IT’S the age old question: What came first, the mullet or the 80s?
Men have gone mad searching for the answer but one thing is for sure – the mullet lasted longer.
While the 80s disappeared on January 1, 1990 in unexplainable circumstances, the mullet clings to life like the modern-day Freemasons, no longer popular but novel all the same.
Yes, the golden age is over, but there are some who cling on for dear life, honouring those mullets that have been clipped and left to die on barber floors throughout Australia.
Today, we honour them all equally.
1: PETER DAICOS
ROCKING what I like to call “The Helen Lovejoy”, Daics’ mullet was as crucial to Collingwood’s flag in 1990 as Lethal’s ‘tache.
Providing him with both superior balance and aerodynamics, it’s a little known fact that the nickname the “Macedonian Marvel” was actually referring to Daicos’ neck-warmer.
Daicos inexplicably trimmed the mullet back at the start of 1993, sapping his powers and resulting in the mercurial forward’s retirement at the end of the season.
2: IVAN MARIC
TO be a St Kilda fan is to know pain.
To be a St Kilda fan without a mullet and be just inches from the Mane of Maric … it leaves you dead inside.
Legend has it this young man turned to a life of crime when he realised he could never emulate the glory of Ivan. The mullet…it…it changes people.
3: GARRY HOCKING
IT’S a football moment we will never forget.
The great EJ Whitten doing his final lap of honour of the MCG. His eyesight failing, he leans into his son, Ted Whitten Jr, and whispers: “Did you see, son? I finally touched it … I finally touched Buddha’s mullet.”
He smiles and pumps his fist into the air. Magic.
4: FRASER GEHRIG
THIS is what would happen if Nosferatu and Billy Ray Cyrus mated.
Pictured here during some kind of sacrificial ceremony with noughties heartthrob Josh Hartnett, Gehrig’s mullet was less “business in the front-party at the back” and more “murder in the front-shallow grave in the back”.
5: NATHAN BUCKLEY
BUCKS wasn’t always the clean cut coach we see today. He was once a fresh-faced kid out of Adelaide who thought all grown men wore mullets.
Then he moved to Brisbane in 1993 and that belief was unwavering.
It wasn’t until he moved to Melbourne that he realised hair could be cut in other ways.
6: TAYLOR WALKER
THIS is what four years in South Australia does to a man.
Adelaide: Not even once.
7: GREG ANDERSON
QUEENSLAND and pineapples; Melbourne and coffee; Adelaide and mullets.
I dunno, maybe South Australians are just born with sensitive napes.
Anderson is the uncontested poster boy of the mullet, rocking it right through adolescence to this very day.
Some say that if you head to Football Park on a cold winter’s eve, you can still hear Greg’s mullet swishing down the wing.
8: PAUL ROOS
ALRIGHT, no more Adelaide bashing. They’ve got enough problems.
Roosy’s mullet was actually a medical necessity.
As shown in the picture above, the Fitzroy champion’s chin was so heavy that he needed the mullet to act as a sort of counterbalance.
It wasn’t until Roos moved from the Lions to the Swans that he was paid enough to afford the surgery that would ultimately remedy the issue.
9: STEPHEN KERNAHAN
MAYBE just a little bit more Adelaide bashing.
Sticks was never truly comfortable in Melbourne, and kept his mullet as a warm reminder of home.
A Carlton legend and Blues president for six years, Kernahan tried desperately to run the club into the ground to spark the Carlton-Glenelg merger he always dreamed of.
While entertaining for the rest of the us, the club continues to languish in irrelevance.
10: GARY ABLETT SR.
GOD’S mullet was so mighty that it made all the hair in the frontal lobe cower.
A haircut so distinct that it’s difficult to think of anyone with a do that even comes close, Ablett’s hair was responsible for 1029 of his 1030 career goals*.
*Not that one in the ’94 prelim final. That was all Leigh Tudor, baby.
11: GARY AYRES
IF you hold your hand up to the screen and cover Gary’s mullet, one could think he is a handsome man.
But Gary’s mullet made him ugly. It made him do things. Horrible things. Like win Hawthorn premierships. And destroy the Geelong Football Club in the late 90s.
Gary is a bad man.
12: WARWICK CAPPER
WHEN you talk to one of the non-believers from the northern states about our great game, one name invariably pops up: Capper.
Pictured here discussing foreign policy with an unidentified man, Capper’s haircut, shorts and personality were used to sell the game to Sydney and Brisbane in the 80s.
The clean-up of the Chernobyl-like fallout continues.
13: WAYNE CAREY
GENUINE wang ribbons. The picture speaks for itself.
