Bill Meaklim, our beloved Richmond volunteer of over 50 years, who was the club’s first appointed Historian, long-time head statistician, the central figure in establishing the Tigers memorabilia collection, a proud 80+ year member, and the answer-man to thousands of enquiries from supporters across the country, has died aged 90.
His death on Sunday was announced by the Former Players and Officials who wrote “we have lost a true friend and a great Tiger. We also pass on our condolences and best wishes to Dawn, Rodney, Gary, Daryl and their families at this sad time”.
“Bill will be sadly missed by us all but his legacy will be forever lasting in all who were privileged to have known him and called him a friend.”
For all his achievements, along with a club Life Membership and over 20 years as Secretary of the Former Player and Officials, Bill deservedly received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2017.
The 138-year history of the Richmond Football Club would be immeasurably incomplete without Bill’s scrupulous attention to detail, painstaking research, and contagious passion for his beloved Tigers.
With his distinctive ‘It’s Bill!’ answering of phone calls, his pen was always poised ready for any Tigerland historical question thrown his way.
Forgot the name of an obscure Under 19s player from the 1980s? Can’t identify that player in a faded photograph? Need to know how many Tiger players came from a certain country town? – before the advent of Google, the solution was simply to ‘ask Bill’.
By his own meticulous records, he was statistician from 1973 until 1997 for the Seniors, Reserves and practice matches, for a total, practically unbroken run, of 1,200 Richmond games.
When he did very rarely miss a game, it was for good reason – he was in hospital when Richmond’s U19s played Geelong in the 1989 Preliminary Final. As luck would have it, it was a draw, so there was Bill the following week clipboard, paper and pens in hand ready to take the stats.
Long before the use of computers, Bill used A3 size duplicate carbonised stats sheets to keep track of all the on-field possessions.
“Each quarter was identified with a BIC 4-colour pen, blue 1st qtr., red 2nd qtr., green 3rd qtr. and black for the final qtr,” he wrote in a 2020 article.
And when the interchange bench was introduced in 1978, Bill created a stat for that as well – “time on ground”.
His run as stats man was so long, he saw off 20 different Richmond coaches.
In 1985 Bill was elevated to Head Statistician with a team of 10 working under him.
“We split into 5 teams of 2. Two did the basic opposition details (kicks, handballs and scores) the balance recorded Richmond’s details such as kicks, effective/ineffective, handballs effective/ineffective, shepherds, smothers, tackles, knock-ons, inside 50’s, knock-outs, centre clearances, stoppages, goals, behinds and misses, loose ball gets, run and bounce, free kicks for/against etc. etc. This was all manual – no computers!”
“At the 20-minute mark of each quarter a “tear off” sheet went to the nearby coach’s box together with another tear off sheet at quarter time, half time, three-quarter time and at the end of the game.
In October 1986 he was appointed Richmond’s first ever historian by then CEO (and dear friend) Richard Doggett, and President Bill Durham.
Board member Doug McKenzie (also known as Zag from ‘Zig and Zag’) had sourced an Annual Report from every previous Richmond season, thereby laying the foundation for Bill to begin his meticulous historical research.
The club announcing Bill's appointment as Historian.
Born in 1933, Bill attended Caulfield North Central School, and as a 10-year-old was asked by a mate who he barracked for.
“As Richmond had just won the 1943 Premiership, I proudly said “Richmond of course!” Another classmate, Bruce Hanbury also said the same.
Having declared our club, Bruce and I with our parents’ consent went to the footy each week.
Just to explain how easy it was back then, Bruce lived in Glen Eira Road, Caulfield about one mile from my home.
I would ride my bike to his place and then catch the Glen Eira Road bus that travelled down to Acland Street, St Kilda. It met up with a bus that travelled all the way along Punt Road (and still does), enabling us to alight at the Richmond Football Ground.
We were both Junior Members and every second Saturday at 2.30pm there was a home game at Punt Road.”
In 1960 he managed Newman’s Chocolates and Candies at the newly opened Chadstone Shopping Centre, and it was there he met his lifelong friend Neville Crowe who worked at the State Savings Bank which shared a common corridor.
The layout of shops at the 1960 opening of Chadstone, showing Bill and Neville Crowe's shops close by.
Crowe invited him to the Pleasant Sunday Morning events at Punt Road each week, where he rubbed shoulders with the players and officials.
It was there he met former player and committeeman Charlie Priestley who invited him to coterie meetings held in the board room on Thursday nights after training.
Feeling those events needed some livening up, Bill took it upon himself to host quizzes and started a tipping contest.
His incredible legacy as statistican and ‘keeper of the records’ began at Tigerland during the pre-season of 1973 when he was invited by Board Member and then Reserves team manager Peter Cameron to assist in recording player statistics on match day.
“For my first day I arrived at the MCG at 10am which was an hour before the Reserves game started. On Peter Cameron’s advice I drew up a sheet with all the players names in their selected positions and headed up 4 columns namely, kicks, handballs, marks and goals”.
“When the match started Peter and I took up a position inside the boundary sitting on the same bench as the 19th & 20th men. Peter was the caller and I was scribe. All went well until there was an injury and Peter had to stop calling to organise a replacement player”.
“The stats stopped until Peter sorted out Coach, Colin Saddington’s instructions”.
At the start of 1991 he helped formed the Museum Historical Group, the first step towards collating and exhibiting its physical history.
“There was a couple of cubby holes in the old building. One was a disused toilet where we stacked boxes. Those placed got filled. And I did give up a room at home.”
A collage of some of Bill's meticulous record keeping.
In 2000 he led the charge - with me happily in tow - to document for the first time every VFL/AFL Richmond player in debut order.
After 500 hours at AFL Headquaters we came up with the finalised list. The result was turned into the “Debut Tie Numbers” which were distributed at the club’s first Hall of Fame function, and currently to each debutant prior to their match.
Universally admired, his vast resumé also included an inaugural member of the Australian Football Heritage Group, guest speaker at countless Richmond supporter group functions, and eulogist at former player funerals.
Outside of football he was president and treasurer of the Hawthorn Community Gardens, played cricket for St Stephens CC, (he was also their President for 15 years), Hawthorn East Melbourne CC, Virginia Park & Washington CCs, coached Washington and Mackie Cricket Clubs (both later captained by sons Rodney and Daryl), and was scorer for 10 years.
Always caring, cheerful, and generous with his time and knowledge - whenever you asked how he was, invariably the response from Bill was either ‘feeling bonza’, or ‘an 11 out of 10.’
And dare we say Bill, you were indeed an “11 out of 10”.
Another collage of Bill's meticulous manual research.
