It was the ‘Carey Show’ every week MORE THAN A GAME

 After more than 30 years as the League’s lead broadcaster, the Seven Network lost the broadcast rights at the end of 2001.

One of media giant Kerry Packer’s fervent wishes before he died was to get a slice of the AFL TV rights and between 2002 and 2006, Channel Nine became the home of Friday night footy.

And with Eddie McGuire calling the shots on and off the airwaves, it became game’s biggest and best TV property outside of the Grand Final. Nine took it to a new level.

“We wanted to make it more like an actual TV show from start to finish,” said veteran sports reporter Tony Jones who was Nine’s boundary rider.

“The other principle was it had to be newsy. And that’s why they had journalists on the boundary.” ownership of Friday night footy, given it pioneered the concept.

There had been some big news stories on Friday nights before Nine had the rights.

“If they had been able to secure Friday nights for 20 years, well, there’s your profit sorted straight away,” he said.

As the ratings surged, other clubs wanted in on the action and the AFL obliged.

Fellow MCG tenants Richmond and Essendon began to appear more frequently, while Collingwood snuck in for a few appearances as well.

In 1995, North Melbourne and Richmond played their qualifying final on a Friday night, the first League final in history not to be played on the weekend.

North Melbourne fans pelting Kevin Sheedy with marshmallows. The MCG scoreboard caught fire during the final home and away game of 1999 and fans had to be evacuated from the old Ponsford Stand. The Western Bulldogs snapped Essendon’s unbeaten run on a dramatic Friday night late in 2000.

But Nine enjoyed an incredible run of games in which the news triumphed the result.

Jason McCartney’s emotional comeback game for North Melbourne in 2003 after recovering from the Bali bombing was perhaps the most memorable.

It was a tightly held secret that he would announce his retirement to McGuire in the rooms after the game but the script changed as Jones interviewed him on the ground after the final siren.

“He just volunteered the information and that became one of the iconic Friday night moments,” Jones said.

Carey’s abrupt departure from the Kangaroos following revelations about his affair with Kelli Stevens, wife of teammate Anthony Stevens, was one of the biggest footy stories ever.

So, his first game for Adelaide against the Kangaroos in 2003 at the then Telstra Dome was always going to be massive.

“I remember we had the cameras parked as close to the away rooms as possible, almost through the door,” Jones recalled.

“When the team arrived, we were there with the cameras and Carey obviously didn’t want to say anything.

“But then when the match unfolded everyone was just waiting for some sort of a confrontation between Glenn Archer and Stevens with Carey, and then it eventuated.”

Nathan Brown’s horrific leg break, Danny Frawley being spat upon by disgruntled Richmond fans, Justin Longmuir’s miraculous goal after the siren for Fremantle against St Kilda (which sparked the ‘Whispers in the Sky’ scandal the following day that Jones was front and centre of) are just some of the memorable Friday night games that Nine televised in its time.