KB returns to Tigerland
5:44 PM Thu 22 November, 2007
By Ben Broad
richmondfc.com.au
MATTHEW Richardson, Andrew Raines and a couple of other current-day Tigers were present, but perhaps Kevin Bartlett wished he was again coaching and addressing the entire Richmond playing list on his return to Punt Road.
Speaking at the launch of a book detailing the club’s history and written by his son, Rhett, KB spoke with all the passion of a senior coach.
Rhett Bartlett’s history of one of Australia’s most famous clubs, The Tigers – A Century of League Football, was launched in the Punt Road gymnasium, and the author’s father – who played in five premierships in the yellow and black – said he was thrilled to be back after 16 years away from the club.
Bartlett, who had not returned to the club since being fired as senior coach by then president Neville Crowe, said it was “very nice to come home”.
“But when I drove in today, my parking spot was gone!” he joked.
Rhett Bartlett has spent eight years interviewing past and current players to catalogue the Tigers’ story, with the book timed to be released in 2008, when Richmond celebrates its 100th year.
While the younger Bartlett showed his own sense of humour at the launch, it was his father’s obvious passion and sense of story-telling that had those present hanging on every word – even if he later joked that he had divulged most of the contents of the book throughout his 25-minute speech.
KB shared some of his favourite stories from Richmond – including how he first walked into the very rooms in which he was speaking as a wide-eyed 14-year-old in the hope of joining training with the under-17 side.
He also spoke of the Tigers’ famous spirit.
“That’s why Richmond is such a famous club, it’s got so many great identities and it’s got a great history,”Bartlett said.
“Struggletown here in the 1920s … blue-collar workers in Richmond, poor families, a tribal existence.
“Go up the road up here, you have Collingwood and you have Carlton, but it was the tribal existence here at Struggletown at Richmond that Richmond was born from.”
Bartlett, now a prominent media commentator, would no doubt like to see a few more players like former teammate Roger Dean taking the field for the Tigers.
“He is probably the toughest player that’s ever played for the Richmond Football Club,” Bartlett said.
“He is the most quietly spoken person you could imagine but, like idiot, when he put on the Richmond jumper with the famous number 3 on his back, he became a lunatic,” he said.
“He led us to the 1969 premiership. He led us down the race and we would follow Roger Dean because of what he stood for. He stood for the spirit of the Richmond Football Club.”
Bartlett said he was fortunate to arrive at the start of Richmond’s “golden era”, but said what made the club great was the people involved, not the trophies in the cabinet.
The Tigers – A Century of League Football is an oral account of the Tigers’ history in the VFL/AFL, and Bartlett is proud of his son’s achievement.
“One of the great things about oral history is that not everyone might agree with what’s in there but that’s the way people see it through their eyes,” Bartlett said.
“I think that’s what makes this book so, so unique.”
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