The awesome Australian Football achievements of Ron Barassi, who passed away, aged 87, last weekend, are indelibly etched in the game’s history . . . six premierships as a player with Melbourne, two premierships as a coach at Carlton, two premierships as North Melbourne’s coach, etc. etc.
What’s not as well known about this mighty football legend, is how close he went to joining Richmond as playing coach in the mid-1960s.
It was during what turned out to be his last season as a player with Melbourne, in 1964, that Barassi received an approach from the Tigers through their dynamic football secretary at the time, Graeme Richmond.
The plan was for Barassi to take over as Richmond’s coach from Len Smith, the brother of then Melbourne coaching guru Norm Smith.
Len Smith, an excellent coach in his own right, and a pioneer of modern-day coaching methods, had laid the foundations for a bright future at Tigerland, but he was struggling with poor health.
‘GR’ (Graeme Richmond) saw the inspirational Barassi as the ideal man to build on what Smith had started and lead the Tigers out of the football wilderness and to the competition’s ‘holy grail’.
Here, from the book ‘Barassi: The Life Behind The Legend’, is the inside word on how Richmond (the Club (and the man) hotly pursued and then, ultimately, was forced to abandon the chase for the biggest name in the game.
“Even before the 1964 season concluded with yet another Melbourne flag, Richmond’s Machiavelian secretary Graeme Richmond had begun negotiations to get Barassi to the Punt Road Oval as playing coach of the Tigers.
These negotiations were conducted in total secrecy. Barassi believes that only Graeme Richmond and the club’s president, prominent criminal lawyer Ray Dunn, and the coach, Len Smith, knew about them.
The Melbourne champion thought that perhaps he would be moving across Jolimont Park for the 1965 season.
But it was the very move across the park that caused Richmond Football Club to bring the discussions to a halt.
When Graeme Richmond gave Ron Barassi the bad news, he cited as the main reason Dunn’s worry that the transfer wrangle that would surely follow would harm the Tigers’ case to become a tenant of the MCG, sharing the ground with the Melbourne Football Club.”
At the end of that ’64 season, after the Demons had captured their 12th league premiership, Barassi did, indeed, depart the club, to take up the position of playing coach at Carlton, in a move that rocked the football world.
More than half a century later, it’s interesting to ponder how the course of Tigerland history, and overall League football history, for that matter, would have changed had Richmond gone ahead and appointed Ron Barassi as its playing coach.
Of course, a bloke by the name of Tommy Hafey did an outstanding job when he took the coaching reins at Richmond 12 months after Barassi joined Carlton, guiding the Tigers to four premierships over the course of the next decade.
It’s almost impossible to believe anyone could have achieved more success with the Tigers throughout that time than what Tommy did.
Still, life is full of ‘what ifs’, and I wonder about the impact Barassi could have had at Punt Road – and how the Tigers would have fared at another home ground, as Melbourne was never going to agree to them becoming MCG co-tenants if their hunt for his highly-valued services had, ultimately, been successful.
