General News
30 May, 2025
Country roots in his soul: AFL great Alastair Clarkson comes home to Kaniva
The saying goes 'You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy'. And the statement has probably never been more true than when referring to AFL North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson.
The saying goes 'You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy'.
And the statement has probably never been more true than when referring to AFL North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson.
So much so, Clarkson says he doesn't think anyone will ever be able to take the country roots out of his soul.
Born and raised in the Wimmera, Clarkson spent the first 14 years of his life in Kaniva before moving to Ballarat for schooling.
But even then, he would return to his hometown to play the sport he loved, and continues to love, when able to.
And now, Clarkson, who is considered one of the most innovative and successful AFL coaches in history, will return to where his footy journey began on Friday night to celebrate the first of his footy premierships in seniors.
He was aged just 15 when Kaniva claimed their 1985 premiership.
And earlier this week, Clarkson chatted with Wimmera Mallee News journalist Zoey Andrews, sharing memories and stories of his country upbringing, his path to footy at the highest level, his passion for coaching, and his impact that will forever be imprinted on the game.
He might be a high-profile AFL coach who is constantly in the eye of the public and public scrutiny, but in typical country fashion, Clarkson proved not only does he love a chat but he enjoys a good laugh as well.
So much so, after the call had ended, Clarkson called back to add a story from when he was younger – one coach and journalist shared a laugh over, but that also demonstrated the humble beginnings he flourished from.
The four-time premiership coach of Hawthorn wanted to acknowledge Frank and Gwen Guy for their contribution to his early life.
He reflected: "I think we were the last house in Kaniva to get a coloured TV when I was growing up.
"Mrs Guy, she was a fellow kinder teacher with my mum, her husband was heavily involved in footy, and they had a couple of sons who were friends of one of my brothers.
"When I used to watch your team (yes, Zoey's a Collingwood supporter) and my team (North Melbourne) on our TV, I couldn't tell apart the teams, so Mrs Guy used to let me come over on a Saturday and watch footy on her coloured TV."
Clarkson fondly reflected on his upbringing in Kaniva, describing it as "great".
"My father was the builder in the town, and my mum was a teacher/kinder teacher so she taught every person in the district for about 40 years," he said.
"We had, because of that, a really strong connection right through the community.
"I was the youngest of five children, all brothers and a sister, heavily involved in the footy and netball club.
"It was a pretty simple but really enjoyable upbringing."
It was a case of footy in the winter and cricket in the summer.
"And then hobbies all around outside activities: yabbying, shooting, spotlighting, motorbike riding – things you would always do as a kid in a farming community," he said.
So much did Clarkson enjoy the country life as a kid, he and his wife, Caryn, purchased a property on the Mornington Peninsula to allow their own family to enjoy a taste of it.
"Given the distance from Kaniva to Melbourne, it was just so hard to get home and enjoy the opportunities I had when I was growing up," Clarkson said.
"But in light of that, we bought a little block of land down on the Mornington Peninsula, over a decade ago, so our kids could experience a little bit of country life and city life.
"We've tried to find that balance.
"I don't think you'll ever take the country roots out of my soul."
Clarkson revealed, being from Kaniva, Essendon could have been the club where he began his AFL career.
"Back in those days, before the current system where you draft players, in my time each of the clubs based in Victoria had a country and a metropolitan zone they could draw their players from," he explained.
"Our zone in Kaniva was Essendon, and there were about three guys who played for Essendon who hailed from Kaniva and every intention was that I was going to do that as well, but I went away to boarding school in Ballarat when I was 14, and that more or less meant that when I jumped out of Essendon's zone, I became a free agent.
"North Melbourne saw me play in a lightning premiership kind of carnival when I was 16 or 17 and invited me down to North Melbourne and that's how I ended up there, so my pathway is a bit different from the normal one."
Clarkson went on to play 93 games with the Kangaroos and a further 41 with Melbourne, but he has never forgotten those people in the Wimmera who allowed and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
"Because I had three older brothers, it was nearly half a generation ahead of me, all the people I had to do with, and they became mentors of mine," he said.
"There was one particular guy, Oscar Harrison, and he was like a second father to me.
"My dad, as I said, was a builder and often, as it is in the country, you are working on farms and all different destinations around that area and Dad would leave early and get home late because his work was maybe an hour away from Kaniva.
"Oscar would often be the one who would take me particularly to cricket training but also footy training.
"He was the one I would go spotlighting and yabbing with, and then all of his mates, a crew of guys who were influential to me, about six to eight, probably 10 years older than me, they took me under their wing and showed me the way.
"They fuelled my passion for sport; I loved my cricket and my footy when I was a kid.
"And it's been fortunate that one of those passions I have been able to pursue for the best part of 45 years."
Clarkson coached the Hawks from 2005 to 2021 before being appointed coach at North Melbourne in 2023.
But coaching further wasn't always the plan after he finished up at the Hawks.
"When I finished up at Hawthorn, I didn't have any significant intention to return to coaching," he said.
