion extra time has been played was in the second semi-final of 2007, when Collingwood drew with West Coast at Subiaco, 10.12 apiece, in normal time, and kicked 3.2 to 0.2 to win in over time.

Two draws early in 2008 have led some interested parties, notably Swans defender Tadhg Kennelly, to call for extra time periods to be introduced for drawn matches during the home-and-away season.