Breaking up has been hard to do for the Essendon Football Club. And for the Bombers, the most difficult relationship to sever has been their love affair with the past.

That it is a past that is close to a quarter of a century old must make matters all the more galling for Brad Scott and Zach Merrett, whose era together should have begun unencumbered two seasons ago but whose leadership at times has been held hostage to an old guard who cannot let go.

As Kevin Sheedy has agreed to a long-overdue board departure and veteran list manager Adrian Dodoro has taken leave to deal with personal matters, it is worth harking back to Scott’s appointment two seasons ago and the assurances he was given by new president David Barham and his team.

Dodoro was not expected to return to the Bombers, having come close to accepting that his time was up, said two club sources who would not comment publicly as the situation remained sensitive in a legal and an emotional sense.

Breaking up with Dodoro – as with Sheedy – has been far more problematic for Essendon’s bosses than it should have been. It is stating the obvious to say that no individual is bigger than the club but too often those individuals confuse the equation.

It had been a messy start for Barham, who faced one of the toughest jobs in sport as he set about rebuilding Essendon. It began with a board split and coup, the brutally clumsy handling of Ben Rutten’s removal and then the embarrassment over the decision to install Andrew Thorburn as Essendon’s new boss – an appointment that lasted one day.