Two of Essendon's biggest stars from argueably the most important period in club history - the 1984 and 1985 Premierships - returned to Windy Hill today to pass on the secrets from that successful era.
Premiership players, Terry Daniher and Simon Madden joined Matthew Knights to launch the celebrations surrounding the 25th Anniversary of the 1984/85 Premierships.
Speaking to media, both men said they want to assist Essendon’s current list in creating their own history by providing advice and support to the budding crop of players.
“At the Essendon Football Club we are very proud to be celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the great 1984/1985 premierships and as a part of that we are inviting the 1984/1985 players back to the club to help without main training session, team meetings and having lunch with the players,” Knights said.
“We’d love to get as many 1984/1985 premiership players back to the club and we will be ring these guys individually. If we can get players back regularly to the club it will be a great help to player development.“Our leadership group couldn’t get an enough of the idea to bring the past premiership players back. Today they really enjoyed mixing with Terry and Simon, the players are all for it.”

For Madden, the drive to training at Windy Hill has again become part of his weekly routine after he was appointed ruck coach earlier this year.

“One of the things with bringing past players back to the club is that we’ve got a very young side at Essendon so you bring the likes of Terry, myself and other players along and they can then pass on their knowledge that they’ve gained through their football careers,” Madden said.

“When we were younger we had a function with the 1965 premiership players. It’s a real eye opener to meet these guys; they are just normal guys who actually played in a premiership. You begin to realise it is a possibility for you too.“It’s a hell of a lot of work, a lot of commitment and lots of team work but it has been done before and it can be repeated.""

Daniher said the past players would welcome getting to better know the current players but admitted to struggling to pronounce some of their surnames.

“It’s a great opportunity for the past players to come back to the club and rub shoulders with the players. It is nice to be asked back and given that opportunity to get back into the inner sanctum,” Daniher said.

“It’s been good meeting some of the younger players even though I can’t pronounce a lot of their surnames. It’s changed a bit since the old days when you had Duckworth, Baker, Madden and Watson- now you’ve got the likes of Zaharakis and Bachar Houli, but it will be great to get to know them a bit better.""