NOT too many Hobsons Bay residents are aware that one of Australian Rules football’s biggest and most enduring names lives quietly among them.
Carlton great Alex Jesaulenko spoke to Star last week in the wake of him becoming the 22nd player to be elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Speaking from his home on Altona’s Esplanade, Jesaulenko told Star of his despair for the current shape of the game and how he had found a peaceful “semi retirement” on the shores of Hobsons Bay.
In a 279-game career spanning three decades, Jesaulenko played in four premierships, including one as coach, was named All-Australian twice and took what many regard as the best mark of all time.
From Page 1.
It was that mark in Carlton’s 1970 come-from-behind premiership win, that still captures the imagination of footy fans, even those born 30 years after Jesaulenko first strutted out onto Princess Park for his VFL debut in 1967.
But for anyone who held an interest in the game in the 1970s, particularly Carlton supporters, no single act of on-field brilliance could have defined the man known simply as Jezza.
In fact Jesaulenko claims he doesn’t even remember how it felt when he launched himself into the stratosphere over Collingwood’s Graeme Jenkin, inspiring commentator Mike Williamson to scream into the microphone “Jesaulenko, you beauty”.
“At the time I didn’t even know I took it and, to be honest, I thought I took a better one in the last quarter when we really needed it. We were only 10 points down and for the first time we felt that we could win,” he said.
“That famous mark was in the second quarter, we were 44-points down and at that stage we were only trying to save face with the supporters.”
Despite the hype surrounding the mark, Jesaulenko doesn’t rate it among his career highlights.
“It was never about what you did as an individual, it was about getting out there with your team mates and doing the best you can and winning grand finals,” he said.
“In terms of highlights: the first premiership (in 1968) was special because it was Carlton’s first flag in 21 years; the second flag (in 1970) we came from 44 points down at half time; the third flag (in 1972) we made a record score against Richmond; and in the fourth (in 1979) I was coach.”
Jesaulenko was the last captain coach to win a premiership, a feat unlikely to be repeated.
When asked about his views on the modern game, Jesaulenko arcs up, describing it as “uninteresting and boring … like a schoolyard game of keepings off”.
“They run away from the contests and think that’s fantastic,” he said.
“You have to be a super-quick athlete and the bludgers get rewarded for avoiding contests rather than the umpire looking after the man going in hard for the ball.
“I like to see their skills rather than just their pace.”
Jesaulenko’s on-field toughness may have something to do with his parents.
His Russian mother, Wera, was in her early teens when she witnessed her father being shot dead by German soldiers.
While held captive in a Nazi prison camp, Wera gave birth to her first son, Alex, but the Germans forcibly separated the mother and child and they weren’t reunited until 1994.
Wera later met Ukrainian Wasil Jesaulenko in Salzburg, Austria, and soon after, in 1945, Wera gave birth to a second child whom she also named Alex, in the belief that her first son was dead.
The family moved to Australia four years later, eventually settling in Canberra.
Jesaulenko described meeting his half brother in Melbourne 14 years ago as “an extraordinary time”.
He said his parents didn’t talk about their experiences in war torn-Europe when he was growing up.
“They just said, ‘leave it alone, this is your country now get on with things’,” Jesaulenko said.
“They were pretty strong those crazy Russians.”
Wera is still alive and living at Hervey Bay in Queensland.
Wasil Jesaulenko died in 1993, nearly 10 years before his famous son was immortalised in his homeland with induction into the Ukrainian Sportsman’s Hall of Fame.
“He would have been proud, that was his country,” Jesaulenko said.
Jesaulenko and his wife Annie moved to Altona last year after stumbling upon a piece of waterfront real estate by chance.
“I said to the agent ‘my goodness how long has this place been here’ – it’s just a beautiful, peaceful, nice place to live,” Jesaulenko said.
The football great is a regular sight strolling along the foreshore with his wife and three grandchildren, all girls.
Jesaulenko played in an era when a million dollars could have paid the entire team’s salaries for several years, unlike today when a single player of his ilk could conceivably pocket the sum in a single season.
As such, Jesaulenko had to keep down a second job during his playing years, working as a salesman for companies including TNT and, after his 1981 retirement from the game, current Carlton president Dick Pratt’s Visy Recycling.
Jesaulenko left Visy a couple of years ago and now runs his own business as a distributor for health drink Xango, helping him maintain a comfortable lifestyle during his “semi retirement”.
“It’s good to not be able to give people something that’s great for their health and to be able to make a buck out of it,” he said.
“It’s not a bad way to spend our twilight years,” he said.
