TWO days before St Kilda was to play the Demons in an elimination final in 2006, Saint's CEO Archie Fraser barged into a coach's meeting waving a piece of paper.

"I was a bit concerned about the timing of it and said 'Can't it wait, Archie'," former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas told a Melbourne court yesterday. "He said he had promised the board he would have it signed today."

The paper, which Thomas signed, essentially waived his rights to any claims for outstanding annual, sick and public holiday leave.

That weekend St Kilda lost. And the following Tuesday, September 12, Thomas was summoned to a meeting at St Kilda president Rod Butterss' home. When he arrived he was informed by Butterss, Fraser and Mark Kellett, then director of football, that his services were no longer needed.

Now Thomas is suing the club for $100,000 that he says he is owed in a hush-up severance payment and roughly $90,000, plus interest, in outstanding leave entitlements.

"(Butterss) said it was to ensure I conducted myself in the proper manner," Thomas said.

On the morning he was sacked, a hand-written agreement was reached between Thomas and the club. St Kilda paid him $270,000 — six months worth of his salary — in lieu of notice and offered another $100,000 payable on April 1, 2007, if Thomas complied with a deed yet to be drawn up that was basically a gag.

The parties fronted the media that afternoon. Thomas' coaching career with St Kilda was over, but the legal tussle was just beginning.

The alleged non-payment of the $100,000 as well as the continued refusal by the club to pay out leave because it says Thomas is not owed any has brought them to the Victorian County Court.

Matthew Stirling, for Thomas, said that when his client signed the document waiving his right to leave entitlements he had no idea that the club was planning to sack him if St Kilda lost the elimination final that weekend.

"The reason why they were pushing for Thomas to sign the document was they knew he wouldn't sign such a document after he was sacked," he told Judge Katherine Bourke.

The rift, Thomas' counsel said yesterday, began with a $15,000 fine, issued by the AFL in 2005 over comments Thomas had made about umpires. It flared again later that year when Thomas shifted from a personal coaching contract onto a commercial contract — under which St Kilda contracted out coaching of the team to Thomas' company, GDT Solutions.

Under the new agreement, Thomas lost his leave entitlements — because it was not a contract with a person — so, Mr Stirling said, he asked to have his leave entitlements from his past three contracts paid out to him.

But Butterss was "livid" at the suggestion and word got back to Thomas that the board was not happy. He said Thomas had been told by the club's chief financial officer, James Van Beek, that the board would not pay him a discretionary bonus of $25,000 that year if he continued pressing for the leave payment.

Leslie Glick, QC, for St Kilda, said Thomas had met Fraser for brunch following a board meeting in mid-June 2006. He said Fraser had told Thomas that he needed to repair his relationship with the media, board, AFL and umpires.

He said Fraser would tell the court he believed Thomas was claiming the leave payment because he was angry about the club's refusal to pay the AFL fine.

Mr Glick said St Kilda had tried to reach an agreement with Thomas over the terms of the $100,000 payment, but it was unsuccessful.

The hearing continues.