Fair GameSam Newman goes Head to Head with Graeme Richmond
The Sun
Wednesday, August 22, 1990.
Since 1909 Richmond Football Club has prowled the league scene and for 26 years before then, the association. But now, like mentor Graeme Richmond, the club faces the ultimate challenge – survival. When you think of Richmond, you think of Richmond. Ironically, both are facing a future of uncertainty. While the great club is ailing financially the great man is fighting to regain his health. For almost a quarter of a century he was the inspiration behind it, overseeing seven grand final appearances, with flags in 1967, 1969, 1973-74 and 1980. He’s done the books at Tigerland, been recruiting, coached, managed the team, been elected vice-president and been a selector – a talent he currently employs at state level. Today GRAEME RICHMOND goes Head to Head with SAM NEWMAN about the problems of big game hunting. Newman: It looks like the cage doors are about to shut at Tigerland.
Richmond: It’s exceptionally grim and unless the Richmond people rally to the cause it’s possible a team, that eight years ago played in a grand final, will be the first victim of financial pressures.
Newman: Can you see Richmond surviving?
Richmond: Yes. Many good people at Richmond would be concerned …
Newman: ..... even though only 16,000 turned up to a survival game last Saturday?
Richmond: It was disappointing, but I think next Sunday (rally at MCG) will be the litmus test. That will give the club a direct indication as to its future.
Newman: Would you be heartbroken if the inevitable happened?
Richmond: It would be an absolute tragedy. I’d be devastated. It’s been such an enormous part of my own life – like it has for the thousands who have played for, and served, the club. It’s a club with a magnificent history – we’ve won 10 premierships, many of them in recent times.
Newman: In AFL circles your opinion would be highly regarded so …
Richmond: ..... well, I’d regard myself as yesterday’s man, to be honest with you.
Newman: You’re a current state selector.
Richmond: Yes, but I’m not active on the administrative side so I’d say my opinions are not sought after and maybe not valid at the moment.
Newman: Well, as the most experienced Richmond man ever, I’m seeking your opinion on where Richmond has gone wrong. After all, they were grand finalists in ’82.
Richmond: Richmond is suffering from an imbalance of inexperienced young players and competent, experienced ones.
Newman: And whose fault is that?
Richmond: It’s an administration fault that’s run over a period of between seven and 10 years. The backbone of the successful clubs rests with the ability of the top seven or eight players who have played between six and 12 years of football.
Newman: Is it just a coincidence that seven or 10 years is the period you’ve been away from the club?
Richmond: I’m not saying that, but I’d say the administration at Richmond in the ‘80s have a lot to answer for because the team just hasn’t got the competency or depth of senior players which the whole show revolves around. There’s very few Royce Harts or John Colemans that walk into football these days and are overnight sensations.
Newman: You went down to Tasmania and got the young Royce Hart, didn’t you?
Richmond: Yes, but you must realise Royce wasn’t an outright champion at that stage. He developed through our under-19s and reserve-grade teams in 1966. His remarkable leap forward occurred over the summer of 1966-67. He worked very hard in the gym and came out in ’67 and matched his physique with his skills.
Newman: Would you see a parallel between a side like Carlton today and Richmond in the early ‘80s?
Richmond: Carlton has one of the best football administrators in the game in Ian Collins, but they are one of the first victims of the draft. This is something supporters of the leading clubs are going to have to get used to. The AFL’s charter is to conduct a well-balanced competition. It was obvious it was becoming a gross imbalance because some of the clubs were so competent with their marketing and fund raising they were putting themselves into the situation where the cheque book ruled the roost.
Newman: Like Richmond did.
Richmond: Yes. That could have been said of them in the ‘60s and ‘70s because we were one of the first to be able to raise money through more traditional sources and use that money to recruit players.
Newman: Like when you went down to Tassie and offered Royce Hart two thousand quid ($4000).
