VETERAN footy scribe Mike Sheahan has revealed his volatile interview with controversial AFL great Mark “Jacko” Jackson was a trainwreck for the entire 40 minutes.

The host of Fox Footy’s Open Mike revealed further details of his extraordinary interview with the outspoken former Melbourne, St Kilda and Geelong star in an interview with SEN radio on Monday.

Sheahan said Jackson became abusive towards him as soon as filming started on Thursday.

Sheahan has now revealed how close the interview, which will be screened unedited on Fox Footy on Tuesday night, came to blowing up.

The former Herald Sun footy journalist said he and Jackson had particular friction over an insinuation the TV host had played a part in the untimely death of Jackson’s father George.

“He said that he hated me,” Sheahan told SEN.

“That no one in football liked or respected me. And it just went on from there.

media_camera Mark 'Jacko' Jackson and Mark 'Chopper' Read.

“I tried several times to argue this with him. His father died after that tribunal hearing in which he got eight weeks. Remember, from that Geelong-Hawthorn game in 1985? And he sort of loosely attributed some of the blame to me for that. But, I know I’ve seen a story quoting Jacko and Jacko said that the 40 cigarettes and 20 beers per day were probably a major factor.

“He did insinuate that though. And I didn’t like that at all because I didn’t want to think I’d contributed at all to the demise of someone.”

Sheahan says the interview threatened to fall of the rails and he had to be told by producers to keep his cool and not rise to Jackson’s level of aggression.

He admits he got more than a little nervous at the end of the interview when Jackson raised his first towards him after he had completed his sign off to the camera.

“I said ‘look, I haven’t enjoyed this, Jacko’ and then he just looked at me,” Sheahan said.

media_camera MARK “Jacko” Jackson said he does not regret his verbal attack on Mike Sheahan.

“And the he just sort of put his fist up which is apparently the new salute, you put your fist up and you knock knuckles. When his fist was on the way up I was a bit unnerved.

“I don’t really know Jacko. The point is Jacko was there on an invitation from Fox because it’s retro round and he was probably as big a face as there was in football during the 1980s. That’s how it started.”

He said Jackson’s anger certainly appeared genuine.

“He was too angry for that,” he said.

“This wasn’t mock anger. This was genuine. Towards the game largely and certainly towards the AFL and I think to the fourth estate. I don’t think there was anyone in the media that would get a tick from Jacko. The odd thing is, he’s probably generating a living now out of all the publicity that was generated by the media.”

Jackson famously had a brief acting career in the United States, appearing in police drama The Highwayman.

Jackson now lives on the Gold Coast but travels Australia on the public speaking circuit.

Originally published as Jacko blamed Mike for dad’s death