It was late in the 2013 AFL season when contract talks between the Carlton Football Club and one of its favourite sons, Eddie Betts, reached an impasse.
Heading into the year, Betts had worked hard to establish himself as one of the premier small forwards in the competition after topping Carlton’s goalkicking in 2010 and 2012 while being selected in the All Australian squads of 2011 and 2012.
However, under new coach Mick Malthouse, Betts’ 2013 campaign was not going to plan after missing six games because of a fractured jaw and suspension.
When the Blues’ season ended after a Semi Final loss to the Sydney Swans, Betts finished the year with a meagre 27 goals from 18 games and still hadn’t signed a new contract.
By his own admission, after 184 games in the Navy Blue, he had ‘hit a crossroad’.
“I was 26-27, and I thought ‘what am I going to do now?’. My contract was running out,” Betts told AFC Media.
“Carlton offered me two years on my contract. Adelaide and North Melbourne offered me four.”
Betts desperately wanted to stay at Princes Park, but the long-term security of a four-year deal became almost impossible to turn down.
Combined with the chance to be closer to his father, Eddie Senior, Adelaide’s offer became enough to lure Betts across the border to join the Club he supported as a kid.
“The last year, when I broke my jaw, I came back to South Australia and my dad was in ICU [intensive care unit] up in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital,” he said.
“He had tubes coming out of his neck and his pancreas faded away. He was very ill, I was at Carlton at this time and I said ‘if there’s any way I could come back and help you live longer and get healthier, I would.’
“He was one of the reasons I chose to come back to the Adelaide Crows.
“So, I made the decision to leave Carlton, a club that I loved dearly.”
The 32-year-old speaks vividly of the moment he made the decision to depart the Blues.
“When I made that decision, I was in the changerooms and I remember Kade Simpson was there,” he recalled.
“I hugged him, and I had tears out of my eyes, and I said ‘listen, this is the last time I’m gonna be in these locker rooms’.
I walked out, and I remember seeing Jarrad Waite and I gave Jarrad a hug and I had tears coming out of my eyes and I said, ‘this is it mate, I’m not coming back’.
“They said ‘it’ll be alright, we’ll still be friends’ and I’ve never been back since then.”
Waite and Betts still friends in 2017, despite both wearing different colours
Betts admitted the decision to walk out on Carlton took an enormous emotional toll on him at the time.
Now, reflecting back on his choice to join the Crows, he has absolutely no regrets.
“I went home and cried for three hours and thought ‘am I making the right choice?’,” he said.
“I had to pack up the whole house and move across here to Adelaide.
I believe it would probably be the best decision I’ve ever made in my footy career coming across to the Adelaide Football Club.
