THE North Melbourne Football Club had been to hell and back when it turned to Collingwood's second-most powerful executive during the summer and asked him to take on the toughest job in the AFL.

In the words of Eugene Arocca, the club was demoralised and shellshocked but finally united in its resolve to remain in its fragmented heartland. Despite the turmoil there was an emotional charge about the place and its young chairman James Brayshaw that appealed to the former lawyer and self-proclaimed working-class boy from Reservoir.

The Kangaroos opened up their hearts and all of their dirty linen to Arocca, who in turn opened himself up for them. He was not a little bruised himself from the previous year at Collingwood and in many ways the two parties were made for each other.

The first contact came from Brayshaw but Arocca was grilled by and grilled the new chairman's brother, Mark, former premiership coach-turned director Denis Pagan and club stalwart Ron Joseph. He read the Gemba report into the club's sustainability and studied its tax situation among all the other set of figures.

He spoke with influential maverick shareholder Peter de Rauch and wealthy supporters Peter Scanlan and Trevor O'Hoy and realised that North Melbourne would remain just that — in fact it had already planned a letter to the AFL requesting the Kangaroos be removed from all future official literature. It was going nowhere and would live or die by that proclamation.

That suited Arocca, 47, who left a successful legal career with Maurice Blackburn and the Collingwood board to become Greg Swann's No. 2 in the Magpies restructure of 2004. His relationship with his beloved widowed mother and his wife, Lisa, and the couple's two young sons had decreed Melbourne as its lifeblood.

But to leave Collingwood? Arocca was a fanatical supporter once persona non grata at the club when he took on former president Alan McAllister over the club's finances at the end of 1995 but was brought into the fold by former executive Graeme Allan the following year to oversee the signing of young Nathan Buckley.

An emotional man, Arocca had set himself for the top job at Collingwood when Swann dropped his bombshell a year ago and crossed to Carlton. He came heavily endorsed within the club and was shattered when Eddie McGuire chose Gary Pert — the GTV Nine CEO — ahead of him. He considered returning to the law but he had fallen in love with football.

"I had to readjust myself," Arocca said. "I made a decision to stay in the industry. I'd had a taste and I'd become addicted."

Not only did he leave the most powerful Victorian AFL club for the most perilous, Arocca went from one Footy Show host to another. The two men, he said, are very different people.

Still it had been difficult to leave. Nathan Buckley's framed jumper — one of two — still hangs in his sitting room and eldest son, James, 12, still wears a Magpies jumper.

"I think Eddie went from surprise to shock to being a little upset and ultimately accepting of my decision," said Arocca. "Do I think in my heart of hearts he's upset about me leaving? Of course.

"But in many ways I admire his attitude and I don't think he'd mind me saying what he said to me, which was 'When you walk out that door there's no coming back'. That's the way he is about Collingwood. There's no redemption.

"We weren't best of mates; we didn't see each other outside of footy. Greg Swann is a good friend. Eddie is a good Collingwood friend. I don't want to rehash what went on last year but I felt the communication probably could have been better."

McGuire worked hard to convince Arocca to stay at the Lexus Centre after choosing Pert for the top job and was even filmed at the time by Channel Seven during an emotional exchange with Arocca at a South Yarra cafe.

Pert and Arocca clearly had different priorities where the club's business was concerned — not that the two did not get on. "Perty's a terrific bloke," said Arocca this week, "and to be honest it will probably be easier for him now that I've gone. With Swannie I felt like I was on the front line, we dealt with a lot of the club business together. When Perty took over it was him and Eddie. I became a backroom boy and I craved that exposure.

"That's how it is now with James. I just admire so much what he has achieved here and already we're joined at the hip. We speak on the phone several times a day every day and we bounce things off each other. On the Wednesday before I took the job he called into my house for a beer and I knew I was going to take the job."

Arocca's ambitions for the Kangaroos are as simple as they are complex. The plan is to change the club's direction of the past decade and become a completely Melbourne-based club.

He hopes for work to begin on the Arden Street redevelopment within months and did not rule out putting a restructured club back into the hands of the members, or at least announcing a move in that direction, in time for next month's AGM.

The new CEO said that any extra money that comes into the club will be spent on recruiting and development.

"They're certainly getting bang for their footy buck here," he said.

"They are thinking smart. For the $6 million less than Collingwood they are putting into football they are a pretty impressive department.

"But we need to get better in other areas. We outsource our merchandise — I don't think there are many AFL clubs that outsource merchandise."