Fair means and FowlerInside Football
Wednesday, 7th March 2012 Laurie Fowler is remembered for a famous bump on Carlton behemoth John Nicholls that helped turn a Grand Final for Richmond but also for winning three best and fairests at Melbourne. DAVID RHYS-JONES catches up with a fellow Oakleigh Districts boy.RHYS: Good to speak to another Oakleigh Districts old boy.
FOWLER: There's been a few Stevie Wright, Warwick Capper...
RHYS: We don't mention him!
FOWLER: We had a few wild and wacky ones.
RHYS: I barracked for Richmond when I was a kid so I followed you.
FOWLER: Actually I was a Melbourne fan as a kid, but I was zoned to Richmond.
RHYS: You played seniors at Oakleigh Districts at 16. It was a tough comp so you needed your wits about you.
FOWLER: There were about 15 sides in the Federal League. It was a very strong comp. A lot of young blokes like the Besankos went straight from there into League football. I started training for the seniors and one thing led to another. I had one year open-age at Oakleigh Districts and Ray Jordon came down and talked to me. Going to Richmond was the best thing I ever did.
RHYS: In that same Richmond under-19 side were Bryan Wood, Merv Keane, Neil Balme and Daryl Cumming. And you won the 1969 and 1970 flags.
FOWLER: They also came through Essex Heights, which was unofficial Richmond under-17s. Richmond was really preparing their seniors.
RHYS: And then you played in a Richmond reserves premiership in 1971. It was an amazingly strong club.
FOWLER: I was really lucky. "Slug" Jordon prepared players so well and when you went up to the reserves you were probably fitter than most of the blokes at that level. It made life a hell of a lot easier because fitness wasn't an issue, it was just a matter of trying to read where the ball was going. He was a tough coach but he was really good. The number of players who came through the under-19s at Richmond was astronomical.
RHYS: So you had finals experience at all levels.
FOWLER: My time at Richmond was during their good old days. Playing in the finals and in front of the crowds on Grand Final day was just the norm. If it wasn't the under-19s, it was the reserves and seniors. When we got to the Grand Final in 1973 we were just expected to be there. We had a premiership and a runner-up in the reserves. We used to win the McClelland Trophy all the time. There was great competition between Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond, plus Hawthorn, in those days it was just all-out war.
RHYS: Even these days Robert Walls and Kevin Sheedy don't talk to each other. There's still that animosity.
FOWLER: The only time I ever got a run at Richmond was when Sheedy was playing for Victoria. In those days you kept on playing while the state team was away. It didn't matter whether you played badly or well, you would be back in the seconds when the state players came back. But it was terrific to play during that era. Some of those players Hart, Stewart, Balme, Bourke, Clay, Bartlett, Sproule, McGhie
I was just so lucky to play there.
RHYS: In 1974 you were in the back pocket and then had a groin injury and it opened the way for Merv Keane to play.
FOWLER: I was an average player in a very good side and if you didn't perform every week there was someone to take your place. They had those good reserves and under-19s so there was always that pressure on.
RHYS: When you left at the end of 1974 you said you didn't think there was a future for you at Richmond and you never felt at home around the club.
FOWLER: I was never really a regular player, the pressure was always on and if you played a couple of bad ones you were gone. Tommy Hafey was fantastic to me and I think he took a bit of pity on me because I was a back pocket and he'd been a back pocket too. I wasn't really part of the furniture and never really got that momentum going in the team. You know what it's like when you have got a bit of momentum behind you and you feel part of the team rather than play three or four weeks and go back to the reserves then come back again. It's always hard to perform every week in a back pocket.
RHYS: Your clearance to Melbourne involved Geoff Raines going to Richmond and the Tigers selling off Marty McMillan to the Bulldogs.
FOWLER: They did pretty well, didn't they? They got rid of me and got Rainesy!
RHYS: How did it happen?
FOWLER: It came about through a bloke named Benny Alexander, who had a menswear store in Richmond. I was good mates with Daryl Cumming, who worked there, and Bobby Skilton the Melbourne coach used to come in there. A deal was done with Melbourne.
RHYS: Looking at the way Richmond played in those days you would have thought they'd be reluctant to let you go.
FOWLER: Let's be honest, back pockets are a dime a dozen. You can fill the back pocket easily. Richmond was good and they thought I had a chance to better my football career. They always looked after their players in that respect as long as they got a good trade. Many years later I ran into Graeme Richmond and he shook my hand and said I had done well and proved them wrong. That meant a lot to me that he had come out of his way to do that.
RHYS: He would have liked the fact that your approach was hard-edged.
FOWLER: Well, we all know what GR was like. The Godfather. And he was part of Richmond's success, he was ruthless and if he found a player that was better than the one they had he would trade.
RHYS: I always get asked about how many times I've been reported and the obvious one to ask you about is the Nicholls bump. It probably becomes synonymous with Laurie Fowler. Do you ever get sick of people asking about it?
FOWLER: I put it this way: if it happened in a normal game Round 22 nobody would have made much of it. The fact that the little guy came out on top of the big guy in a big final makes it something to write about. Everyone zones in on Grand Final day, whether they are a football fan or not. I was lucky. Probably with the Oakleigh Districts breeding it was a case of never taking a backward step. You aren't going to pull out in front of 110,000 people.
RHYS: Did Carlton fans ever let go of it even when you went to Melbourne? They still remember it.
