Ian Stewart

Ian Harlow Stewart (né Cervi; born 14 July 1943) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the St. Kilda Football Club and Richmond Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He later coached and before returning to St. Kilda to serve as general manager.

Stewart is one of only four men to win the Brownlow Medal three times (the others being Haydn Bunton Sr., Dick Reynolds, and Bob Skilton), and the only one to do so at two different clubs; he is also the most recent player to have achieved three Brownlow Medals. He was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and was elevated to Legend status the following year. He will be remembered as an exponent of Australian football, a player with a blend of skill, concentration and courage who formed partnerships with Darrel Baldock and Royce Hart. Coincidentally, all three men hailed from Tasmania during a period when the country's smallest state contributed talent to the national game.

Early life and career

Stewart was born Ian Cervi in the mining town of Queenstown in western Tasmania. He was the son of Italian migrant Aldo Liberale Cervi, who had come with his father to work in the mines, and Queenstown local Anita Stewart, whom Cervi married. When they split three years later, Stewart moved out with his mother and adopted her maiden surname to protect her identity. Stewart would not see his father again until a family reunion in Melbourne in 1972, just months before his father's death. Ditterich starred in a best-on-ground performance and would go on to enjoy a colourful 285-game career. Stewart's game was quiet due to a heavy knock, but he nonetheless developed into a quality player. Clearly, the Saints were putting together a brilliant team. The club's supporters realised as the season unfolded that they had an equally good player in Stewart. Possessing the most valued asset that a midfielder in Australian football can have – balance – Stewart was also a prolific ball winner and consummate user of the ball once it was in his sure grip. His ability to pass the ball to Baldock bordered on the telepathic and he was an excellent overhead mark for a small man. St Kilda coach Allan Jeans quickly realised that the new boy needed to be in the play as much as possible, so he was switched into the centre, where he remained for the rest of his career. The Stewart-Baldock combination drove the Saints into the finals, where they were unlucky to lose the semi-final to Melbourne due to inaccurate kicking in the last quarter.

Success appeared tantalisingly close to the game's perennial underachievers. However, controversy derailed the Saints' 1964 season. The club's administration had decided to accept an offer to relocate to outer-suburban Moorabbin, thus abandoning their spiritual home of almost one hundred years. The furore lasted for months, although history showed that the club was actually ahead of the times in their strategic thinking. The emotion over uprooting the club was a distraction for the team (which slumped to sixth on the ladder) but not for Stewart. He won his first Trevor Barker Award (club best and fairest) in 1964 in what proved to be the first in a string of individual accolades.

Premiership success and subsequent burnout

The 1965 season and the move to Moorabbin was a huge success. Starting with more than 51,000 at the opening game, the Saints packed them in at their new home. In Round 9, in front of more than 72,000 at the MCG, St Kilda seized top place from Melbourne with a big win, then held on for the remainder of the season to win the minor premiership for the first time. The momentum continued; two days after the last game, Stewart was a surprise winner of the game's highest award, the Brownlow medal. He had tied with North Melbourne's Noel Teasdale, but the medal went to Stewart on a countback (Teasdale received a retrospective award 24 years later). Then St Kilda won into the Grand Final in a thrilling semi-final against Collingwood, decided by only one point. The medal win did not deflect Stewart's concentration – he dominated. His team were into only their second Grand Final, the first for 52 years. As St Kilda had not won a single premiership in its 93-year existence, it looked like history in the making.

Essendon after beating Collingwood, advanced to the Grand Final. St. Kilda players and coach overtrained during the week and were unprepared on the match day. The Bombers, finals veterans, had the game won by three quarter time. Stewart was named his team's best player.

The following season, the Saints jumped out of the blocks and after winning the first eight games there was speculation that they could go through undefeated. Naturally, talk like that precipitated a slump, and by the last game, they were in danger of sliding right out of the finals if they lost. Thanks to Baldock, the Saints pulled a tight game out of the fire and went into the finals as equal favourites for the flag.

Back in the 1960s, the Brownlow vote count was broadcast live on radio on the Monday following the end of the home-and-away season. As the reigning Brownlow medallist, Stewart thought he would only poll 14 or 15 votes, adding that he felt his last three or four games of the season had been poor. But by the end of the broadcast, Stewart had won his second successive Brownlow with 21 votes, winning by four from Carlton star John Nicholls, the first player to win back-to-back Brownlows since Dick Reynolds in 1937 and 1938. At the time of the broadcast, Stewart had been staying at a friend's place in Seaford and was ill with gastroenteritis, but went later that evening to a television studio to be congratulated by club officials and the media.

Famous swap In 1971, the idea that two star players would be traded for each other was uncharted territory for Australian football (although Richmond was to be once again involved in controversy in 1975 when they pushed their luck too far and swapped the future Brownlow medallist Graham Teasdale, state representative ruckman Brian "The Whale" Roberts, and talented half-back-flanker Francis Jackson for South Melbourne's John Pitura, who was only to play 38 senior games at Richmond in three years).

