Steven May’s retirement is a final key part of what has been the revolution of the Melbourne Football Club.

May has become the last of the players – beloved premiership winners and teammates, but players nonetheless – that the Demons had grown weary of dealing with, and who have left.

The club had felt that over recent years an environment had evolved of walking on eggshells around too many key people. That happens at all clubs as pressure rises on players, the senior coach and boards. And it happened at Melbourne.

Melbourne feel now that the eggshells are gone.

The administration, which had already instituted an orderly presidential succession plan of Brad Green into Steven Smith, belatedly assented at board level to sweeping change.

Steven May playing for Melbourne in 2024.Credit: Getty Images

They hired a new chief executive (Paul Guerra) and senior coach (Steven King). They finally acquiesced to Christian Petracca’s restlessness and encouraged Clayton Oliver that a fresh start was better for both player and club.

The pressure valve at the club, they feel, had already been released by these moves for so much of the narrative and the conversation about Melbourne was consumed with these big figures.

But still there was Steven May, for a period one of the best key defenders in the game, but also a player who could be hard work.

On his appointment, new coach King immediately encouraged the contracted May to look for another club and, if he found one, the Demons would let him go. King told him he wanted to play younger players at AFL level, so if May stayed on to serve out the last year of his contract at Melbourne then he should be prepared to spend some time at Casey.

© Brisbane Times