Richmond prepares to create MCG fortress with another monster crowdStephen Drill,
Sunday Herald Sun
September 10, 2017 THE lid is off, the Tiger army is on the march and there is a sense in the streets of Richmond this might just be the year the premiership drought is broken.
Across Melbourne, across Victoria, around the country, Richmond fans are daring to dream that, after the emphatic win against Geelong, this could be their year.
From legends such as Kevin Bartlett to excited children there was uncontained joy at what the future might hold.
On Saturday, Richmond footy boss Neil Balme said he expected another massive crowd for the Tigers’ next match on Saturday week, following the 95,028 attendance on Friday night.
“It was a fantastic crowd last night, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t fill it,” he said on Saturday.
One Tiger fan basking in the victory that sent Richmond to within one game of a place in the Grand Final was Brett Schramm, who on Saturday cheered on Richmond’s VFL team at Port Melbourne and said he had slept in his Richmond jumper.
“The lid’s off, I don’t care, we won a final,” he said.
“I even slept in my jumper, we’re allowed to be happy. I’ve had so much pain over the last 37 years.”
Laurie Nichols, 11, went to Friday night’s game with mum Nicola Hodgkinson and said simply “it was the best day of my life”. “I’ve never seen a final win before,” he said.
Richmond 1980 premiership great Bartlett said he was “very confident about the Tigers — I think the Tigers this year have been very similar to the Bulldogs (last year)”.
“For 37 years, they haven’t had some real great success. I was so thrilled last night that so many Richmond fans were so happy,” he said on SEN.
Richmond president Peggy O’Neal has praised the Tiger army and said the club’s push into a preliminary final had come off the back of a united club, a determined playing group and a supportive network of members and fans.
“This is a united club, and that is a very powerful thing,” Ms O’Neal said proudly. “Everybody is going in the same direction.”
She said Tigers fans deserved every bit of praise for sticking with the club over the years of waiting for a chance at September glory.
“We’ve had seven years of record membership, we are over 74,000 (members) now,” she said.
“We have such loyal fans and all this talk about Richmond people being fickle, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Ms O’Neal and her board quickly repelled a rebel takeover push from a group known as Focus on Football last September, and the club’s united front extended to honouring coach Damien Hardwick’s contract for 2017.
That show of faith in the coach, and a restructuring of the football department, has given the Tigers the stability to produce their best season in 16 years — with that elusive 11th premiership potentially only two more wins away.
Tickets for Richmond’s preliminary final go on sale tomorrow week, September 18, at 9am.
AFL spokesman Patrick Keane said a decision would be made on how many tickets could be bought per barcode later this week.
The general public will have their chance for preliminary final tickets at 2pm on September 18. AFL members’ tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, September 19, from 9am.
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