Alan Jeans: he frightened, he inspired and he’ll be missed

Last week I was saddened to hear of the passing of Alan Jeans.

There are lots of ‘Yabby’ stories, one of the best being during the mid-‘80s when he made a complacent and not-surprisingly arrogant Robert DiPierdomenico cry during a half-time address.  The story goes that Dipper had begun to believe his own hype and Yabby, in the efficiently brutal and honest manner that we’ve read about this past week, let him know it.  Apparently, it hit Bertie hard and he never looked back.  The rest is history. 

My own experience of the ‘Yabby address’ was during the Hawthorn-Melbourne merger debate at Camberwell Town Hall in 1996.  The carnival-like anti-merger crowd jeered and mocked each pro-merger speaker who took to the stage to argue his case.  It was ‘un-Hawthorn like’ and it bordered on the farcical.

Then Yabby took to the stage.  Like many others, I couldn’t get into the Hall.  I was standing outside listening.  I couldn’t see him.  I didn’t need to.

Yabby was pro-merger but that’s beside the point.  We listened, not to what Yabby said, but to how he wanted us to feel.  Hawthorn had to be saved, somehow.  He believed the merger was the right way to go.

Yabby’s voice boomed and literally penetrated the now-silent crowd.  I could feel the power of it pass right through me.  I’ve never experienced anything like it and I doubt I ever will again.

A few people voted for the merger that evening.  I reckon Yabby convinced them.

For Hawthorn, the merger debate was necessary.  Like Dipper, we at Hawthorn had become complacent, even a little arrogant.  With his brutal honesty, Yabby showed us that.

He’ll be missed by many.

Yours in all things footy,

Sasha Lennon