The haircuts of our youth (2024)

For this week’s nostalgia column, I came up with the idea of looking at the breakfast cereals of my childhood. But as I sat down at my desk (in this case a table at my local café), a friend mentioned an ABC article about haircuts to me. Specifically, the mullet.

A team of ABC journalists has done a forensic analysis of the mullet, as worn by AFL footballers. For those who don’t follow AFL, the mullet, a feature haircut of the 1980s, is back in favour among players. Every team has at least a couple of players with the original ‘business up-front, party out the back’ hairdo.

The ABC’s analysis will do nothing to help with my footy tips, but it has sparked memories of my childhood. As strong as my recollections of the vast array of past breakfast cereals are, they can wait awhile. It’s time to look at mullets and other hairstyles from long ago that may or may not make a comeback.

In my ‘growing-up’ years, from the late 1960s to early 1980s, collecting footy cards – especially for boys – reigned supreme. In winter, comparing and swapping cards dominated corridors and playgrounds at lunchtime. For many kids, being the first to have the full set of that season’s cards was the ultimate goal.

But with each new season, last year’s cards were discarded (pun unintended), and the new ones became the focus. Most people of my age no longer have their old footy cards, but I still have quite a few. To flick through them, season by season, year by year, is to wander through a virtual museum of men’s hairstyles.

If you wind the clock back to before my childhood, to the cigarette cards of generations earlier, you’ll see limited variation in terms of hairstyles for men. Any variation came within a broad guideline of ‘short back and sides’.

In other words, there was very little variation. The position of the hair parting might change, and the hair may or may not have been ‘oiled’. Players looking to show a bit of creative flair tended to do so via moustaches and sideburns.

Big ‘boofs’, afros and comb-overs

By the time I was introduced to footy cards, though, in the late 1960s, longer hair on men had become acceptable. While women were swapping between beehives and bobs, men were having longer breaks between visits to the barber. Photos in the 1969 set of Victorian Football League (VFL) and NSW Rugby League cards show many players still donned the short back and sides. But some had adopted the not-so-short back and sides.

A year later, it was slightly longer again. Sideburns were becoming longer and thicker. By 1973, many ears had disappeared beneath longer locks. A year later, haircuts had almost reached the shoulders and, by 1976, the mullet was a thing of beauty. Especially a blond mullet on a well-proportioned footballer like St Kilda’s Trevor Barker.

By this stage, if you were a male without long hair, you probably weren’t cool. Take a look at the bands of the time. Every member of Aussie groups like Sherbert and Hush had hair draping well below the shoulders.

Of course, there were the occasional players who’d succumbed to hair loss at a young age. The workaround for these players was the comb-over. Stuart Trott, Kevin Bartlett and the NRL’s Bob O’Reilly were masterful exponents of this technique.

For footy players with naturally curly hair, getting it to fall below the shoulder was more of a challenge. If those curls were tight, the alternative was to let it simply grow out, rather than down. Carlton’s Vin Catoggio captured that style perfectly.

Hair in the 1980s – the glory days of the mullet

In the 1980s, Hawthorn was the dominant VFL team. Two of the Hawks’ most dominant – and popular – players of that decade were Dermott Brereton and Gary Ayres. They were vastly contrasting personalities and players, but one thing united them – their glorious mullets.

Dermie’s locks were long, blond (artificially so) and curly, while Ayres were dark and generally straight. Brereton’s attraction was his cheekiness and flashy smile. The more dark and brooding Ayres drew eyes from the flowing locks of his shoulders down to his Adonis-like physique. The overall effect earned him the nickname Conan, after the Marvel character of that name.

You could make a case for the 1980s being the decade when the mullet was king and queen of hairstyles. Many of my female university friends had hairstyles that were not unlike Dermott Brereton’s at all.

A return to conservative hair

By the end of the ’80s, so many boys and men had mullets it was no longer cool to have one. To be ‘cool’ you must be different. The 1991 set of Scanlens footy cards, both VFL and NRL, shows a return to shorter hairstyles.

There were a few holdouts, of course. North Melbourne’s Wayne Carey and Western Suburbs’ Brendon Tuuta spring to mind.

But by and large, footy players’ haircuts became shorter. The focus shifted to their playing ability, and perhaps for some still, their physique.

The mullet reborn

Fashion goes in cycles, as we know. We have now cycled back to the mullet. It has returned with a vengeance. In the AFL, the Western Bulldogs’ Bailey Smith was an early adopter. His ‘do’ epitomised the new 2020s version of the mullet. It’s very similar to the original ’80s version but it comes with a twist – a large, shaved area above and behind the ears.

The NRL has not escaped this trend. Josh Papali’i and Ryan Papenhuyzen are recent proof of that.

I have a theory about the popularity of fashions and haircuts such as the mullet. I reckon a lot of them begin almost as jokes. One brave soul will ask: “What’s the most outrageous thing I can do with my hair?”

Out pops a brand new style of haircut. It might look ridiculous, but if it belongs to the popular kid, they might be admired for their bravery. And: “If the popular kid has it, I might try it, too.” Before you know it, half of this year’s set of footy cards features players with Bailey Smith mullets. And so do half of the kids.

Personally, while I admire the bravery of those who pioneered the new mullet, I still think it looks ridiculous.

But maybe that’s because I’ve lost the ability to grow hair on the top of my head. Perhaps it’s time for me to be brave and pioneer the resurgence of the comb-over.

Did you change your style of haircut as a kid to mimic your hero? What was the signature hairstyle of your youth? Let us know via the comments section below.

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