Story time: The media storm behind Wayne Carey's Kangaroos departure

It was March 10, 2002. Less than three weeks out from North’s first game of the season, the players were recovering from David King’s 30th the night before.

Kingy had an all-time house party.

It was a Sunday, and Glenn Archer was hosting a gathering for his partner’s 30th at their place in Warandyte.

What happened next has been widely reported and I don’t need to hash over the details… But essentially Wayne Carey went to the bathroom and Anthony Stevens' wife Kelli followed him in.

Upon coming out, Anthony was right there. Carey had called it off by then, but that detail didn’t matter.

All hell broke loose.

But what I’m interested in is the aftermath. Who knew what, when and how.

The party disbanded. Onlookers couldn’t believe the allegations, though at that point they were being denied by both parties.

One North Melbourne player had breakfast with a former teammate at Dundas and Faucette in Albert Park the next morning. That non North player was shocked.

Ricky Nixon received calls on Sunday night. Not only did he manage Carey, but he also looked after Wayne Schwass, Mick Martyn and the Sholls.

On the Monday morning, Carey went into Ricky Nixon’s office.

Coincidentally, a Manchester United representative had flown over to meet with Ricky to organise a soccer game in Melbourne. He was told to wait for 20 minutes in reception. He ended up sitting there for three and a half hours as Nixon and Carey came to terms with their predicament.

THE MEDIA SIDE OF THINGS…

At Channel 10, Gerard Whateley received a mock press release in the early days of email… Revealing that Wayne Carey would never play for North Melbourne again.

At The Herald Sun, Mark Robinson received a note from an anonymous source detailing a major falling out between Wayne Carey and Anthony Stevens and Glenn Archer’s house.

Robbo called Carey, who he had been ghost writing columns for, and confronted him with the suggestion. Carey refuted it.

At The Age, Caroline Wilson was told by a rival senior coach while at MSAC what had happened. Again, she couldn’t confirm it elsewhere and there was no medium to break it after dinner anyway.

At Channel 9, then reporter and now horse owner Anthony Mithen received an anonymous fax.

It read: “Wayne Carey is finished at North Melbourne. The bloke is a dog.”

Mitho, who is the father of Gold Coast Suns AFLW player Lily Mithen, took a camera down to Arden Street in the afternoon where North was having a recovery session.

He looked out across the oval. No Carey.

As journos could do back then, Mitho walked into the club and into footy manager Geoff Walsh’s office.

“G’day Mitho! What are you doing here?” Geoff said as he shook the young Channel 9 journo’s hand.

“Where is Carey?” Mitho replied as he sat down.

“I heard he’s finished here due to an off field controversy. Let me put it to you that there has been an almighty crisis.”

“Absolutely incorrect! Not true. Wrong. False. No way.” Walsh shot back.

“So where is he?” asked Mitho.

Walsh, without breaking the steely glare back at Mithen, said: “He’s at the pool.”

“So if I go there will he be there?” Mitho asked.

Walsh paused.

“Yeah, I mean, umm. He should be.”

Mithen and a young, slender Tony Jones discussed the merits of breaking the story off the anonymous fax on that Monday night. But they decided against it.

Mithen knew something was up, he just couldn’t pinpoint what.

Tuesday morning came around and still nothing had been revealed.

North’s media manager called Anthony Mithen mid-afternoon on the Tuesday.

“You better get down here. Hutchy is here with a camera from Channel 7… There’s a bit going on” Damien Booth (North Melbourne media manager) said.

At 3pm, Craig Hutchison broke into live programming on Channel 7. The editors, the camera person and everyone else except for Tim Cleary at Ch7 had no idea what Hutchy was about to report.

The Young and the Restless was halted for this major announcement.

By then Anthony Stevens had finally got a confession from Carey, after bluffing him into believing Kelly had revealed it all.

The club was divided. Archer and Stevens in particular ropable.

Carey then held a media conference at Ricky Nixon’s office.

The Herald Sun sold 40,000 more copies for each of the next three days. It was largely on par with Princess Diana’s death in terms of an increase in circulation in that era, and only less than Port Arthur and 9/11.

Mark Robinson went to Wagga Wagga, where Carey had escaped to, to interview him.

Carey then flew to Las Vegas.

On The Footy Show on the Thursday night, Eddie McGuire was handed the front page by then newspaper editor Peter Blunden.

He held it up and read a the headline and a few paragraphs.

Mick Martyn was a guest, and gave this famous retort to Sam Newman.

"I'm not going to answer a dickhead question from a dickhead person."

There was also a brief attempt to try and reconcile things between Archer, Carey and Stevens… It was unsuccessful.

By July, he had begun to think about his next football move.

He met with Collingwood. He met with Adrian Dodoro, Mark Harvey, Matthew Lloyd and James Hird at an apartment in Port Melbourne.

And he wasn’t far away from going to Essendon… But then he went behind Ricky Nixon’s back to join Adelaide.

The story changed the way football media reported on personal issues. From then on, this sort of thing was fair game.

Alongside the Essendon drugs story, it’s probably the biggest football one since Ron Barassi left Melbourne for Carlton.

And what about Geoff Walsh lying point blank to Anthony Mithen’s face?

Well the two broke bread last year at Flemington while at the Races!

“I had to do it,” Walsh laughed.

“All good mate!” Mithen laughed back.

Audio thanks to Rhett Bartlett on X