To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tigers’ 1973 premiership, Richmond Media is transporting Yellow and Black barrackers back in time throughout 2023 to follow the Punt Road path to that fabulous flag triumph. Today, Tony Greenberg recounts Richmond’s recruitment of Robbie McGhie.

One of the key findings from the major post-mortem Richmond conducted following its shock loss to Carlton in the 1972 Grand Final goalfest, was the need to recruit a ready-to-go centre half-back.

The Blues’ star centre half-forward Robert Walls had destroyed the Tigers with six goals from 24 disposals in the ’72 premiership-decider, so coach Tommy Hafey and key club official Graeme Richmond, were hell-bent on filling what they deemed was a big hole in the Yellow and Black line-up.

Enter Robbie McGhie . . .

The rangy, tough, tattooed McGhie had struggled to cement himself as a regular senior player with Footscray, managing just 37 senior appearances in four seasons at the Western Oval.

With his height, pace, long, left-foot kicking, and fearless approach, McGhie appealed to the Tiger brains trust as a good fit for the centre half-back role.

Footscray initially wanted to keep McGhie, but an off-field incident just a few weeks before the start of the ’73 season led to his departure from the Bulldogs.

Hafey and Richmond (GR) moved quickly to lure McGhie to Punt Road.

The Tigers were convinced they had their man. McGhie, however, started to waver.

“I was good enough to play at the Bulldogs, but I just didn’t get along with a couple of administrators,” McGhie told Elliot Cartledge in ‘The Hafey Years’ book.

“I ended up coming to Richmond, but not until after I’d actually signed a form to play with South Melbourne.”

“They gave me $500 as a sign-on fee, which was pretty good money in those days, but we counted it and there was only $497 in one-dollar notes!

“Anyway, Graeme (Richmond) came after me and said, ‘What have you done?’ And I told him I hadn’t heard from Richmond for a few days and I wanted to play.

“He said, ‘Leave it to me,’ and did all of the wheeling and dealing and got an agreement out of South to let me play in the practice matches.”

Elliot Cartledge reported that the Swans initially blocked the move, and when the final team lists were published in the week before Round 1, both Richmond and South Melbourne had McGhie listed.

In the meantime, McGhie had attracted headlines for another reason, coming to blows with Melbourne’s full-forward Greg Parke in a somewhat spiteful practice match.

“In the first practice match against Melbourne I had a huge punch-on with Greg Parke. Gary Hardeman and big Carl (Ditterich) came running in at a hundred miles an hour,” McGhie said.

“Well, in came ‘Balmey’ (Neil Balme), ‘Bourkey’ (Francis Bourke) and Kevin Morris and it nearly became an all-in.

“You could just see the loyalty, having been there for barely five minutes, and the support I got in that instance.

“It didn’t take long to become good mates with a lot of the guys down there.”

Despite allowing McGhie to take part in that practice match for Richmond against Melbourne, the Swans insisted that he was going to play with them.

The VFL agreed, with League directors ruling in South Melbourne’s favour at a special meeting attended by McGhie and solicitors David Jones and Tony Hannebery.

“In our view, under League rules the VFL was not entitled to grant McGhie a permit to South,” Jones said.

McGhie declared that if he could not play with Richmond, he would probably join VFA club Williamstown.

Possible legal action was considered by McGhie and his legal team, based around a form signed by McGhie to play with South Melbourne. It was claimed the date on the form was not filled in.

Ultimately, McGhie got his way, and he was cleared to Richmond in time to line up for the Tigers in the opening round match of the ’73 season against Essendon at Windy Hill.

And he went on to be a key member of Richmond’s back-to-back premiership sides of 1973-74.