Was Peggy O’Neal born for the job?Jen Kelly
Herald Sun
11 October 2019Could it be that it was always Peggy O’Neal’s destiny to become Tigers president?
In what’s either a spooky omen or bizarre coincidence, an old ditty sung almost a century ago tells of a Richmond fan in yellow and black bloomers named none other than “Peggy O’Neill”.
The real Peggy O’Neal, who was born in a remote mining town in West Virginia in 1952, grew up knowing nothing about Melbourne, let alone Aussie rules or the mighty Tigers.
But perhaps the Tigers of old knew something she didn’t.
Our reader Peter, from Mount Dandenong, spotted the strange ditty while re-reading Australian literary classic My Brother Jack, by George Johnston, published in 1964.
In a scene set in the 1920s, Jack, a typical Aussie bloke, is delirious with fever and singing “strange, slangy, ridiculous old football club parodies of years before” including this one:
She barracks for Richmond I bet you a zac,
Because her bloomers are yellow and black … That’s Peggy O’Neill!
The spelling may be different, but the similarity is freakish nonetheless.
“I just think it’s an unbelievable coincidence that she’s now the president of the football club,” Peter says.
“I’ve shown it to mates who are Richmond members and they couldn’t believe it.”
There was another more common version of the Richmond ditty going around decades ago:
She comes from Richmond I bet you a zac,
Because her bloomers are yellow and black,
Sweet personality, full of rascality,
That’s Peggy O’Neill.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/in-black-and-white/the-richmond-song-that-linked-tiger-queen-peggy-oneal-to-the-footy-club-before-she-was-born/news-story/e4b5f3cbb0f7d650ea8b082073bf7e16
