The emptiness keeps growing,
The hurt and sorrow too.
I look, but you’re not with me,
I don’t know what to do.
Sean Millane, 1991, a song for Darren.
On a day you’d rather cuddle your car heater, Sean Millane fronts his team in a concrete suburban change room and implores it to win.
Fellas. It’s our last chance.
The coach paces with a limp (knee surgery keeps him off the field) and talks, as he would play: in blunt, powerful bursts.
Protect each other. We lose and finals are out.
Millane is built like mailboxes he used to work with.
At 37, hair black, he looks as strong as he was in his prime.
The winters have stolen a touch of his pace but tragedy hasn’t pinched his youthfulness.
Just as the sun doubts it’ll triumph over storm clouds, Millane privately frets his team can’t win without him playing.
It’s a concern shared by all at St Pauls-East Bentleigh Football Club, in Melbourne’s Southern League Division One.
“We’ll miss Molly,” a watcher whispers.
“Molly” Millane hobbles to the boundary, to stand under apprehension and rain.
His gamble to post a small man at full-forward spurns hope.
The little fellow kicks three before the ball is weighed down by mud.
Molly urges at the break.
This next bit fellas. It’s our year on the line.
HAD Sean Millane played this day he would have adorned his bicep with black electrical tape (Australian Rules’ tribute to the dead) as he has for 14 years.
“It’s a trigger point for me,” he explains. “When you’re not travelling that well I look at it. Y’ know. Wake up, you’ve gotta do something.”
His devotion to the memory of his late brother, Collingwood Team of the Century wingman Darren, who died driving drunk in 1991, is remarkable.
These days, ignorant onlookers question why Sean wears parallel armbands, unaware his father Bob killed himself three years ago.
Sean began believing in symbolism when he held the ball after Dandenong’s 1991 VFA premiership, just as Darren had famously done with Collingwood the year before.
Years later Sean celebrated playing his 100th game on Darren’s would-be birthday, August 9.
Also, his career with Australia Post began on Darren’s birthday, long service entitlements kicking in on the anniversary of his brother’s death.
“Everything coincides,” Sean points out. “It’s amazing.”
Sean’s life is a tribute to Darren.
He still resides at Noble Park with his mother Denise, a vibrant woman, who has also aged remarkably well.
Sean sleeps in Darren’s old bungalow, with pictures of his idol, Magpie number 42, on the walls.
“I always wanted to be like Darren.”
In mourning, Sean and Denise often visited The Tunnel nightclub, where Darren spent his final hours.
The proprietor was a friend, who later named a spot in the downstairs bar “‘Pants’ (Darren’s nickname) Corner”.
“I went there more because it brought back good memories,” Sean recalls.
“I had to grow up a hell of a lot. Countless nights I’d cry myself to sleep. I’d lock myself away and I’d just listen to music and cry myself to sleep.
“It’s something you never get over.”
A record crowd attended Darren Millane’s funeral in October 1991 and thousands of death notices illuminated newspapers.
Friends worried the Magpie would be remembered more for his staggeringly high alcohol reading (0.32) than his Copeland Trophy.
But history also credits him for playing a final series with a broken thumb, an unequalled feat of courage.
He’s been called the greatest captain the black and white army never had.
Journalists Eddie McGuire and Jim Main tried to protect Darren’s reputation as a “loveable larrikin” in the book “PANTS”.
It included an interview Millane gave Inside Football, explaining why he so often slept at teammate Craig Kelly’s inner-city pad.
“Well I live in Noble Park and if you have as couple of drinks on a Saturday night, the responsible thing is not to drive home.”
Millane was not a reckless 26-year-old but a man enjoying life’s excesses.
His fatal mistake left a younger brother with undying shades of regret.
“I was actually supposed to go out (the night Darren died),” Sean concedes.
“I didn’t end up going. I should’ve been there.
“Had I been there things may have been different and it’s something that has played on my mind for many years. Still does at times.
