Understanding Steven May: The layers of Melbourne champion defender and occasional bad boy

A brilliant one-on-one backman, a defensive general, almost irreplaceable. The linchpin of a Melbourne turnaround that culminated in a drought-breaking premiership. A hard man who played through a grand final with a hamstring injury that would have, in usual circumstances, led to him being sidelined for six weeks. A player good enough to be named All-Australian last season and, perhaps until recent days, on track to do so again. A man who relished the physicality of the contest, occasionally straying too far, as evidenced by his five-match suspension in 2016 for a late bump on then Brisbane Lions ruckman Stefan Martin.

How will history remember Steven May the person?

This is where things become a bit more complicated. Many players go through their careers without an off-field blemish. May, clearly, is not one of those. The now much-publicised incident in which the 30-year-old was involved in a boozy scuffle with teammate Jake Melksham is, unfortunately for May, not his first rodeo. Indeed it is not even his first alcohol-fuelled fight with a teammate.

Back in 2013, when May was still a youngster with the Gold Coast Suns, his jaw was broken by veteran Gold Coast antagonist Campbell Brown in a tussle during a late-year trip to the United States. Brown, who himself had priors, was sacked for his role in the dust-up, but May also apologised for his part in the scandal.

In 2019, May apologised to Demons teammates after it emerged that he had been drinking while injured, only a few months after the Dees had paid a heavy price to acquire him via trade. Melbourne did not formally sanction May over the incident, which came against a backdrop of him dealing with personal turmoil.

At that stage, Melbourne was languishing near the foot of the ladder and May was shaping, albeit early, as a failed recruit.

To say he turned things around on the field perception-wise after that point would be an understatement. And in the minds of Melbourne fans who waited so long for premiership glory, anything that happened either side of the 2021 season is mere details. Just ask the average Demons supporter what they thought of historical concerns around Simon Goodwin’s behaviour. For the red-and-blue faithful who just wanted success, it has around the same relevance as the off-field shenanigans during a club trip to China in 2010.

Two-fifths of you know what.

And if Melbourne can right a premiership defence that has veered off course in recent weeks, then this latest episode will pale into long-term insignificance from a wider club perspective.

For May’s legacy, though, this moment will be harder to shake. Officially he was sanctioned for drinking while in concussion protocols, but Dees captain Max Gawn acknowledged that May had strayed beyond the realms of reasonable banter between mates.

“There was some other hurtful banter that was there. I‘m not going to go into that. That [banter] is something that we’ve tried to stamp out,” Gawn said on Wednesday.

This is where May is prone to letting himself down. Multiple sources familiar with May said he is liable to blunt and smart-arsed humour, potentially problematic in social circumstances.

At one level, given the recurring trouble in which he has found himself, it is hard to comprehend how May was ever made an AFL captain, albeit of the struggling Gold Coast Suns, with whom he shared the leadership alongside Tom Lynch for two seasons before both moved to Victoria.

But there is complexity to May. It is not an excuse, but May’s father walked out on his family when May was a toddler. His mother subsequently got involved in an abusive relationship. May has spoken about this publicly.

Through his upbringing, he lacked a strong male role model. Again, this cannot abrogate the responsibility of a 30-year-old man. But nor should it be ignored altogether in telling his layered, nuanced tale.

He has been outspoken on Indigenous issues, as one of only a handful of Indigenous captains in VFL/AFL history.

Another person to have worked previously with May described both he and Melksham as “hotheads.” This element of May has occasionally bubbled on-field with teammates as well, most notably in 2019 when he and then teammate Sam Frost were involved in a heated exchange. He is not a particularly pacifying person, and in Melksham – a champion amateur boxer in his junior days – he picked the wrong guy to rile.

For now, May the man must again try to rehabilitate a bruised public reputation. So, too, must Melksham who, as a fringe player, is naturally on dicier long-term ground.

“Just extremely disappointed. I know I’ve let a lot of people down, especially myself and the footy club, through uncharacteristic actions,” May said in a Melbourne video release.

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“I’ve done a lot of work to try and build respect and trust at the footy club, and I’m disappointed these actions don’t reflect that.

“Just a bad mistake, a bad error of judgment, unfortunately has consequences.”

For May, the damage is cumulative.