I couldn't find this online so I typed it out.......
Richmond legal eagle still dark on Hawks
By Chris de Kretser and Daryl Timms
Herald-Sun
MON 6 DEC 2010, Page 63
A LIFELONG Tigers supporter who, as a promising junior footballer, was denied the chance to play with his beloved team by Hawthorn, is one of five candidates up for re-election to the Richmond Football Club board of directors next week.
Lawyer John Matthies (right), who has been on the board since 2004, still laments his lost opportunity to play in the yellow and black.
"I played in the Hawthorn under-19s in 1969-70 when I was undertaking my law degree,'' Matthies said.
"I had applied for a clearance to Richmond but Hawthorn knocked it back, deferring a decision until the start of 1971. Then I broke my leg and that was the end of that.''
Matthies, who played as a midfielder and forward, more recently has applied himself to involvement with the Tigers at board level, with emphasis on recruiting and development at Punt Rd, areas in which Richmond has quadrupled its staff in the past six years.
He is also a member of Richmond's historical and museum committee and, with premiership ruckman Mike Green, co-founded the group Tigers@Law.
