Wayne Carey’s ex-coach hits out at star’s affair with Anthony Stevens’ wife for the first time
The AFL coach left to pick up the pieces of Wayne Carey’s broken club after his infamous fling with a teammate’s wife wished the star had been manned and would have taken responsibility for the scandal sooner.
Two-time premiership coach Denis Pagan was at the helm in 2002 when Carey’s affair with Anthony Stevens’ wife, Kelli, saw the star player leave the club and leave it in shambles.
“I wish we could have changed it. You could have come right out and said, “I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” Pagan told Carey to his face in the second episode of the new footy legend podcast The truth hurts.
“I thought you didn’t want to say you were sorry at first.”
Denis Pagan and Wayne Carey hold up the AFL Premiership Cup after beating the Sydney Swans in 1996. Carey’s affair would tear the club apart
Anthony Stevens with then-wife Kelli at Wayne Carey’s wedding reception in 2001
Carey and Stevens (pictured) had been close friends before the affair caused a lifelong rift
It was the first time the couple sat down to discuss the affair, with Carey embarrassed leaving for Adelaide, where he ended his career.
“It was the biggest tragedy in my time as a coach. Even to the point where I now knew the pressure you were under,” Pagan told Carey.
Pagan let go after Carey told him about the affair and the fallout had been the biggest regret of his life.
“It’s easy for me to say I wish you had done this and I wish you would have grabbed and hugged Stevo and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it’ ,’ Pagan said.
‘But that’s easy to say, I don’t want to know the details. It’s just one of the sad facts of life.
“You talked about regret, it’s one of your biggest regrets and I’m sure even now if you could have done something to change it, it destroyed the structure of the football club and we picked up the pieces a little bit again, but we were never nearly the same.’
Carey’s affair with Stevens’ now ex-wife stunned the footy world when they were caught in a toilet at a house party, leading to the two-time premiership captain leaving the club in disgrace.
It is a chasm that has never been healed.
Anthony Stevens is greeted by his wife Kelli and daughter Ayva after a match in 2004. Their relationship did not survive
Kelli Stevens is depicted in more recent times
Last year, the pair were at Yarraville’s Railway Hotel for a 1996 premiership reunion, when Carey reportedly “went to Stevens.”
Witnesses alleged that Carey accused Stevens of “talking behind his back and telling people he wasn’t reachable and not bothering to catch up with him, but then being fine in person.”
Pagan described the collapse of the once close friends’ friendship as “tragic.”
“When I think about how close everyone was and how close you were, it was tragic. We had such a bond and it got broken and even now there is still a little bit of fear and I hate to see it.
“All we can do now is pick up the pieces. I see you, I see Glenn (Archer) and I see Anthony and I wish it was like it used to be.”
Denis Pagan didn’t back down when asked by Wayne Carey for his thoughts on the affair that tore North Melbourne
Anthony Stevens and his ex-wife Kelli in happier times. He reportedly clashed with Carey last year during a 1996 premiership team reunion
“I wish you could have gone to Echuca for a weekend or Sydney for a weekend and come back and been all buddies and fooled the coach that you’ve only had two shandies and haven’t had a beer and we could all have gone, but it happened. That’s life, we’re not going to change it, and these things happen.
“When I think about it now, I’m still devastated to think, I wish it hadn’t happened, but it’s life.”
Carey confessed to Pagan that he felt he had no choice but to dump the club immediately and flee.
“I called (North Melbourne officials) Geoff Walsh and Greg Miller very quickly and called right away,” Carey said.
“The thought was, they say fight or flight. But immediately the thought for me was: I have to run away. There was no other thought in my mind.
“For those who think I was fired, I wasn’t. I stopped immediately. There was no thought. The excuse (to Stevens to save his Kangaroos career) never really crossed my mind at the time. It was just: ‘I have to separate myself from the club.’