Martin bluff is straight out of the Dyer manual Tony Hardy
Herald Sun
September 21, 2013 YOU'D think Dustin Martin had "I hate Richmond" tattooed in Latin on his neck. That he's burned down Punt Road using his jumper for kindling. He's behaving in a most un-Tigerish sort of way, you hear, the sort of ungrateful and selfish standoff that'd have Jack "Captain Blood" Dyer, turning in his grave, wanting to break Dusty's collarbone and knock some sense into him.
Yes, he seems a little mercenary at the moment, but if you look a little deeper, it would appear that Dusty's been studying the history of Tigerland. He's only doing what the greatest Tiger of them all did. And Jack Dyer so loved at Tigerland there's a statue of him out the front of Punt Road.
It's the art of the bluff and Jack was way ahead of both Dusty and Richmond.
In 1930, Jack was a prodigiously talented 17-year-old. He was playing in the local leagues, matches so tough that violence broke out between the players, between the spectators and between the players and the spectators who often crossed the white line and threw a few if they didn't like what they saw.
It was the Great Depression and Jack was keen to make some money playing in the VFL. But he was sick of being ignored by the administrators at Punt Road. So he threatened to sign up with Collingwood, the enemy who lived down the hill off Hoddle St. He took the club on before he had even played a game of senior football. He gambled his football career, potentially his only chance to earn money to feed his family, most of whom were unemployed.
The bluff worked. Richmond signed him up.
Jack played a couple of games for the Tiges, but was relegated to the seconds where the young champion couldn't get a kick. Why? The seconds players protected each other, and their wage, and ignored Jack. During the games, they wouldn't kick it to him. Jack was running about not touching the footy and so unable to impress seniors coach Checker Hughes. So what did he do?
Jack walked away. It was 1931. This wasn't the small Depression or the medium-sized Depression. It was The Great Depression. Jack abandoned a job where all he had to do was play football. Yet call it arrogance, lucky stupidity or genius, the bluff worked. Certain Richmond seconds players were sacked and Jack was coaxed back.
Ten years later, before the 1940 season, Jack's father Ben failed in a bid to be elected to the Richmond Committee. So our hero, by then the game's most fearsome, most loved, most hated, most famous footballer, quit Tigerland. On March 1, 1940, it was announced that Jack "Captain Blood" Dyer, was seeking a clearance and had received an offer to play for Victorian Football Association side Yarraville. When training for the new season began on March 19, six weeks before the game against Footscray, there was no sight of Jack.
The supporters were starting to believe he was gone forever when finally, on April 2, three weeks before the start of the football year, Jack appeared at training. He was back. The bluff was over.
"I didn't want to leave," Jack recalled years later. "But I was bitter about the way things had been handled (with his father, Ben). I knew I was playing well and I figured I'd give them a bit of hurt for a while."
If Dusty Martin is a student of Tigerland, then could he simply be repeating the actions of the club hero? After all the fuss, will he soon sign to remain at Richmond? And, through his manager, release a modern-day version of Jack's statement, a tweet that says: "Didn't want to go, dudes. But jacked about the way it was handled. I no I'm a gun. Figured I'd give'm max pain. All good. Dusty #jackdyerthesecond."
The Dusty Martin contract saga is just that, a drawn-out, teasing manipulation by both parties of each other's intentions. Following the cruel fall over the cliff face that was Richmond's loss in the Elimination Final, Richmond people are angry. They need to blame someone for the horror of that Sunday afternoon, made worse as it came at the end of the most glorious season for a decade and the opposition was Carlton. The Tiger Army are hurting but the rejection of Dusty Martin is not only misguided, it even stinks of hypocrisy. Who among us hasn't threatened to walk out on their employer unless they're given a pay rise? And who among us can claim that this old bluff actually works?
It only works for the greats. And Dusty could well be one of them.
Tony Hardy is a Melbourne writer and author of Finding Jack Dyer
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/martin-bluff-is-straight-out-of-the-dyer-manual/story-e6frfkp9-1226723936300
