We've had this pre-1967 Grand Final article about Tommy on the OER RFC history archives since the early days of the site. I've reposted it here on the forum for those who haven't seen it before.
THE TOUGH TIGER
He lives, dreams and EATS footballSaturday, September 23, 1967,
THE SUN - WEEKEND MAGAZINE
by Alan TrengoveTom Hafey is the arch enemy of the Anti-football League. He would like to see League football played on 365 days of the year, and on 366 days in a leap year.
He watches two Richmond teams on a Saturday, Port Melbourne or East Malvern on a Sunday, and any schoolboy match he accidentally comes across at any other time.
Television and radio don't carry enough football programs according to Hafey, who views every TV replay even if it means staying up to midnight, as he did last Monday for the VFA preliminary final.
He has read almost every publication ever written about the game and has traveled hundreds of miles to hear the expert and the not-so-expert expound upon it.
"He lives, sleeps, breathes and eats football," says Mrs Maureen Hafey, his wife. And she shares his interest.
"It would be a shame if I didn't," she says, "because we wouldn't have much in common at all."
His lifeFootball is Tom Hafey's life and Richmond the centre of his universe.
The man who has steered or, rather, bulldozed Richmond to its first grand final for 24 years is a tough little character of 36, a self-confessed, but taciturn, fanatic, an iron man who at 6 a.m. every day runs three miles and swims in the bay at Mentone, a do-or-die scrapper who takes defeat so badly he's been known to lock himself incommunicado in the property steward's room.
He neither drinks nor smokes, and when he declares emphatically "I never will" you know that you could bet your bottom dollar on the fact.
Watching him in command of a Richmond training session, his compact, abundantly muscled frame filling a sleeveless Tiger guernsey, is a memorable experience. He looks as hard and fit as any of the young fellows towering over him.
Hafey, says Richmond secretary Graeme Richmond, was the first footballer to train with weights. He started weightlifting as a 17-year-old, and still heaves weights around at home.
And there is no doubt about his stamina when Richmond holds cross-country races. For Hafey inevitably finishes first.
He is also first to arrive on the ground on training nights and, claims Neville Crowe, he never asks the players to do anything he's not prepared to do himself.
Jack Edwards, president of Shepparton FC, which Hafey coached to three successive premierships, testifies to the man's formidable toughness.
"In one match he stopped an elbow," recalls Edwards. "His eyebrow was badly split and blood poured down his face.
"A trainer went out to him and said, 'Tom, you'd better come off and get that stitched.'
" 'Is my eye still there?' asked Hafey.
" 'Yes, your eye's still there.'
" 'Well, get the hell out of here,' said Hafey."
When he was appointed Richmond's coach before the start of last season there were many supporters who, no doubt, felt that Hafey was a stop-gap; a run-of-the-mill coach who would have good players at his disposal because of Richmond's intensive recruiting, but who would need plenty of luck to survive for long in the most precarious role in big sport.
One of five children born to a Richmond printer and his wife, his first home was within a drop-kick of Punt Road, and he played his first games in the Richmond back streets.
He was recruited to Richmond while playing in the centre for East Malvern in the Caulfield and Oakleigh League, converted to a back pocket player by Alby Pannam, and played 83 League games.
"I was a battler at the best of times," says Hafey.
But Jack Dyer describes him as a good, honest footballer, a great team man who was always driving his mates on.
His careerAs early in his career as 1955 Hafey was asking Richmond for the chance to gain experience by addressing junior clubs. As a schoolboy he had traveled from East Malvern to Collingwood just to watch how the great Jock McHale conducted training sessions, and later he was to do a public speaking course in order to prepare for coaching himself.
He was from the beginning a student of the game. He was also interested in helping other young chaps, whether they were footballers or not.
He bought a milk bar in Bridge Road, and it became a sort of youth club.
Hafey is reluctant to talk about his part in the activities, but apparently he persuaded a group of youths to take up basketball instead of loafing away their spare time. Three teams were formed - the Hafey Tigers.
He also encouraged local youths to invest their money instead of wasting it. He collected their money, put it as a deposit on land, and got a kick out of seeing kids, who had never had much of their own, possessing blocks of land.
All he will say is: "Richmond kids don't get many breaks. As in other industrial suburbs, life is hard; and you come across kids looking up to crims as heroes. You might hear a kid talk about someone being shot up the street, and then proudly adding: 'That was my dad,' "
Says Neville Crowe: "While he had that milk bar, Tom was king of Richmond."
The invitation to coach Shepparton gave Hafey the chance to put all his ideas of fitness, technique and strategy into effect.
"He attracted young fellows to him by his honesty, integrity and fearlessness," says Jack Edwards. Then came the summons to Richmond. Hafey was nervous about the responsibility, but it would have been out of character for him to avoid the challenge.
He introduced a third training session to Richmond, and based his playing approach on two principles which, cannily, he doesn't want to see revealed in print.
Experts like swimming coach Harry Gallagher, runners Ron Clarke and Herb Elliott, and Dr Bert Willee of Melbourne University came to talk to the players, and pre-season week-ends were spent at Percy Cerutty's Portsea camp. (Cerutty and Hafey are close friends, and correspond weekly.)
Today, Hafey lives to a tight schedule - from that early morning run and swim, through to his work as a printer's salesman and his coaching and match-planning. Even on a Sunday evening when you would think football might be forgotten for a spell, he often has a group of players and their girlfriends at his Beaumaris home, talking football.
The culmination of all his straining and scheming will be reached, he believes, on the MCG this afternoon. "We will win well," was his simple forecast yesterday.
He is, however, fully aware that no coach is infallible and that fortune is fickle.
"You can only do your absolute best," says Tom Hafey, "but if you haven't got the players you will probably get the sack."
http://oneeyed-richmond.com/history/tigertough.htm
