Bob Gill, the Prahran plumber who played for Richmond U19s and Reserves, won the Fourths Best and Fairest in 1959, and years later received a phone call out of the blue from his old coach Graeme Richmond asking for a favour, died April 18^th. He was 80.

A legend in the motor industry world, and dubbed “Prahran’s fastest plumber”, Gill was asked (or rather told) by the Richmond powerbroker GR in 1979 to provide an apprenticeship to their latest recruit - 17-year-old Brian Taylor - who was making the big move from Mandurah in Western Australia to Melbourne.

BT touched down at Tullamarine airport on February 2^nd 1979 and only had a few days to settle in before meeting Gill on his first day on the job as a plumber.

“I’ve never forgotten him,” Brian Taylor said in a 2020 interview. “I was pretty homesick at that time, and I really needed guys like Bob around. I would have gone home if it wasn’t for Bob as I was very homesick at that time.”

The two remained lifelong friends and spoke days before his passing.

Gill himself played from 1957 – 1964 for the Richmond Fourths, U19s, and then 38 games for the Reserves, but never managed to crack it for the Seniors.

When the time came, as it did for all footballers, to leave Tigerland as a player Gill remembered being called into GR’s office and bluntly told “Well Kiddo, it’s the parting of the ways.”

_{Bob Gill middle row far right. Graeme Richmond front row.}

After a week training with Fitzroy, then a practice game with Collingwood, and a practice game for Hawthorn (on Peter Crimmins no less!), Gill ended up at Rochester FC where he won the Best and Fairest, and later at Prahran.

In 1979 he received that unexpected one-sided phone call from GR, his former U19s coach and now club powerbroker.

“There’s a kid from WA Mandurah who wants to be a plumber. He’s going to play with us and I want him to work for you. Tony Jewell is a plumber but can’t employ him as he’s the coach and there’s no other plumbers apart from you. You’ll be contacted on Monday with all the details, bye for now.”

Knowing the difficulty it was to set it up the apprenticeship at short notice, the club agreed to pay Gill $2,026.70 which covered half of BT’s yearly wage.

“He was a real character” the then-Recruiting Manager Noel Judkins recalled in an email this week. “The guarantee of an apprenticeship certainly helped Brian settle into Melbourne life. Bob had a funny crew and lots of funny mates, they made Brian welcome and taught him the other side of life.”

In the club’s history book “Richmond F.C” written by Rhett Bartlett, BT remembered that first morning working for Gill, by fixing a sewage blockage at the ‘Blue Moon’ massage parlours on St Kilda Road.

“I remember we arrived there at 7.30am, they sent me down this 12-foot shaft. The boss said ram this thing up the pipe and that should get it out, and all of a sudden, I heard gurgle, gurgle, and I was covered in the night’s takings. I was hosed off and sent back to the workshop in a taxi. I trained with Richmond for the first time later that evening.”

Outside of the football world Gill was a key figure in the Australian motor racing industry (Sports Sedan racing) as administrator, driving trainer, and CAMS licenser for decades.

In 1993 he was elected the Mayor of Prahran - the last of that title before its merging with Malvern to become the City of Stonnington.

Born in Richmond on October 12 1943, Gill lived in Tanner St, and was looked after by his grandmother while his father served overseas at War and his mother worked long hours in a factory.

As a child he was placed in Yarra Park State School and also Bundoora State School, before joining Preston Tech School in 1953. He played football with them and Broadway Rovers (winning the B+F in 1956 and runner-up the following year), before boarding with his plumbing employer in South Yarra.

As a 14-year-old he walked into the Richmond Football Club and trained with the U17s – meeting for the first time GR who later presented him after a match with a 1-pound note for best on ground – ‘Kiddo, you deserve this.” 

He would win the Richmond Fourths best and fairest in 1959 and still had proudly kept all those decades later the letter sent to him by secretary Maurie Fleming at season end which said in part “we feel you have a bright and rosy one [future] in football for many years, but you will not make it unless you start now to work out your future in the game…”

Much like BT never forgot Gill, Gill himself never forgot his time at Tigerland, organising the 40^th anniversary, and 60^th anniversary reunions of the 1962 teams.

In 2023 he wanted to go a step further and record on paper each teammate’s memories of that time at Tigerland just before the golden era of premierships.

So, Gill phoned me out of the blue and persuaded me (much like GR did to him) to reach out to his former teammates and compile a document of their time at Richmond.

We met at the Punt Road Ground on October 4^th 2023 in the very room under the Jack Dyer Grandstand where GR had cut him as a player decade earlier.

We chatted for an hour as he provided precious images and newspaper cuttings from his collection that would form our document “Graeme’s Boys – Life before and after 1962.”

The completed version containing oral histories from 9 surviving players was received by Gill on April 16^th. He died two days later.

_{Bob Gill back at Tigerland in October 2023. Photo by Rhett Bartlett.}