Sport
12 February, 2026
Aitken's cleansing time: from Battle of Britain to the Loddon's Blues
INGLEWOOD’S new assistant coach Ian Aitken describes himself as “pretty vindictive and vengeful”.
For more than 30 years, that vindictiveness and vengefulness from the 1987 Carlton premiership player was directed at Alastair Clarkson.
The young Blue and the then even younger North Melbourne player were key figures in the infamous ‘Battle of Britain’, a post-season match played in London after that flag win that became one of the most shameful episodes in Australian football history.
North’s Donald McDonald and Carlton’s combustible David Rhys-Jones were at it early, trading blows as melees broke out all over the ground.
The spot fires continued all through the first quarter, and when McDonald had a swing at Aitken, who shaped up to the Kangaroos hard man, Clarkson, then just 18, entered the fray.
He ran from nowhere and king-hit Aitken from behind with a roundhouse punch that knocked him out instantly.
Aitken lay on the turf as brawling surrounded him, before being carried from the ground on a stretcher, bleeding from the mouth and still unconscious.
Clarkson, incredibly, was suspended for only four matches over the incident — a punch that would likely bring a career-ending ban in these more enlightened days.
In the rooms after the game, Aitken came to after about 15 minutes and was asked where he was — that was about all that counted for a concussion test in those days.
“I said the MCG, so I got that wrong,” he said.
That evening, the Blues were hosted by Richard Pratt at his Park Lane mansion, and Aitken was allowed to use the house phone to call his parents in Melbourne, who had seen the fracas on television, to assure them he was okay.
“When you play Monopoly as a kid, there’s Mayfair and Park Lane, so that’s pretty amazing,” Aitken told the Loddon Herald.
The fact that he could speak to his parents reassured them that he had not broken his jaw again — earlier in the season a meeting with Dermott Brereton’s hip had cost him four games and a set of wisdom teeth.
While he can joke about the post-match party, the Clarkson hit left mental scars on the then 20-year-old that he carried for more than 30 years.
But Aitken eventually realised the anger he felt was only hurting him, so he instigated a meeting with Clarkson a few yeas ago.
“We’ve reconciled,” he said.
“We got into a room and talked about things.
“I wanted to hear what he thought, and I told him how I felt.
“It was a cleansing thing for me.
“I’m pretty vindictive and vengeful, so you can carry that dark cloud hanging over you,” Aitken said.
While it’s clear the memory remains a source of anguish, Aitken has tried to move on.
His football career was never the same after the ‘Battle of Britain’.
Aitken had played in a premiership and won the VFL Players Association’s inaugural Rookie of the Year award in a brilliant debut season.
He went on to play just 66 games for Carlton and followed that with five games for St Kilda before retiring at only 26. However, Aitken was reluctant to blame the London clash for his career tailing off.
“It’s an intangible,” he said.
Rather, he points to a string of injuries and 12 football-related operations that saw his body break down.
“Do you blame wear and tear, or scars from the ‘Battle of Britain?”
Aitken moved quickly into coaching after leaving the VFL, first at Phillip Island and Barwon Heads before taking over at Coburg in the VFA.
He retired as a player at 31, having led his junior club Strathmore to a premiership as playing coach.
He later coached at Carlton in a development role, as well as beginning private coaching and working with women’s footballers.
Superstars Sam Darcy and Nick Daicos are among those players he has taught, with newly drafted Bulldog Will Darcy and his younger brother Max also on the list. Aitken believes he has coached more games that anyone else in Australian football history, sometimes coaching as many as four teams at a time.
He says he has led a team into battle more than a thousand times.
In the last two seasons Aitken coached at West Preston.
“I have been trying to extricate myself from coaching,” he said.
“I always say it’s my last year, then someone will ring me up and say can you come and coach us.”
Aitken also was one of the founders of VicCric in 1993, teaching youngsters the basic skills of the game, as well as Vic Footy, which eventually morphed into Auskick.
It’s a testament to his commitment to player development across different sports, something the Inglewood senior players surely will benefit from this season.