"I had been involved in the club a long, long time both as a player and then as a coach, and I travelled overseas around the back end of the COVID period with a view of exploring some other things to do with my life rather than football.
"I was a guest of the Golden State Warriors in the NBA about four years ago, spending four to five months with the team, just on the back end of COVID, and they won the championship the year I was there.
"In the last part of my stay, they were plotting how to beat the Denver Nuggets in the play-offs and I was a fly on the wall, not involved in it all but watching how it transpired: the planning, the training and then the execution of the game.
"I came back from that experience and thought 'I can explore other things to do in my life, but really, the thing I am most suited to do is coach'.
"The North Melbourne opportunity was available then, as were a couple of others, but I had a real soft spot for North because they had given me my opportunity when I was a young guy trying to find my pathway and navigate my way to playing AFL, and it was also at a time which was pretty tough in my life because one of my older brothers had been killed in a car accident when I was 16 and so those years from 16 to 18 were pretty tough."
Clarkson said when he got to North, they straightened him out a bit.
"I just felt the club gave me an enormous amount of support and showed me the right path to get professional and play at the highest level and, strangely enough, 30 years later they were the ones a little bit on life support and they were the ones that needed the help and I thought I was in a good positon to be able go back and repay some of the faith they had in me as a young fella," he said.
"That's what has steered me to North Melbourne and it's been a big challenge, a lot of hard work, but we knew that from the get-go and we're making progress – a bit slower than we would have all liked, to be fair – but we are on the right path and looking forward to slowly climbing that ladder and getting back to being super-competitive."
But this week, with the Kangaroos having a bye, it's not about the highest level of footy in the country but rather the grassroots club where it all began for Clarkson.
"I was going to school in Ballarat and coming back when I could, when I wasn't playing for the school, and I'd go back home to Kaniva and play with my brothers," Clarkson recalled.
"It was a special time.
"Kaniva hadn't won a premiership since 1970, which is only 15 years but seemed like an eternity back then, and believe it or not, the 1985 premiership is the last one Kaniva won.
"In the holidays I would get to play for Kaniva, and once the September holidays came about I was able to play four or five games in a row with my club side, which happened to be finals."
Clarkson fondly recalls the first final he played in against Tintinara, an up-and-coming side who were in front by four or five goals going into the final quarter.
"I'll never forget our coach, Peter (Flash) Belford, said at three-quarter-time we weren't playing well and usually a coach when you came in at three-quarter-time and you had been playing s*ithouse, the coach would give everyone a spray, but he said: 'We haven't played well, boys, but they must know, this mob, that they can't keep us down for all four quarters'.
"So he used a bit of reverse psychology, but we ran over the top of them in that last quarter in the first final and beat Bordertown in the preliminary final, then played Mundulla, who had been a great club for a long, long period of time.
"We were fortunate that year.
"They used to rotate the grand final venue around all the clubs so you would each get a go at it over a six-year period because there were six teams in the competition and it happened that the year Kaniva were scheduled to host the grand final, we qualified to play in it.
"So we were playing on our home ground in the grand final, and you can imagine the support we had from the town.
"It was a really special, special time and the red, white and blue colours, the Bulldogs, were promiment in the town.
"For little communities, football and netball clubs are such a vibrant part of the community.
"That invigorated a bit of life into the Kaniva community but unfortunately it hasn't been seen again."
Asked if he had used the same reverse psychology in his AFL coaching as his coach did in that first final back in 1985, Clarkson laughed before admitting: "Yeah, not always with the same success, unfortunately."
As one of the best coaches in AFL history, Clarkson was asked what it took to be a good coach at the highest level.
"You can't do this job without being a hard worker," he said.
"The discipline to front up every day and stick to the fundamentals of what is required from day to day, and then probably being resilient enough to cope with the adversity that comes.
"It is a tough, tough road, trying to develop young talent and all the pitfalls that come with trying to be the best at your craft, as a player, and I'm the one, together with our fellow coaches, trying to be the mentors to nurture these men.
"It's challenging enough to play at the level, let alone all the distractions, particularly.
"Our game, we are compelled to take these klds in most instances at 17 or 18 years of age, 18 mainly, and they are still very young men and they are going through a stage of their lives where they are just leaving school, they are driving vehicles, they are of legal age to drink alcohol, sometimes trying to work out what their next line of employment is to be after school, weather they go to uni or find a job.
"And then, unlike my upbringing where we never had to worry about social media, they have those challenges as well.
"It's difficult for any young person to navigate that at 18 to 22 age, and even more so if you are trying to be an elite AFL footballer at the same time.
"We are in charge of that responsibility, and what comes with that is an enormous amount of adversity and challenge as well as the adversity and challenge of mastering the craft of your chosen sport."
Clarkson said he wouldn't downplay the importance of his role, because those coaches and mentors he had as a kid in Kaniva and when he first arrived at North Melbourne – the likes of John Kennedy Senior, Laurie Dwyer and Denis Pagan – had such a big impact on his life.
"So I've always had a focus on ensuring I provide the type of coaching and mentorship for today's young players just like I received when I was a young fella coming through," he said.
