Carlton coach-turned public hero Michael Voss says he didn’t quite realise the true danger of the situation into which he injected himself while making an impromptu citizen’s arrest on Tuesday morning.
Voss was waiting for his morning coffee at Barton Milk Bar cafe in Hawthorn when a stolen car flipped onto the footpath nearby.
Two teenage boys emerged from the car and fled the scene on foot when the AFL coach made the snap decision to chase after them.
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Having scaled a fence and jumped over bins, Voss eventually caught up to one of the two, a 16-year-old, and held him down until police arrived.
What he didn’t realise at the time was how much potential danger he had put himself in, given the weapon police eventually found on the teen.
“I knew the situation had changed dramatically when two youths got out of the car. I knew it wasn’t their car, I could make that assessment pretty quickly,” Voss told SEN on Friday morning.
“I thought I would do the right thing and take a couple of pics and get the video, and then as they were running away, they were about 100 metres down the road, I thought, ‘Bugger it, I’m going to get one’, so I went in pursuit.
“They thought they were pretty comfortable. There was a point halfway up the hill I thought, ‘What am I actually doing here?’ I was running out of gas and wasn’t even close to them.
“I thought I might as well see it out and that’s when the pursuit began. I definitely didn’t have them for speed. It certainly escalated pretty quickly.
“To see at the end that he was holding a knife, that was a shock moment.”
Voss was told he “never had to pay for a coffee” again at the cafe.
It completed a whirlwind 48 hours for the finals-bound coach, who had already ridden a rollercoaster of emotions on the previous Sunday.
Just needing to beat St Kilda by any margin to guarantee their spot in the finals, the Blues conceded a heartbreaking last-minute Jack Higgins goal to cough up the lead and put them on the brink.
But with their fate then resting in the hands of Fremantle in the final game of the season, the Dockers were unable to pick Carlton’s pocket and take the last spot with a win over Port Adelaide.
“It was an unusual 48 hours and will occupy a page in my book somewhere down the line,” Voss said.
“It started with me pacing the streets around Hawthorn from about half-time in the Fremantle-Port Adelaide game, to Tuesday morning sprinting up some of those hills.
“It was an unusual set of circumstances, looking back on a little bit silly to be honest, but as long as no one got hurt.”
Voss has until next Saturday night to recompose himself and get ready for his current side to take on the Brisbane Lions, his former team, in an elimination final at the Gabba.