“When you’re down you think (about it) … it might be silly but your mind takes over at times.”
Had Darren been alive today he would be turning 40, his charisma perhaps demanding media millions like his pal McGuire.
SEAN Millane did not follow his brother into the big league, though he played a handful of Collingwood reserves games in 1987 and some practice matches for the Brisbane Bears in 1991.
“They were looking for another Darren.”
He could not produce Darren’s speed and vertical leap but had courage and a formidable will.
Sean captained Dandenong and was later named in its Team of the Century.
When the club folded, he crossed to Frankston and recovered from a knee reconstruction within six months to earn respect.
Victorian honours, a best and fairest and over 200 games kept the few that didn’t warm to his self-confidence a silent minority.
Millane is highly competitive.
Many players would have retired after such a fine state league career (and so many injuries) but Millane went to coach Seaford in the Mornington Peninsula League.
Club officials said his professionalism took the team to a grand final in his first season.
A year later Millane ran water bottles to the club’s successful under 18 team on grand final day.
It was a selfless gesture few others would offer. It illustrated just how much the game meant to him.
“I’ve always had a good rapport with young blokes.
“It really does keep me young. I just turned 37 but don’t feel it.”
Some spectators taunt Millane, his black armbands giving him up as a sentimentalist, which a few interpret as weakness.
They could not know Darren’s death was not the only tragedy haunting Sean.
Three years ago his father Bob, a generous but gritty man, committed suicide.
“That was hard. Dad was what you’d call old school. He gave everything and he got very little back.
“Mum and dad had split up and I was all Dad had.
“He leant on me and said to me I’m gunna do this and do that. It was like that for three years.”
Bob was depressed and suffered jail time for a crime involving cannabis.
“That was minor. He was set up in a sense. It wasn’t a good situation.”
Bob had also remarried.
“And there were troubles there.”
Sean remembers the months leading to his father’s death.
“When it finally happened, we’d just beaten Oakleigh Districts. He’d caught up with a heap of old friends and he was the happiest I’d seen him for ages.
“I remember looking at him, thinking he’s gunna get over this and then bang, gone.”
“Ultimately he never did get over Darren.”
Sadly, Sean’s resolve was tested once more when Denise’s mum, his grandmother Gwen Rooke died days before the Seaford 2000 grand final.
“She lived with us for ten years and was one of my best mates. When she went that really got me as well.”
Gwen Rooke’s father (Sean’s great grandfather) was thought to be a Titanic survivor.
He claimed to have drunk two bottles of scotch the night the ship went down, which kept him warm enough to survive a long wait for rescuers.
A picture of the great ship adorns the Millanes’ Noble Park lounge room.
“All (three family deaths) have taken considerable tolls on me but in a sense also made me who I am today. John (his brother who lives in Queensland) and I share a special bond.
Sean’s mother is his heroine and best friend.
Denise can still be seen at most games Sean plays, as proud as if he were a first gamer.
AT St Pauls- East Bentleigh, the opposition, Clayton, slogs back into the game.
Molly’s gallantly hangs on.
A seemingly sleepy umpire wear’s the coach’s contempt.
Open your eyes. Open your eyes.
With three minutes to go his team is overtaken. Its finals chance shot.
Millane fumes. He scratches his bum knee.
His surgeon has recommended he retire.
“I’m not comfortable with him saying that,” he declares. “There’s always next week. It keeps me going. I never wanna stop.”
In tougher times he misses his mate Pants.
“We always said we’d play a year together when Darren finished (at Collingwood).”
But he doesn’t linger on it.
“I’ll always be Darren’s brother and I’m proud of that. But I’ve made a name for myself and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.”
“My philosophy in life is the world turns. It’s not gunna stop for me.”
Back in the concrete change room, he readdresses his shivering, beaten players; his game’s critique as honest as a five-goal wind.
There will be no third successive grand final appearance for St Pauls, despite Millane’s will.
But there will be training on Monday night.
And I want everyone there. Back to top
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