One-Eyed Richmond Forum
Football => Richmond Rant => Topic started by: one-eyed on April 30, 2009, 07:11:01 PM
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Bull’s big Tigerland legacy
richmondfc.com.au
By Tony Greenberg | Thu 30 April, 2009
A significant event in the history of the Richmond Football Club took place 50 years ago this month (April 18, 1959, to be exact).
Alan Richardson, or ‘Bull’, as he was to become better known, made his senior VFL debut with Richmond in the opening round of the 1959 season against Melbourne at Punt Road, aged 18 years and 150 days, after being recruited from Victorian country club Casterton.
The Tigers lost that game by 47 points, but a mighty Yellow and Black family dynasty had been created.
Bull Richardson would make a further five senior appearances that season, with the Tigers finishing in second-last place on the league ladder, notching just four wins.
In season 1960, Richardson established himself as a regular member of the senior side, playing 15 of the 18 home-and-away matches, as Richmond struggled to win only two games and collected its first wooden-spoon.
Richardson mirrored the fortunes of the Tiger team over the next few seasons, battling to find consistent form.
By the time the 1963 season rolled around, Bull had been appointed captain of Richmond’s reserve-grade team. He managed just six senior games in ’63, but won the reserves best and fairest that year.
In 1964, he made it back-to-back best and fairests in the ‘twos’, with just one senior appearance for the season.
After just 51 senior games in six seasons, Bull’s league career seemed over, until a savior arrived for him, in the form of new Richmond coach Len Smith.
Smith, the brother of legendary Melbourne coach, Norm Smith, had coached Fitzroy’s senior side from 1958-62, lifting the Lions into the finals in ’58 and ’60.
He was one of the first coaches to introduce the play-on game, with an emphasis on short passing and handball or stuff passing (which was legal back then).
It was Len Smith, who resurrected Bull Richardson’s VFL career. Under the Smith philosophy of quick ball movement, Bull absolutely thrived, becoming a key member of the Tiger team.
In 1965, Bull played all but one senior game and, even when Smith was forced to relinquish the coaching role due to ill health, with Tommy Hafey taking the reins in 1966, the powerfully-built Tiger ruck-rover continued to flourish.
He formed a fine on-field partnership with Richmond’s No. 1 ruckman of the day, Neville Crowe.
“Bull and I were great mates off the field . . . we had a lot of fun,” Crowe said.
“Playing-wise, we worked on how to go at the centre bounces up against the likes of Polly Farmer. That was always one of my big days of the year, to compete against Polly, and we’d work out various strategies to combat him and the other top ruck combinations at the time.
“Bull was like a rover to me, even though he was in the side as a ruck-rover. I’ve got some video highlights at home of my career and it seemed like wherever I was able to tap the ball to, the Bull was running on to it, then dishing it off to a teammate with a slick handball.
“There’s no doubt he was one of the pioneers of handball back then, under Len’s run-and-carry philosophy.
“He just fitted in so well with Len’s coaching style, and later Tommy’s, using his strength to break up packs and then opening up the game with constructive handball.”
On that one day in September, 1967, Bull was among Richmond’s best players in the drought-breaking premiership triumph over Geelong. He had 13 kicks, 7 handballs, 3 marks and scored a goal in the Tigers’ thrilling nine-point win.
That clearly was the pinnacle of Bull’s career at Tigerland. He made only another seven senior appearances for the Club, taking his overall tally to 103 (and 31 goals), before moving to South Melbourne to play under the coaching of Norm Smith, in 1969.
At South, he played 11 senior games and kicked nine goals, before bowing out of league football at the end of the 1970 season.
He then moved to Tasmania, with his wife, Dianne, taking over the job as captain-coach of the East Devonport club.
After Bull retired as a player and coach, he served as president of East Devonport for several years.
And, on March 19, 1975, he celebrated the birth of his first-born child, Matthew, who would go on to play junior football with Devonport, before being snapped up by Richmond under the league’s father-son rule.
The rest, as they say, is history – and a very proud, rich history indeed for the Richardson clan . . .
http://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/blogarticle/tabid/14215/newsid/75961/default.aspx