Four-time Richmond premiership player and Tigers’ Team of the Century member, Michael Green, will be the Club’s inaugural ‘Coming Home Hero’ at tomorrow night’s blockbuster Round 2 clash with Carlton at the MCG.
It’s Sunday, October 8, 1972, and Richmond is in ‘mourning’, having lost the Grand Final to arch-rival Carlton the previous day, after going into the premiership-decider as the hottest favorite in years.
The Tigers are hurting badly – none more so than Club supremo Graeme Richmond.
Incensed at losing what had been considered the unlosable Grand Final, GR immediately sets about the task of plotting revenge for his beloved Tigers.
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Some time on that ‘Super Sad Sunday’, GR puts in a call to retired Richmond ruckman Michael Green.
A dual Tiger premiership player (1967 and 1969), Green had given the game away at the end of the 1971 season due to work and family commitments.
Green, a solicitor with a young family, had been finding it increasingly difficult to combine everything going on in his hectic life. Something had to give . . . and that something was football.
So Green hung up the boots at just 23 years of age and, 12 months later, he watched on helplessly as Richmond suffered its shock Grand Final loss to Carlton.
When Graeme Richmond pleads the case for Green’s return, the day after that nightmarish result, the ruck retiree agrees to train during the pre-season and see how he pulls up.
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The rest, as they say, is history . . . glorious Tigerland history.
Green would go on to be one of Richmond’s most valuable players during its back-to-back premiership sides of 1973-74.
He played 45 of a possible 50 games throughout those two golden seasons, with the Tigers winning 35 and losing 10 of them (a success strike-rate of 77.8%).
In 1973, Green not only provided Brian ‘The Whale’ Roberts and Craig McKellar with strong ruck assistance, he bolstered the team’s forward line, booting 30 goals for the season, including a career-high five against Carlton at the MCG in Round 6.
Green also took a career-high 18 marks in a Round 14 clash with North Melbourne at Arden Street that season.
On Grand Final day, 1973, Green was one of Richmond’s best, as it gained sweet revenge over Carlton.
He had 13 kicks, three handballs, six marks and kicked a vital goal, as an emotion-charged Tiger outfit battered the Blues into submission.
The following season, Green continued to shine for the Tigers in their quest to make it back-to-back flags.
He kicked 23 goals, with a season-high return of three against Collingwood at Victoria Park in Round 20.
His season-high mark tally for ’74 was 11, which he achieved twice – against Fitzroy at Waverley Park in Round 13, and against North Melbourne at the same venue in Round 19.
In the ’74 Grand Final against North Melbourne, Green again was a key contributor for the Tiger team. He had eight kicks, four handballs, six marks and kicked two goals, including one during the second quarter that changed the momentum of the match.
Richmond’s gun ruck-rover Kevin Sheedy had taken a mark in the forward pocket. He went back to take his shot for goal from a very acute angle, ran in as if to kick, but at the last second handballed over the man on the mark, to an unguarded Michael Green on the goal-line, who dribbled through the easiest of goals. The Tigers, having trailed by a couple of goals, lifted dramatically after this.
Green quickly followed up with another goal, from a strong mark, to ram home the advantage for Richmond.
The final siren on that last Saturday in September ’74 signalled a 41-point point to the Tigers.
Graeme Richmond’s phone call to Michael Green, on that bleak Sunday two years earlier, had paid handsome dividends . . .
