Club's soul is property of Richmond
Martin Flanagan | May 16, 2007
The Age
NATHAN Bower played 74 games for Richmond in the 1990s and, as they say, thinks about his footy. Last week, I asked him who best summed up the Richmond Football Club for him. He rang back the next day and nominated Ted Soderblom, the long-time property steward. I drove out to his home to meet him.
Ted's a Richmond boy. His wife, Dawn, is a Richmond girl. Their first outing was to a Richmond-Collingwood game at Punt Road Oval. It was so packed she fainted. "Those games always got big crowds," he says. Richmond went from the Yarra River to Victoria Street. On the other side of Victoria Street was Collingwood. Everyone in Richmond barracked for Richmond, everyone in Collingwood was for Collingwood. "Of course," he says, "it's changed a lot since those days."
He reminds me a lot of cartoonist Bruce Petty — white hair, long nose, thin friendly face. A boilermaker who became a trade teacher, Ted Soderblom is an old-style Australian, a working-class gentleman. He was born in Yarrawonga during the Great Depression. His father, the son of a Swedish migrant, came looking for a job and got one in a Richmond hotel.
Young Ted saw all the Richmond games at Punt Road Oval but there wasn't enough money in the family for him to travel to away games. He walked to Collingwood when the Tigers played there and caught the tram as far as Carlton. The rest he listened to on the radio. To paraphrase Jack Dyer, it's not as far to Footscray now as it was in those days.
He shows me an old autograph book of Dawn's with the signatures of the 1947 Richmond team. There, big in width but not height, is Jack Dyer's signature. Jack wrote backhand, no small irony given the number of backhanders he dished out.
Beneath Jack's name is a surprisingly demure "dFraser". This is Mopsy Fraser. Jack Dyer ended up an icon of the game, Mopsy forever ranks among the outlaws, but neither is Ted's favourite player. He directs my attention to two names I'm not familiar with, Bill Morris and Leo Merrett. He describes them as skilful players.
He started working for the club in the 1960s when a bloke who lived round the corner, Slug Jordon, asked him to be match manager for Richmond under 19s. A small man with a colourful tongue who was legendary for his hardness with his charges, Slug had great success as a football tutor at both Richmond and, later, North Melbourne. Ted also assisted with recruiting. In those days, it was part of the under-19 match manager's job.
Before taking the post, Ted was introduced to the senior coach Tom Hafey and the club secretary Graeme Richmond. Tommy, like Slug and Ted, was "a Richmond person". Richmond, known as GR, was something else altogether — like a figure out of a classical Greek drama. GR's reputation as one of the hard men is remarkable, given the fact he didn't play the game. An example of his style was his dealing with Tom Hafey. The most successful coach in the club's history, Hafey took the Tigers to premierships in 1967, '69, '73 and '74. After not winning in '75 and '76, GR voted him out.
Far from being a "Richmond person", GR had gone to Geelong Grammar. Once, doing a story on the music industry, I was told how GR would return to his hotel and deal with the punk rockers playing there that night just as he dealt with footballers.
Ted says he only saw GR go off his head once. That was during the 1966 reserves grand final. A young Tasmanian Richmond had brought across named Royce Hart floated in front of a pack, marked and kicked a 70-metre goal. "He was ranting and raving," recalls Ted. GR was brewing a premiership and he'd just seen the magic ingredient, a champion centre-half forward, arrive.
Ted's favourite memory from the '67 premiership, the Tigers' first since 1943, is Hart's mark, leaping and falling, ball in hands, as the Geelong player upon whom he is standing buckles.
Ted loved the Tigers' 1980 premiership. Why, I ask — it was an awful game, as one-sided as it gets. "Because it was Collingwood," he replies. But it was after Richmond lost the '82 grand final to Carlton that things started going wrong. Two of Richmond's stars, David Cloke and Geoff Raines, left after an argument with GR. One story said he accused them of not standing up in the grand final. Suddenly, somehow, there was a sense the Tigers were no longer as fearful, as formidable. The wilderness years began.
Ted's children and grandchildren barrack for Richmond. When he mentions his grandson, I ask what the kid's saying about what's happening at the club now. "He's happy so long as I get him into the rooms." Ted has his own views on Richmond's course over the past decade, but expresses them mildly and makes it clear he does not have inside knowledge. He never saw it as part of his job to ask questions.
But it's clear he's been hurt by stories of Richmond supporters tearing up their memberships after the Geelong debacle. He's even prepared a short statement that he reads: "This is not the time to be turning on the club. It's the time to assist." That may sound old-fashioned, but it's part of the spirit that made the club.
Ted also says fans need to be patient with their young players. Another of his jobs was coaching juniors. Young players, he says, need "a grounding". Royce Hart was a champion at 19. In 70 years, Ted Soderblom has seen that happen only once.
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