"We were camped outside his mum and dad's house in Frankston! You're sitting in a car getting calls abusing you saying you're intimidating. I mean it was just crazy, some of the things you would do and say," McNeill recalls.

McNeill, the Dockers' foundation football manager, bore the brunt of the dog-eat-dog life that comes with being part of an AFL club's inner sanctum during trade period.

While it might seem simple during pub arguments, trading is an intense and difficult business. One needs to look no further than this week's two major impasses - those involving want-away stars Paddy Ryder and Dayne Beams. Unlike the situation in an online fantasy team game, in real life trades don't just happen at the click of a button.

There are few more experienced hands in the caper than former South Melbourne, North Melbourne and Richmond administrator Greg Miller, but he too found this time of the year challenging.

"It's a period of time where you don't get much sleep," Miller says.

"It's a state of flux, it changes by the minute. It's a real game of cat and mouse with the opposition, and who holds their nerve the best."

When asked about some of his remarkable October war stories, he wanted to know how many hours he had for regaling.

At the Tigers he went searching for  a leader and identified Essendon's Dean Solomon as a candidate. Miller ran into some trouble from the party he labels the AFL's 17th club at the time - headquarters itself.

"[Solomon] was off to London to see his girlfriend," Miller said.

"I'll never forget (AFL investigator) Ken Wood rang me up and I didn't want him to know I was at London Airport. The next minute they're announcing on the loudspeaker the next plane from Heathrow to New York had been delayed!"

The Bombers were renowned then as they are now for being difficult customers. Miller and ex-Hawthorn footy boss John Hook made mention of Kevin Sheedy's gamesmanship.

Miller remembers a particular instance: "One day Sheeds says you can have Mark Harvey and the next day he's denied it!"

Miller and Hook agreed that a key to a successful trade period was knowing who could be trusted at other clubs. Specifically Hook - who is today the state league and talent manager at AFL Victoria - believed that it was detrimental to try and "win the trade", even though one club would always be viewed more favourably in hindsight.

"You have to put yourself in the other club's shoes," Hook said. "If they're not going to get something out of it, who's going to deal?

"Talking to mates still in the inner sanctum at AFL clubs, you still get the ones who want to get chocolates for boiled lollies.

"You've both got to come out thinking it's going to be good for both of us."'

Miller said that when two clubs stared each other off - much like the Lions and Pies are doing at the moment - it was the party with most to lose that ultimately lost.

"No one wants to give in, and then the person who's in need of a change to their list or a good news story for their club will weaken at the last minute."

But the opposition is not the only other stakeholder to appease. Consider the variables at play in the cases of Beams, Ryder, Allen Christensen, Joel Patfull and Heritier Lumumba, and one could start to get a grasp on why this is such a complicated and stressful time of the year for decision-makers.

McNeill didn't mince words.

"I dreaded trade week."

"Decision-making internally was always difficult because so many people wanted to have a view in terms of who we should have in and who we should have out."

"When James Clement left the club, that was tough because he was such a highly regarded bloke. The coach at the time (Damian Drum) didn't rate him that highly."

Logistical matters came into play as well.

"There's some times when there were players overseas, so you'd have to be talking to them overseas," McNeill said.

"You just never knew when you were going to have a call at 2 o'clock in the morning or 6am."

Miller - now the chief executive at Sandown Greyhound Racing Club - had his own troubles after receiving a last-minute phone call about Essendon's Justin Blumfield.

"He was in New Zealand or some bloody little island and you had to call him and tell him he could be playing for you!"

McNeill was at the helm for a period about which the Dockers have been much-maligned for a string of poor trading decisions, most infamously the one which sent eventual hall of famer Andrew McLeod to Adelaide for forward Chris Groom.

Now giving professional leadership seminars, McNeill is not haunted by those calls, and senses that those looking in don't appreciate the gravity of the decisions being made, or the sensitivities involved.

"I don't think clubs even realise internally ... those people who aren't in the room dealing with the lives of people and the enormity of the decisions, and the emotion that goes with it."

"It was seen to be a meat market ... It's definitely more than that to the people who are in the rooms trying to work out the deals. It's done with a real deep-seated intent of trying to better the club."

McNeill and Miller both felt that things were done more professionally these days, while Hook lamented that one modern tool had not been around in his time at the Hawks: free agency.

At the end of 1995, the Hawks had to relinquish Paul Barnard as part of a trade to get gun Essendon big man Paul Salmon to the club. While Salmon was a resounding success - even being named in the Hawthorn team of the century - Barnard too had his moments at the Bombers - including a four-goal haul in the 2000 grand final.

"If it happened today, we'd get Salmon for nothing!"