Australian Football

Dean Bailey played 53 games for Essendon as a midfielder between 1986 and 1992, but was better known as the coach of Melbourne from 2008 it 2011, a particularly lean period for the club. After his AFL career ended, Bailey played 61 games for Glenelg in the SANFL from 1993 to 1996, before coaching Mt Gravatt in the QAFL.

In 2000 became a development coach at Essendon and helped the club to its premiership in that season before joining Port Adelaide in 2002 as an assistant coach. Part of the Power's coaching panel when they won their inaugural AFL flag in 2004, Bailey was appointed as the Demons' senior coach at the end of 2007. He had a baptism of fire, as Melbourne lost its first six matches in 2008 by substantial margins. A six-point win against Fremantle in round seven brought brief respite, but the Demons could muster only two other wins for the season.

2009 did not bring much more happiness, with Melbourne recording four wins but with eight wins and a draw recorded in 2010, it looked as though Bailey was steering the club to better times. Progress was somewhat slower in 2011 and the Demons had recorded seven wins and a draw from 18 matches when they met Geelong at Kardinia Park in round 19. The Cats dished out a 186-point thrashing, the second-largest in VFL/AFL history, and in the following days, Bailey's contract was terminated.

Prior to the 2012 season, Bailey took on the role of strategy and innovation coach with Adelaide. However, he was banned from coaching for the first 16 rounds of the 2013 season after being found guilty of acting in a manner prejudicial to the AFL for his part in the Melbourne 'tanking' affair of 2009.

It was announced that Bailey was suffering from cancer in November 2013 and he died at the tragically young age of 47 in March 2014.

Author - Andrew Gigacz