Clayton Oliver saw Luke Hodge in a Chapel Street bar. He was a peer now, not just a fan, so figured it was fair enough to approach him.
Oliver was with fellow Melbourne draftee, Liam Hulett, and it was shortly after the pair had been picked by Melbourne in 2014. Hulett wanted a selfie so wandered over to Hodge.
Clayton Oliver’s Dad told him footy had better work out or he’d have to be a plumber like him. Credit:AFL Photos
“We are at the Melbourne Demons, we got drafted,” Hulett said.
Hodge, by then a two-time Hawthorn premiership captain, looked them up and down. Oliver, chubby and wild-haired, was sitting on a ledge, so looked smaller than he was, and paunchier. He looked like a bloke who spent more time watching footy than playing.
“Bullshit! No way, there is not a chance you two got drafted,” Hodge scoffed, laughing out loud.
“Yeah we were drafted by the Melbourne Demons last week,” Oliver said.
Clayton Oliver’s first game for Echuca Saints under 12s.
“No way. You two are way too small to be playing AFL footy,” Hodge replied.
The pair stood up, prompting Hodge to size them up a second time, and offered up proof on their phones that they had indeed been drafted by the Demons.
Oliver admits he was not exactly cut like a diamond. “I was pretty fat and couldn’t run, couldn’t kick, couldn’t do much actually,” he said.
It’s commonly believed that in his early days at Melbourne he was told to handball rather than kick because his kicking was a bit loose, but he said that wasn’t right.
“Nah. I was just not that fast or fit enough to get out of the congestion. When I was [in] under-18s I was about 95 kilos and now I am 86, 87. I lost a lot of weight and worked on my running.”
Clayton Oliver’s selfie with Hawthorn champion Luke Hodge and fellow draftee Liam Hulett.
So Hodge was not wrong to have his reservations. He sat with the young draftees, had a beer with them and agreed to a selfie. The selfie wasn’t for Oliver, it was for “Pirate,” Oliver’s dad.
Stephen Oliver was dubbed Pirate by his mates Robert Barker and Jason Bomm at high school in Echuca because one eye was a bit slower than the other and to stop it chasing the dominant one around he wore an eye patch for a while. The legend then grew at school that he had a glass eye and a parrot at home that sat on his shoulder.
He had his eye straightened in his twenties but still convinces people he has a glass eye. He remained one-eyed about Hawthorn. Still is.
Oliver with his parents Michelle and Stephen, otherwise known as “Pirate”.
Pirate went to the AFL draft in 2015 wearing his Hawthorn singlet under his shirt. When Clayton was drafted, then Melbourne coach Paul Roos was chatting to the family. He asked “Pirate” who he barracked for.
“Melbourne,” Pirate lied.
“You f—ing liar,” his wife Michelle said. “He’s a Hawthorn fan.” Roos laughed. Pirate blushed.
Pirate wore his Hawthorn singlet under his Melbourne shirt to Demons games for years. Oliver says he still does.
“Prick. Utter prick. Every time,” Oliver laughed.
Former junior state teammates Clayton Oliver and Touk Miller shared this year’s AFL Coaches Association champion player award.Credit:AFL Photos / Getty Images
“When we used to lose to Hawthorn early days he would wear his Melbourne top over the top and when Hawthorn would start winning he would take his Melbourne top off and come down the rooms and have the Hawthorn top on in the Melbourne rooms. I’d say, ‘what are you doing?’ He’d say ‘ha! Can’t lose today,’” Clayton said.
“He blatantly lies about it. He still goes for Hawthorn now. He reckons he stopped after the first final but he didn’t, he still has a soft spot for them, still watches them every week and wants them to win. He talks about Sam Mitchell and ‘Hodgey’. He loves Hodgey. He’s shattered he didn’t meet him before he moved to Brisbane.”
Oliver’s mum Michelle, on the other hand, was a lifetime Richmond supporter but happily jumped off the Tigers when Oliver became a Demon. When Richmond made the grand final in 2017, Clayton was just two years into his Melbourne career and offered to get his mum tickets. She said no.
“I’ll wait to go when you are in it,” she said.
After the Tigers’ third flag she was starting to better appreciate the Melbourne fans’ pain and wondering if their time would come. She didn’t have to wait too much longer.
In Echuca they still call Oliver Clayton rather than “Clarry”. Clarry is a footy name; it came about when he was at the Murray Bushrangers and the coach Darren Ogier read out the team sheet one day and randomly read, “Clarence Oliver”. He didn’t even realise he had done it. The boys did. They loved it and, like Pirate, it stuck. He’s been Clarence, then Clarry, ever since.
Pirate likes to say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, to which Oliver responds: “he’s kidding himself”.
Both men then point out that Oliver had his dad’s footy career covered by under-12s, when he made the state team. You’ll have seen the photo by now of a chubby Oliver, bushy-haired Touk Miller, cherubic Christian Petracca, a sweetly innocent Bailey Dale and a cheeky-looking Darcy Moore in the back row. Not a bad team.
The Victorian under 12 team featuring Darcy Moore (back row second from right), Christian Petracca (middle row), Touk Miller, Bailey Dale, and Clayton Oliver (front).
The advice Pirate offered before interviewing his son was, “don’t talk to him about footy”. That’s a bit hard for a footy writer in finals, but he said it was the best advice Jack Watts’ dad gave him when Oliver was drafted: “If you want to keep a good relationship with your son, don’t talk footy with them when they get home, they get enough everywhere else”.
The advice Pirate has long given his son is that footy had better work out, or he’d have to join his dad as a plumber. Suffice to say Oliver is no fan of S-bends and footy is working out OK.
“Salo cuts his hair and washes his hair and dyes his hair three times a week. He loves his hair, I have never seen a man do more work to his hair. So he used to cut mine, but now I just do it myself. It doesn’t get the same level of attention.”
Oliver signs a footy at training.Credit:Getty Images
He has a close relationship with Salem still, and with midfield bull Petracca. The three of them went to Europe a few years ago and spent a few days with Petracca’s family in Italy.
“It was amazing. His cousins and nonna, none of them could speak English, so we were having broken conversations. ‘Trac’ was trying to translate, but he couldn’t speak it either. He was just speaking English with an Italian accent and really loud.”
Petracca learnt Italian cooking skills better than he did the language. Just as he is a natural cook, Petracca has an instinctive touch and understanding of the game, Oliver said.
“You watch some of the things he does and ask him how or why, and how he responds to it is pretty eye-opening,” he said.
When Petracca asks Oliver the same question he doesn’t always have an answer. “Sometimes I do, but sometimes you don’t know why you do it or how you do it, it just happens,” he said.
His understanding with Petracca, Max Gawn and Jack Viney has reached such a sweet spot that they all have an intuitive understanding of what the others will do and when.
“‘Vines’ as well ‘Gawny,’ when he hits the ball I know where it’s going to be hit and if I get it, Trac knows where I will go and same with Vines, you know where he’s going to go. We have played together so long, trained together so long, you just know you don’t have to think about it, they are just there.”
“We are all around 100 games, 150 games and playing our best footy individually and as a team.
“We want to make the most of it while we are in this spot. I don’t want to look back at 35 and think I could have done this or that, won another flag. We might not have this opportunity again.”
If he does win another flag, Hodge might come looking for him next time for a beer and a selfie … with Pirate.
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