FOWLER: Well most of them have probably passed on by now. You get the occasional one who will come in at work and say "you are the mongrel who hit John Nicholls." It's ironic that today my son plays in Carlton colours for Berwick and Dean Rice is coaching him.
RHYS: You once said in a quote that you felt sorry for John Nicholls that day. Not many Richmond fans would have felt sorry for him!
FOWLER: He was a bit of a bogey man for Richmond. My first thought was "I'm going to get reported for this, I'd better get the hell out of here."
RHYS: He was such a big bugger. Did you realise you had knocked him out?
FOWLER: Not really, he was about to take the mark. You know the old saying about making them earn it. He's obviously landed awkwardly.
RHYS: There were all sorts of conspiracy theories at the time that Graeme Richmond put you up to do it and so on.
FOWLER: No, no. You know and I know that didn't happen. It was one of those things. When you get to a Grand Final anything goes, there's no tomorrow, you let it all hang out.
RHYS: When you left Richmond you said: "Ever since I was a boy I wanted to play for Melbourne."
FOWLER: You have got to have that bit of luck. When I was at Oakleigh Districts a guy called Peter Brenchley was my coach. He had been at Melbourne in about 1958. I came across to Melbourne and started playing in the back pocket and Bobby Skilton got me tagging guys like Barry Cable and John Murphy. As time went on I built that endurance. One day they said you are ruck roving do your own thing!
RHYS: You must have loved playing under Bobby.
FOWLER: Tommy was a players' coach and so was Bobby. We'd all watched Bobby play and he was such a courageous player. Skilts was wonderful.
RHYS: In the last game of 1976 Melbourne had a finals chance but you were stretchered off in the first minute.
FOWLER: That was dirty little Ronnie Wearmouth! He gave me an elbow, the mongrel. He used to play in the public service comp like I did. We'd play games on a Sunday after League games, there were half a dozen League players. When he hit me, I didn't see it.
RHYS: You finished up at Melbourne in 1981.
FOWLER: At that time football was going through a stage where it was changing. You couldn't hold down a job and do the amount of training. I had a family and was coming to the end of my career. I was doing six laps of The Tan as penalties and by the time Saturday came around I was knackered.
RHYS: One coach there you didn't seemed to have been impressed with: Denis Jones.
FOWLER: Poor Denis, we can't speak ill of the dead. He took on Melbourne after Skilts. By the way, I think you played your first game against Melbourne, didn't you?
RHYS: I did, I kicked two goals.
FOWLER: I wasn't on you, was I?
RHYS: No, I think Gerard Healy was on me, but nobody seemed to pick me up.
FOWLER: Ian Stewart was coaching you then. When I was at Richmond, Tommy would pair me off with him in the training drills. He was a freak. I would hate to have been playing on him. He's the best footballer I've seen. People ask me about him and I say he was really good to me. I remember a kid asking another Richmond player for an autograph and he told the kid to pee off. But Stewie signed the autograph and had a chat with the kid. I always tell that story. He was terrific.
RHYS: At Melbourne you had Skilts, Denis Jones, Carl Ditterich and Ron Barassi as coaches.
FOWLER: Carl would have been a top coach if he had the players. He was one of my best coaches. I played with him for a year and when he took over I thought, gee this is going to be interesting. His preparation, his knowledge of the game was unbelievable.
RHYS: Do you think he should have stayed on as a player when Barass took over as coach?
FOWLER: I do, I think that was what Melbourne needed. There was no doubt that guys grew taller when Carl was around. Not that he looked for it but things just didn't happen when he was around! It was like having a policeman out on the ground. He put out the fires before they even started.
RHYS: You said that Melbourne struggled at first under Barassi because players were frightened to commit themselves in case they made mistakes because they held Barassi in such awe.
FLOWER: When you start to think about things the moment is gone. I was finding I was frightened of making a mistake.
RHYS: You won three best and fairests at Melbourne in an era when Robbie Flower won only one.
FOWLER: Being in the back pocket probably helped a bit. Robbie had injuries at various times and I played pretty well every game. It's always hard to make up votes if you are missing games.
RHYS: Do you ever ponder that you won three best and fairests at a club when Robbie Flower was there?
FOWLER: I know it's a clichι but you look back on your premiership. At Richmond we have the reunion every year and they are a terrific mob. The premiership is the thing that keeps everyone together. Ian Wilson has a premiership reunion at the MCG every year no partners, just players.
RHYS: In 1981 you had the full range of experience. You were on the bench against South, captain of Melbourne against Fitzroy and then played in the back pocket for Victoria against Tasmania
FOWLER: That's really moving around, isn't it. It's a long time ago. I suppose Victoria couldn't find anyone else for the back pocket.
RHYS: And you played at Waverley after finishing at Melbourne.
FOWLER: That's right under Tony Sullivan. I used to be a runner for him to run out a bit of soreness on a Sunday while I was playing at Melbourne and then I went and coached Springvale. That was very rewarding because that was their first year out of the Federal League. They were a terrifically strong club and I had always respected them. We then went into VFA First Division and they didn't have a great deal of money. We virtually had the same list we had in the Federal League. It was unexpected that we won.
RHYS: These days you are running a TAB.
FOWLER: I started in the public service with Sport and Recreation. Bob Keddie's father was the director. We used to check the racing dividends. In the end I did a course to run an agency and it happened from there.
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