London, 2003. An AFL exhibition match was being played between Collingwood and Fremantle. The match was nearing the end, and a rowdy, beer-intoxicated crowd made umpire Michael Vozzo wish for the ending to come sooner. He faced the play which was occurring on the other side of the ground. Stunned to hear the audience roar behind him, he turned to see someone attempt to run onto the field. Shocked, it was a face he recognised. A brother's mate. Michael gestured for him to go back into the crowd, but the security forced him back in anyway.
After the game, Michael saw the friend at a function, and asked, 'what the hell were you doing?’
It turned out, at the friends’ local cricket club back in Melbourne, his mate’s put together a $250 bet to run onto the ground, get featured on the live Australian broadcast, and dack Michael.
"I was pretty lucky there," Michael said, as he recounts the story with laughter.
It’s been six years since retiring from his 281-game umpiring career, back in 2011.
And does he miss the job?
“No…and I can honestly tell you, I didn’t overly enjoy it”.
Unlike what some may think, Michael speaks of his AFL career as just another job. He was never star-struck by players, and he didn’t have an ego. He always just turned up to the games as if it were another task he had to complete.
Sports had a major influence throughout Michael’s childhood, and cricket overtook all as his favourite. He played AFL, but found he was too small for the sport throughout his teen years. At 14 a friend got him into boundary umpiring, and once discovering the money involved, he decided to continue. The following year, he moved into field umpiring, which also included a higher pay check.
At 16, Michael went back to play school footy after having taken a year off, but suffered three concussions in four games. It was then, that one of his umpiring coaches told him he’d make more money out of umpiring than playing footy, so Michael decided to pursue a career in AFL umpiring.
There were certain components he enjoyed about his career, such as travelling around Australia and the world to umpire games, or participating in the grand finals, which he was fortunate to umpire in 2006 and 2008. Another component he enjoyed was the stadium’s atmosphere when a goal was kicked.
“The hairs on the back of [my] neck would just stand up…it’s doing it now because I just remember it,” he says, with an ecstatic look on his face as he describes the roars of the crowd, coming from every angle of the stadium, and making the environment inaudible.
Running on the same ground with some of the champions of the AFL didn’t really do much for Michael. When he begun umpiring the AFL, he turned off supporting footy, and his team, Essendon, to focus on his job.
“I mean it was good being out in the middle and seeing [the players] up close...[and] you can look in amazement at what they did, but you can’t be in awe of them. Because you need to be totally neutral [and] unbiased.”
Throughout his umpiring career, Michael also worked full time in turf management at a golf course. He believed having that distraction helped him to succeed in his umpiring career, as it allowed him to keep a steady mindset and not over-analyse events, which is a struggle that some umpires in the industry face today.
“I never thought about my game until I basically walked out onto the ground. And I was very rarely nervous or anything like that, and work was part of [the reason]”.
Because of the physicality of his day job, Michael was sometimes perceived as a “lazy trainer”.
“Michael was never the best trainer [but] he always kept his body in good shape,” said Peter Howe, Michael’s VFL umpiring coach, who was also an assistant coach when Michael worked in the AFL.
Peter also agrees that Michael’s day job at the golf club put him at a disadvantage in training, but it did not affect his umpiring ability.
“As an umpire, Michael made very, very few errors. So obviously, what you want out of your best umpires, is to make the correct decision at the correct time, and Michael had the ability to do that… Which is why…he ended up umpiring AFL grand finals, because his decision making was significantly better than the rest.”
While there were many enjoyable moments in his career, there were also some negatives.
Firstly, Michael never enjoyed attending the Brownlow medal counts. He attended two, but said the nights weren’t great as corporate tables used to agitate the umpires and their voting decisions.
But there was one negative moment in his career that shook him. On the eve of the Preliminary final in 2008, he was playing golf with some friends, when he received a phone call from his manager. The purpose of the call was to inform Michael that a death threat had been placed on him if he were to umpire the Preliminary Final’s game against the Bulldogs and Geelong. Shaken, Michael did as he was told and laid low during the days before the game. In the end, he umpired the final, which was a good game and lead him to umpire the Grand Final the following weekend, and the person was caught.
But overall, Michael wasn’t too fussed with the critics at the games. He does, however, feel sorry for his father who attended every game he umpired in Melbourne, who had to sit through, and listen to the criticisms yelled by the fans.
But one moment he will always remember is the lap of honour he completed when he retired from umpiring, and how respectful the crowd was.
“Everyone was absolutely brilliant. We didn’t have one d*ckhead. So, you just know that, really, it’s just the occasional person,” says Michael.
After retiring, Michael has had a few jobs, including working in the AFL, being the head of umpiring at the EFL, and now currently owning his own business.
Mark Freeman, who worked with Michael at the EFL in 2012-13, said Michael’s “a friendly, easy-going sort of person”.
“We always laugh in the office here about Vozzo’s shrine,” Mark said, describing the room in Michael’s pool house where there’s “memorabilia of [Michael] all the way around the room.”
And with the successful umpiring career he’s had, and being a passionate sports-person, you can understand why Michael is proud of his achievements.