Richmond: No, we didn’t. No, we did not. Anyhow, this is no longer possible, of course. This is where Carlton are feeling the pinch and ultimately Hawthorn will feel it too – where they no longer have the advantage of a magnificent country zone.
Newman: I got the name wrong. You offered Peter Hudson two thousand quid.
Richmond: I did, most certainly. That’s correct now. Peter was always pretty keen to make every post a winner, but the principle prevailed and the magnificent work Ron Cook (Hawthorn) had done on the Hudsons prevailed when Peter’s form four ran out.
Newman: Did the Richmond club just load you up with money and chuff you off to all points of the compass?
Richmond: We had a very good side, but our forward line was revolving around Pat Guinane and John Northey, so I thought Peter would be better suited at the MCG. Little did I know that John Kennedy (then Hawthorn coach) was going to devise a plan for Glenferrie Oval by keeping the forward line virtually free of players to accommodate Hudson’s quick movements.
Newman: So Richmond’s decision to procure Peter Hudson was, in fact, outside the league’s recruiting guidelines?
Richmond: Seeing as none of these decisions are now retrospective, yes, we probably bent the system, but our charter was to do the best for our club – which we did. One of the great things about our game is that we do breed a series of desperate men in charge who’ll virtually do anything they believe they can get away with.
Newman: What tricks would they have up their sleeves at this particular stage?
Richmond: Firstly, the public and corporate sectors must be approached. If all else failed, concerned money people must be put into a position to form a financial backing.
Newman: They may think they’d be putting good money after bad.
Richmond: I think the board would have to be prepared to look at its position because people who are prepared to put up money in substantial lumps will want some say over the conduct of the club affairs.
Newman: That’s more or less buying the right to decide the club’s direction.
Richmond: Pretty much so, but that’s the disaster scenario they’re facing as a last resort. It could be a benevolent ownership rather than a dictatorship, but there has to be some collateral available to the members. That would seem to me to be in the form of a licence.
Newman: Another privately-owned club?
Richmond: There are all sorts of structures available that can circumvent private ownership as such. It would also need a couple of years of pretty dramatic recruiting. If other clubs are genuinely concerned about the Richmonds and Fitzroys, then benefits given to the interstate teams should be extended to those other ailing clubs.
Newman: So you think the traditional clubs have been discriminated against, do you?
Richmond: No, but the discrepancy hasn’t been pushed forcefully enough. It needs reappraising.
Newman: Can you see Brideshead being revisited and instead of the summer of ’89 embracing Fitzroy and Footscray, the summer of ’90 may well be Richmond and Fitzroy?
Richmond: It’s not palatable to either club’s supporters, but in the absolute point of last resort, these scenarios have to be considered.
Newman: At least the teams would be kept in the big cat family. Is Kevin Bartlett the right man to coach Richmond?
Richmond: I’d say he’s doing a remarkably good job. To coach the Tigers for the past three years has been a real test. He was really on a hiding to nothing when he took on the job. He probably was a bit more optimistic in that he thought he could turn some things around.
Newman: Like what?
Richmond: I think he thought he could handle a few of the inconsistent players a bit better than his predecessor. He had a good first year and the blokes who grizzled and groaned previously went under the blankets a bit but, when everyone got used to it, the age-old problems emerged – Geelong is a classic example this year. The second year of coaching is the critical one.
Newman: Do you think Richmond’s 12th spot is their true standard?
Richmond: Every club has injuries but Richmond’s have been horrific. Richmond should have at least held their ground from ’88 (10th) to ’89 (bottom).
Newman: What is the first ability you’d appoint a coach on?
Richmond: A knowledge of the game and his ability to impart it. Many great players have been coaches but can’t communicate. Jack Dyer had a very simple philosophy. He said: “you get the players and we’ll win the games – everything else will be put to rest. We’ll get someone to look after the books and run the whole show. It’ amazing how smoothly everything runs when you’re winning”.
Newman: Meaning, if you had the right players, the coach was incidental?
