If the sacking of Brett Ratten was viewed as harsh, it is the contentious culling of another son of the club that continues to reverberate at Carlton.
Stephen Silvagni’s removal as list boss in December 2019 was attributed to the hierarchy’s view that “SOS” could not continue in the role while he had a pair of sons, Jack and Ben, on the club list.
It was a call made by Carlton’s then chief executive Cain Liddle, whom Silvagni felt had trod on his list management turf. For Liddle, it was also a courageous decision, in the Yes Minister sense of the word. That is, a call that wasn’t in Liddle’s political interests – a reality that Carlton insiders from that time acknowledge.
Carlton great Stephen Silvagni.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Liddle was taking down a statue, not just a list manager, and messing with a man who, if he wished, would always have a voice within the broader Carlton family.
It is a decision that Liddle’s predecessor, Steven Trigg, said was poorly handled and that he found disappointing.
Liddle stood by his call on Wednesday, as the Blues also extended the olive branch to their exiled champion, knowing that Silvagni’s distance from the club would be a topic before their official 1995 reunion function against Geelong on April 27.
“When I took the job as CEO of Carlton, I committed to the members that I would make decisions without fear or favour,” Liddle told this masthead, in a statement on his Silvagni call.
“I did that each and every time that I needed to. I have no regrets. I continue to wish the club the very best and am grateful for the opportunity the Carlton Football Club provided my family and I.”
Liddle was removed as CEO after a Luke Sayers-led review in 2021.
In a year in which the Blues celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1995 premiership, SOS – the full-back of the century, who eclipsed both Wayne Carey (preliminary final) and Gary Ablett snr (grand final) in the ’95 finals, remains in exile from the club that is synonymous with his family.
Silvagni and then CEO Steven Trigg (left) in 2014.Credit: Chris Hopkins
While Carlton is known for the powerful families who’ve wielded influence in the boardroom, the Silvagnis are unquestionably Carlton’s first family on the field. Stephen’s moniker, as the Son of Serge, bespoke his father’s legendhood at Carlton, as a 239-game dual-premiership great, whose local Italian background enhanced Carlton’s relationship with that immigrant community.
Sergio also was a fixture at the Blues post-playing, coaching the reserves and briefly stepping in as head coach in the interregnum between Ian Stewart’s surprise exit early in 1978, and Alex Jesaulenko’s appointment. Both Stephen and Sergio are members of Carlton’s team of the century.
The club is hoping that Silvagni attends the reunion function – and any less formal 1995 gatherings – but there is little optimism that he will turn up from Carlton people and others who know him, given that he did not come down to the rooms for son Jack’s 100th game in 2023, watching the game from the stands and letting other family members embrace his son in the rooms.
Silvagni with son Jack in 2001.Credit: Allsport
Reinvented as a defender, Jack Silvagni will play his first game in 600 days tonight, two years after his 100th, having overcome a knee reconstruction from early 2024.
Carlton CEO Brian Cook, mindful of the politics surrounding Silvagni and his importance to club history, put the club’s wish to have SOS welcomed back on record.
“He’s always welcome at the footy club,” said Cook, adding that he did not know “every intricate detail” of Silvagni’s issues with Carlton.
“It would be great to see him back.”
As with Alastair Clarkson and the Hawks, the nature of SOS’s removal from his native Carlton has put him into what is either a club-created or self-imposed exile, depending on one’s perspective.
SOS’s premiership coach David Parkin called the champion’s apparent distance from Carlton “almost a sad story in the club, that he’s fallen out of the club”.
“[He was a] wonderful player for me,” added Parkin, who has known the Silvagni family, including Stephen’s mother Rita and late father Sergio, since his first stint coaching the Blues in the early ’80s.
Did Liddle make the right call? Within the Carlton ranks from that time, opinions were – and remain – divided. Silvagni did not comment for this story.
Trigg, the CEO who hired Silvagni and whose late 2017 removal preceded that of the AFL’s full-back of the century, says the jettisoning of SOS was not well done.
Silvagni during his time as Blues list manager, in 2015.Credit: Darrian Traynor
“That seemed to me to be poorly handled,” Trigg said of Silvagni’s sacking by the hierarchy.
“I just think that.. well, someone of Steven’s ability is very hard to find. They’re one of the really key pegs in your footy club, that role, and you wouldn’t want to let go of that calibre of person easily.
“So I don’t know that all the ins and outs, but I was disappointed to see him go, because I just think for the footy club, my personal view would be that he’s one of the best operators in that arena that I know.”
Silvagni’s return to Carlton in 2015 was a major event, having spent the previous four years as foundation list manager at Greater Western Sydney. Previously, SOS had worked as assistant coach alongside his close friend Ross Lyon at St Kilda, but he remained a keen watcher of his native club.
