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.
As a teenager growing up in Hobart, Stewart turned out for the Macalburn club and spent spare time watching Tasmanian Football League club North Hobart training and playing. The North Hobart players knew him well and were bemused when he joined North's archrival, Hobart. Stewart started there in 1962 as an eighteen-year-old. After just four senior games, Stewart impressed sufficiently to earn selection for the state team to play against Victoria. This was a great opportunity to display his talents: playing in the centre, he was matched against Alastair Lord, who went on to win the Brownlow medal that year. At the end of the season, Stewart paid his own way to Melbourne in an attempt to break into the Victorian Football League (VFL). Stewart was keen to play for St Kilda. The Saints had been vigorously recruiting players from all over the country in an attempt to win their first ever premiership. They had a number of Tasmanian players in their ranks and the previous year had recruited the Apple Isle's star player, Darrel Baldock. Like virtually every young footballer in Tasmania at the time, Stewart idolised Baldock and wanted to play alongside him. Several other VFL clubs were impressed by Stewart's performance against Victoria and wanted to sign him, while St Kilda believed he needed another year in Tasmania to develop. However, he leveraged the interest of the other clubs and St Kilda won the services of the determined teenager.
Stewart's arrival in the big time was subdued. He arrived at pre-season training with his own guernsey as he was too shy to ask the club to provide one. Stewart was named on the wing on his VFL debut against then powerhouse club at the Junction Oval. Three other players were also making their debut for the Saints that day: Carl Ditterich, Bob Murray and Jim Wallis. 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.
However, in the semi-final rematch (from the previous year) with Collingwood, Stewart was blanketed by Colin Tully and the Saints went down by ten points. Stewart bounced back with a best afield performance the following week, guiding his team to a revenge win over Essendon and keeping alive the dream of a first flag.
The Saints managed a one point victory over Collingwood in the 1966 Grand Final, which stands as one of the celebrated games of Australian football. On top of this achievement, Stewart also won All-Australian selection and a second club best and fairest.
After reaching the summit, it was a lot harder to go back up. St Kilda suffered a premiership hangover and missed the 1967 finals, then battled into fourth place for the 1968 finals. They only got there thanks to an eight-goal win over Geelong in the final round but, facing the same opposition in the semi-final, lost by 44 points – a 92-point turnaround in a week. On the day, Stewart lowered his colours to West Australian Dennis Marshall, who dominated the game. Stewart was made captain for 1969, but the team could manage only seventh place and tension arose between the captain and his coach, Allan Jeans. Stewart resigned the position at season's end, then went missing for pre-season training.
Although Stewart returned to play the 1970 season—and the Saints made the preliminary final—he was clearly unhappy. Struggling with injury, his relationship with Jeans was still strained, and he was sometimes played out of position at half-forward. He had no impact on the only final game he played of that year, and made it clear he wanted to leave the club. Some thought that Stewart was finished at 27 years of age. Reflecting back on that time 40 years later, Stewart was more circumspect: I'd lost my dedication, I needed a new challenge. I wasn't as involved as much as I should have been. Maybe I was burnt out like Mark Thompson. I wasn't getting on well with 'Jeansy', but I've since realized it was my fault, not Allan Jeans' fault.
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".