Richmond: We’d been very well handed by Len Smith (then Richmond coach) in the mid-60s. Len virtually taught us how to play. He took us from the prop and cop game to the game Geelong used to play in the ‘50s – playing on off their half-back line. Len then went to Fitzroy and, when they played us, we didn’t know what hit us. I used to go and watch Fitzroy train when I was Richmond’s under-19s coach and came to the conclusion we’d have to get someone to teach us some new tricks.
Newman: So you went to Shepparton and got Tom Hafey. What did you think his particular talent was?
Richmond: To everybody’s horror we went and got Tommy but Tommy was a much better player than his record indicated at Richmond. He was a tremendous mark, a magnificent kick and iron tough but he made the fatal mistake of going into a milkbar and I’ve no doubt the long hours sent his football down the gurgler pretty quickly. Tommy and Jack Hamilton were the first two players I knew to train on weights. Everybody was terrified you’d become muscle bound and go stale but one of the so-called skills of being a coach was to judge when a player was fit and, thus, blokes would invariably get nights off training in case they got overfit and stale.
Newman: And Tom changed all that.
Richmond: Earlier, we’d brought in blokes like Harry Gallagher, Percy Cerutty and Franz Stampfl, who convinced us we weren’t training hard enough and that fear of training too hard was all rubbish – it was in the mind. They said that, in a pecking order of fitness on a world scale, footballers were disgracefully unfit. I don’t mind telling you our ears did prick up. We’d had a fitness adviser called Barry Stanton, an Australian 400m hurdles champion, who’d been hammering on this point for a while. In the end, we reckoned not all these blokes could be dills, so we introduced an extra training night on Wednesdays and a “running out” period on Sunday mornings.
Newman: So, you were to blame for Sunday morning training. I often wondered who was responsible for that.
Richmond: All this was right up Tommy’s alley, as Len (Smith) was a brilliant tactician, but a gentle man. Tom brought an edge of hardness to us and he went along with our style of handball and long kicking. I’d also like to point out we tried to get Ted Whitten from Footscray after we’d failed with Peter Hudson. I’d been tremendously impressed with Ted in the ’66 carnival in Hobart.
Newman: Did you offer Ted the mandatory two thousand quid, or had we moved into decimals at this stage?
Richmond: Ted had got the boot as coach from Footscray (’66) and was pretty sore about it, so I tried to get up his jumper a bit – I even rang him on Christmas morning to wish him well. But full marks to Ted, I think he copped a bit of flak about Footscray’s recent revival because the people thought he was AFL-oriented, but no one went closer than me to get him out of the red, white and blue. But, when the crunch came, he just couldn’t see himself playing for anyone else than the Dogs. I’d also like to point out we had a very strong go at John Newman a few years ago and, to his credit as well – I mean Geelong weren’t going any good and we had plenty of dough …
Newman: I should have taken it.
Richmond: I know you don’t mean that. If we trace Richmond’s predicament we get back to ’83 when, over summer, we lost Bryan Wood to Essendon, our captain David Cloke and our most naturally-talented player, Geoff Raines, to Collingwood.
Newman: Well, you sacked Raines.
Richmond: We never did. We didn’t pay him what Collingwood had offered in their financial stupidity of the day. Not only did it make Collingwood broke, but it bankrupted Richmond of its talent in the process.
Newman: Are you saying David Cloke and Geoff Raines didn’t have the same ethics as Ted Whitten or Peter Hudson?
Richmond: I think they were a bit sore about some other matters as well, but it was disappointing, particularly as they had developed through our junior teams. People who changed their religion or politics were considered heretics in those days. The closest thing in my lifetime to that would be to change Richmond to Collingwood and, while Victoria St divided the two, never the twain did meet. Harry Dyke, our late and great president, would stand up on a Thursday night before we played Collingwood, take his hat off, and quote Lord Nelson: “I expect every man to do his duty” – and they invariably did. Cloke and Raines going was a very bitter pill to swallow.
Newman: Maybe you need Harry and his hat down there now.