The VFL had only recently sanctioned transfer fees, which usually amounted to no more than a couple of thousand dollars, but top line players did not swap clubs, and certainly not dual Brownlow medallists. Stewart wanted to break that trend, but he knew that the prevailing culture demanded that he be discreet. He let Richmond secretary Allan Schwab (who had worked briefly at St Kilda a few years earlier) know that he would be interested in moving to Punt Road if a deal could be worked. Stewart's rival during the 1960s for the title of best centreman in the VFL was Richmond's Billy Barrot. The two had parallel careers, and although Stewart was acknowledged as the better player, the Victorian selectors had played Barrot 11 times, Stewart only three. The two men were a stark contrast: Barrot was a burst player, specialising in the booming drop-kick into the forward line (often from the centre circle into the goal-square) and the extravagant gesture; and, although devastating and spectacular, he was also moody and undisciplined and was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After dominating in two premiership victories, the Richmond hierarchy felt that Barrot's faults outweighed his attributes and that his time was up at Punt Road.

Richmond used the Barrot situation as a pretext to recruit Stewart, who had told St Kilda he would probably go to Perth and find a coaching job in the league there. Gradually, Richmond stimulated St Kilda's interest in recruiting Barrot when it became clear that he would not be continuing with the Tigers. When the Saints were eventually prepared to sign Barrot, Stewart made a late request to go to Richmond, ostensibly saving St Kilda a transfer fee. Stewart described the situation as a "sting...but it was a good sting".

The football community was stunned by the trade; its likes had never been seen and the debate was on as to who had the best end of the deal. A large group of irate Richmond supporters vented their emotion in an angry scene at the club's AGM. As one of the most popular players at Punt Road, Barrot was still performing on-field and he admitted to heartbreak when told that he had effectively been sacked. Barrot was the younger man and it was felt that St Kilda had pulled a great con trick on the Tigers. It took just a few weeks of the new season to prove this view wrong.

Rebirth in yellow and black Wearing the Number 2 jumper in which Roy Wright won two Brownlow medals, Stewart burned from the start of 1971 and rapidly gained favouritism to win another Brownlow Medal. Meanwhile, Barrot lasted two games with the Saints, was dropped and then cleared to Carlton by mid-season. There, he played a handful of games for the Tigers' old rivals, but had a physical confrontation with coach Ron Barassi at half time in the last round of the season, which resulted in Barrot walking away from VFL football forever.

The 1971 Brownlow Medal count was one of the closest in VFL/AFL history. With one round of votes remaining, any of eight players could have won the medal; Stewart, Hawthorn's star full-forward Peter Hudson, St Kilda's John McIntosh and Essendon captain Barry Davis were tied on 18 votes, while Fitzroy's Alex Ruscuklic, Footscray's Gary Dempsey, Geelong's Bill Ryan and St Kilda captain Ross Smith were also in contention with 16 votes each. But, with the final vote of the evening, VFL administrative director Eric McCutchan announced that Stewart had polled three votes to win the medal outright. From there, he kicked two goals to keep Richmond on track for their eighth premiership. He finished the game as one of Richmond's best, with 18 disposals, five marks and three goals. He rejoined the club in time to play in the centre for their Round 2 match against Fitzroy. After playing six more matches, including the infamous "Battle of Windy Hill" against Essendon, in which he kicked five goals, and his 200th VFL match in Round 10 against South Melbourne, Stewart wrote a letter to Richmond secretary Alan Schwab, announcing his decision to retire permanently. In his letter, Stewart wrote that he had made the decision after long and deep consideration. He felt that he couldn't cope with the demands of the game any more, and didn't want to spoil the good reputation he had built while at Richmond. Stewart continued to give opportunities to young players and publicly backed the relocation, then handed the a player list in reasonable shape for the move, at the end of the 1981 season.

After departing South Melbourne, Stewart returned to serve as general manager at St Kilda. In 1983 he was involved in a controversial clearance wrangle when South Melbourne players Paul Morwood and Silvio Foschini crossed to the Saints without clearance from the VFL. In Round 4, Morwood played in the game against without official clearance from the VFL. The Saints ended up losing by 11 points, but had they won, they would have risked forfeiting the premiership points under the League rules at the time. Stewart defended the players' freedom to play where they wished provided they were not under contract, and when asked about the risk of forfeiting premiership points, he retorted, "We were beaten by 21 goals last week, where was the risk?"

Life outside football After serving as general manager at St Kilda for three years during the tumultuous 1980s, Stewart cut ties with football and became involved with various business ventures, including uranium mining in the Kalahari Desert.

In July 2012, Stewart was admitted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after suffering what he initially thought was a stroke, but was later diagnosed as Guillain–Barré syndrome. He was home alone at the time – his wife Suzie was in London visiting their other daughter Lauren – and had just returned from the gymnasium when he fell over in his bathroom. He had not experienced any symptoms. Paralysed from the neck down, he struggled to call for an ambulance using his nose.

Honours and tributes Stewart's sporting achievements have been recognised with numerous honours. Besides his three Brownlow Medals, Stewart was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame in 1993, and in 1996 was one of the first inductees into the Australian Football Hall of Fame before being elevated to Legend status the following year. In 2000, he received an Australian Sports Medal.