Jack Silvagni, pictured in 2017.Credit: Eddie Jim
Mark LoGiudice had taken over the presidency at Carlton in mid-2014, as Stephen Kernahan, skipper of Carlton’s 1995 premiership, quit the role.
The fact of Kernahan leaving and LoGiudice, a friend of SOS, taking over was seen to clear the path for the prodigal son, whose arrival soon coincided with the drafting, with a late matching bid, of his first son, Jack, in Carlton’s seminal 2015 national draft.
LoGiudice’s friendship with Silvagni was damaged by the list boss’ exit.
Silvagni had been given the imprimatur to oversee a full rebuild, and to take the kind of longer-range view that the Blues had found challenging – SOS’s stature at Carlton affording him an elevated level of authority.
“He’s all those things to Carlton,” said Trigg of Silvagni’s statue stature with the Blues. “But in my experience, he was and is in the highest echelon in terms of recruiters and list managers.
“What goes to make that up? Clarity, talent spotting, negotiation skills, hardness, in terms of conviction, hardness, he’s a strong-willed guy… Doesn’t mean he’s close minded. And some of the more enjoyable conversations, funny conversations I would have, would be with Silvagni.
“He’s got a conviction about things, and we had good conversations. So, yeah, I was always a great supporter of his.”
That 2015 draft would become the centrepiece of Carlton’s revival as the Blues selected Jacob Weitering, (pick No.1), Harry McKay (10) and Charlie Curnow (12) – picks for the key-forward pair acquired via canny trading. The Blues earned a (future) first-rounder from Geelong by offloading Lachie Henderson, at a time when they had scarce seasoned players.
How did Silvagni fare overall? Most observers, including those from his field at rival clubs and select Carlton officials from that period, feel he and his team did a pretty decent job.
If there were misses in the first round (Sam Petrevski-Seton, Paddy Dow and Lochie O’Brien in 2016, 2017), the combination of the three pillars of 2015 and Tom de Koning, picked later in 2017, handed the Blues a formidable foundation. St Kilda would be pleased if SOS, their list manager from early 2023, delivered a similar platform of A-graders.
Soon, Silvagni’s successors would be adding mid-sized runners, such as Adam Saad and Adam Cerra, in the knowledge that they did not need to waste picks or cash on talls.
Silvagni, a hard marker of footballers, was bold in letting senior players leave – he held firm on trading Bryce Gibbs, the 2006 No.1 pick, during 2016, only to do the deal with the Crows 12 months later on improved terms. Henderson was sent to Geelong for significant return, and Chris Yarran was traded to Richmond, for a late first-rounder, in the same post-season, in what was a bomb for the Tigers as Yarran found trouble with drugs and ended up incarcerated in his home state (WA).
The only player that SOS traded out that can be judged as a misstep – through 20/20 hindsight – was Zach Tuohy (Geelong), in a swap that more or less paid for the Blues to bring in capable but injury-afflicted Caleb Marchbank from the Giants, the club that Silvagni often targeted for fringe players; if some Giants didn’t pan out, they were largely obtained at low-cost.
One can mount a case that Silvagni’s most important achievement wasn’t the 2015 post-season, but his capacity to persuade the impatient Blues to dive into the draft pool, and undergo a full list reconstruction, instead of seeking quick fixes.
Stephen Silvagni marks in front of Darren Milburn.Credit: Joe Armao
Liddle was adamant then that the conflict of interest between managing the list and having two sons on it was unmanageable. But others within Carlton then also felt that the hierarchy wanted a different style of recruiting overseen.
The homecoming of 2015 wasn’t the only occasion that SOS either answered Carlton’s call or that he was enmeshed in the turbulence that bedevilled the Blues this century.
As Carlton was smashed by the AFL for salary cap cheating, it emerged that Silvagni and Craig Bradley were owed money by the club. They were encouraged to speak to the AFL investigation into the rorts, and did so.
SOS became part of the Ian Collins-led board takeover, taking a short-lived position on the board alongside fellow ex-players Ken Hunter and David McKay, as well as pokies magnate Bruce Mathieson.
In 2006, as Carlton was mired on the bottom under coach Denis Pagan, then president Graham Smorgon and another board member, Greg Lee, met with Silvagni to ascertain his interest in coaching in the AFL.
A source familiar with that meeting – which came at a desperate moment for the club – said SOS was not offered the senior coaching job, but the approach underscored that the Blues were looking past Pagan. Silvagni flatly told Smorgon and Lee he was not interested.
It would be another nine years before Silvagni came back to his ancestral home in an official role. No one, least of all the Blues, know when he’ll next return.
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