Richmond is mourning the passing of 1969 premiership hero Mike Bowden, aged 73, following a battle with Motor Neurone Disease.
The Bowden legacy at Tigerland is indeed a rich one, with three of Mike’s sons – Sean, Joel and Patrick – following in his Yellow and Black footsteps and playing senior football for the Club.
Mike Bowden joined Richmond from St Kevin’s College in the mid-1960s and played under-19s football initially with the Tigers, before deciding to quit the game and become a priest.
He spent two years studying to be a priest at Corpus Christi College at Werribee, but returned home at Christmas and advised his parents that he wasn’t going back there.
Bowden’s father subsequently contacted legendary Richmond secretary, Graeme Richmond, who told him, ‘If your son’s got a jock strap and runners he can come down to train’.
That afternoon, Mike Bowden was out on the training track alongside experienced, top-notch Tigers such as Fred Swift, Roger Dean, Neville Crowe, Paddy Guinane, John Northey, Mike Patterson and Billy Brown.
He made his senior league debut in Round 8 of the 1967 season against Collingwood and played a further six games at the highest level with Richmond that year, covering for injured ruck-rover Alan ‘Bull’ Richardson.
The following season, Bowden cemented his place in the Tigers’ senior side as a permanent replacement for Bull.
Just like Bull, he was a creative ruck-rover, who brought teammates into the play with intelligent use of handball.
In 1969, Bowden had a total of 194 handballs from 20 games – a staggering 40 more than any other player in the competition despite missing the first three games of the season.
With his exemplary work ethic, team-first attitude, ability to bore into packs to win possession, and slick use of the ball by hand, he became an integral part of Richmond’s plans for premiership success in 1969.
That came to fruition in glorious fashion, with the Tigers belting Geelong in the first semi-final, accounting for Collingwood in the preliminary final, and then defeating Carlton in the Grand Final.
Bowden had 19 disposals on that one day in September ’69, nine of them handballs, which, not surprisingly, was a game-high total.
He played two more seasons at Richmond after that, captaining the reserves to the premiership in what was his last game for the Club in 1971.
That, however, was far from Mike Bowden’s last game of football as a player.
You have to fast-forward all the way through to 1996, when he was 49 years of age, for that to occur, playing in the reserves with the Rovers Football Club in Alice Springs.
In between, he’d also pulled the boots on for clubs such as Robinvale, Camberwell, Red Cliffs, Mildura and Wests Alice Springs.
We, at Tigerland, extend our deepest sympathy to Mike’s wife Judy, daughter Majella, sons Sean, Rhett, Kane, Joel, Patrick and Charlie, and all other members of the Bowden family.
