You’re mates with Warren Ryan. What’s the genesis of his feud with (the late) Peter Frilingos from The Mirror days?
In 1981, Newtown had had a good win. In those days, press conferences were held in the dressing sheds, with everyone standing around, drinking beer. In fact, as soon as you walked in the door, they gave you a beer. So there was this group of journos gathered around Warren, who asked, “Is Peter Frilingos here?” And Chippy went forward as if he was going to get acknowledged in front of his peers. And Warren said to him, “You should be worried, Peter, because some dickhead who knows nothing about football is writing idiotic things, and he’s putting your name to it.” They’ve had it in for each other for years. Warren’s never respected him and never respected the News Ltd papers, though he does respect some of their journos and he’s written a column for The Courier-Mail for years.
Do you think the News Ltd papers give him a fair go?
You’re joking! Put it this way, Warren had won consecutive grand finals in ‘84 and ’85. The Daily Mirror had huge, eight-page grand final lift-outs for both years; all the players, the moments, ratings, etc. And Warren’s name didn’t appear once in either year. For the same reason he was never mentioned as a coach of the year. It’s because some people at News Ltd didn’t like him.
