Barrot back where he belongs
22 March 2007 Herald-Sun
Daryl Timms
IF BILL Barrot has any regrets about his league career, it's simply that he didn't finish it where it began.
In one of football's most famous swaps, Barrot was traded to St Kilda in exchange for Ian Stewart who claimed his third Brownlow Medal in his first season with the Tigers.
Barrot, a star centreman who played 120 games for Richmond, had a brief stint with the Saints. He kicked four goals in his first game with his new club in 1971, but was taken off at three-quarter time in the next game, which was to be his last with St Kilda.
Just a few weeks later he transferred to Carlton where he played 12 games and then went to North Melbourne where he didn't play a game. Next came a stint coaching and playing for West Torrens in Adelaide and then he played for, and later coached, VFA side Oakleigh.
Barrot, 62, and three other Tigers will be inducted into Richmond's Hall of Fame at the club's season launch at the Regent Theatre on Monday.
David Cloke will also be inducted along with premiership captain Alec Edmond who played from 1899-1907, and Alan Geddes who played from 1925-35 and was a captain and premiership player.
Barrot, together with Francis Bourke and Dick Clay an integral part of Richmond's famed midfield, is happy to be honoured.
"In my day you could become a life member and that was it," Barrot said.
"Becoming a hall of famer was an impossible dream because it was never heard of in our day."
Long after his retirement, Barrot's return to Punt Rd nearly killed him when he suffered a heart attack in a Richmond's legends game in 2003.
"Look it could have happened at home while I was doing my training and I would have had my Doberman dog licking my face trying to revive me rather than doctor David Marsh reviving me," he said.
`I was lucky there was an ambulance outside the ground attending an accident.
"There are really no rules. Your heart could stop like a car engine."
Barrot admits he was never the same player after his departure from Richmond.
"I just lost a lot of heart, and confidence in people," he said.
"But, in another respect, it improved my life because I learnt so much when I left Richmond."
Bookings for the Hall of Fame ceremony and season launch, can be made by contacting the club on (03) 9426 4485.
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