Yellow and back, don't you forget itGreg Baum
The Age
8 September 2017Chances are that if you are not yet of a certain age and you don't have a dog in the finals race, you either are feeling warmly disposed towards Richmond in their newfound success, or at least thinking that there is still next week for them, without a hint of the schadenfreude you might direct towards another team.
You're thinking, well, good luck to them.
Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you think you can bear. Be careful of coming over all Caleb Bond, convinced in your prepubescent bumptiousness that a little bit of retro nuclear war might be fun and even cathartic for everyone.
Those of us who lived through the dark ages of Richmond's last prime won't easily forget it, the way those who live through depressions and dictatorships don't forget. For 15 years, Richmond terrorised footy. Don't be fooled by the soft fluffiness of history's lens. Don't be fooled by these ogres now that they're all in their time of slippers and pipes.
Billy Barrot was a lair, but so good he could afford to lairise. He laughed in our faces. Kevin Sheedy and his sideburns and his grin got up everyone's nose. Kevin Bartlett was worse. His schtick was to bounce the ball each time he was about to be tackled, outsmarting opponents and umpires every time. And to think that he ended up on the rules committee! And cast in bronze. He should have been cast into the Mariana Trench.
There was Mick Malthouse, even then with a stare that turned opponents to stone. Then there was Robbie McGhie, leering like a nightmare out of the footy card you could never swap, tattoos bristling. Dustin Martin's got nothing on him. Worse, there was Neil Balme. Don't be gulled by cuddly bear Balmey, spreader of goodwill and winning cheer at other clubs. He was a trained killer, spreader of carnage and anarchy. You'll find him on YouTube, but you shouldn't.
Richmond then were utterly ruthless. Think Brisbane early 2000s and Hawthorn latterly and GWS now all rolled into one, but without their soft, caring side, the milk-of-human-kindness gentility.
Sure, there was Royce Hart, who was ridiculously good, and Ian Stewart, who was even better. Sure, there was Francis Bourke and Paddy Guinane and Barry Richardson and Michael Green and Graeme Bond and Tony Jewell, who all seemed gentlemanly enough. That only made it worse as they cut you to ribbons. There was the coach, T-shirt Tommy, who couldn't talk proper, but seemed like a good guy, and must have been, because once they'd wrung four premierships out of him, they promptly sacked him.
"They" were Ian Wilson and Graeme Richmond, footy's Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, but on the same side. There they were in the corner of every premiership snap, seemingly able to get who and whatever they wanted for the Tigers.
Richmond didn't play favourites; they didn't have to. In 10 finals series over 15 years, they played 26 games and lost only six. They beat Carlton seven times in nine meetings, at a time when beating Carlton was a feat. They beat Collingwood six times out of six. They never lost to Geelong. When North Melbourne at last got a look at a premiership, they pooped their party. They laid waste to the competition.
Then there were the fans. Think turn-of-the-century Essendon, or more recently Hawthorn, or Collingwood pretty much any time, but without their humility, culture and charm. Plentiful, loud and so, so smug, their rule amounted to tyranny. You might be humming along indulgently to the "yellow and black" refrain now, but that is only because it wasn't seared into your consciousness while it was still forming and vulnerable, and become a ringing you can never get out of your ear.
You might even be close to a certain age and look back over the decades when you could patronise Wayne Campbell and Benny Gale and Matthew Knights and Matthew Richardson because you knew that ultimately, they weren't going to hurt you. You have to know that it wasn't always like that, and soon it might not be like that again.
Experience, acquaintance and further reading teaches that Richmond then were well (if not democratically) run, and coached, and brimming with talent and esprit de corps, and were fortified by their fans, and moreover mostly turned out to be good company and have plenty to offer post-footy, which must have had something to do with their roaring success at the time. But they're just facts, getting in the way.
As apprehended by unworldly teenage eyes, leaving scars that still show now that dotage is upon them and us, the hapless witnesses, they were an evil empire that half the footy world in its terrible innocence now seems happy to see recreated. Just you wait.
And yes, perhaps, perhaps I should be over it by now, but what would be the fun in that?
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/richmond-tigers/yellow-and-back-dont-you-forget-it-20170908-gydqek.html
