Sunday, October 8, 1972 . . .

Richmond is in ‘mourning’, having lost the Grand Final to arch-rival Carlton the previous day after going into the premiership-decider as the hottest favourite in many years.

The Tigers are hurting badly – none more so than Club supremo Graeme Richmond.

Incensed at losing what had been considered the unlosable Grand Final, GR immediately sets about the task of plotting revenge for his beloved Tigers.

Some time on that ‘Super Sad Sunday’, GR puts in a call to retired Richmond ruckman Michael Green.

A dual Tiger premiership player (1967 and 1969), Green had given the game away at the end of the 1971 season due to work and family commitments.

Green, a solicitor with a young family, had been finding it increasingly difficult to combine everything going on in his hectic life.  Something had to give . . . and that something was football.

So Green hung up the boots at just 23 years of age and, 12 months later, he watched on helplessly as Richmond suffered its shock Grand Final loss to Carlton.

When Graeme Richmond pleads the case for Green’s return, the day after that nightmarish result, the ruck retiree agrees to train during the pre-season and see how he pulls up.

The rest, as they say, is history . . . glorious Tigerland history.

Green would go on to be one of Richmond’s most valuable players during its back-to-back premiership sides of 1973-74.

He played 45 of a possible 50 games throughout those two memorable seasons, with the Tigers winning 35 and losing 10 of them (a success strike-rate of 77.8%).

In 1973, Green not only provided Brian ‘The Whale’ Roberts and Craig McKellar with strong ruck assistance, he also bolstered the team’s forward line, booting 30 goals for the season, including a career-high five against Carlton at the MCG in Round 6.

Green also took a career-high 18 marks in a Round 14 clash with North Melbourne at Arden Street that season.

On Grand Final day, 1973, Green was one of Richmond’s best, as it gained sweet revenge over Carlton.

He had 13 kicks, three handballs, six marks and kicked a vital goal, as an emotion-charged Tiger outfit battered the Blues into submission.

The following season, Green continued to shine for the Tigers in their quest to make it back-to-back flags.

He kicked 23 goals, with a season-high return of three against Collingwood at Victoria Park in Round 20.

His season-high mark tally for ’74 was 11, which he achieved twice – against Fitzroy at Waverley Park in Round 13, and against North Melbourne at the same venue in Round 19.

In the ’74 Grand Final against North Melbourne, Green again was a key contributor for the Tiger team.  He had eight kicks, four handballs, six marks and kicked two goals, including one during the second quarter that changed the momentum of the match.

Richmond’s gun ruck-rover Kevin Sheedy had taken a mark in the forward pocket.  He went back to take his shot for goal from a very acute angle, ran in as if to kick, but at the last second handballed over the man on the mark, to an unguarded Michael Green on the goal-line, who dribbled through the easiest of goals.  The Tigers, having trailed by a couple of goals, lifted dramatically after this.

Green quickly followed up with another goal, from a strong mark, to ram home the advantage for Richmond.

The final siren on that last Saturday in September ’74 signalled a 41-point point to the Tigers.

Graeme Richmond’s phone call to Michael Green on that bleak Sunday two years earlier, had paid handsome dividends . . . 

What is lost in the mists of time at Tigerland, however, is that Green again announced his retirement following that 1974 premiership triumph, only to be subsequently persuaded by GR and co. into making another comeback.

Green made his return to league football ranks in Round 9 of the ’75 season against Carlton at Princes Park.

In the lead-up to that match, ‘The Age’ chief football reporter Ron Carter wrote the following article on Green, which was published exactly 46 years ago today (May 28, 1974).

“It was 5.30pm at Punt Road. Royce Hart had come in from training and so had John Pitura.

Into the Richmond dressing rooms dashed Michael Green, an hour behind some of the other Tigers still out training.

Time, or the lack of it, is Green’s No. 1 football enemy.

It forced him out of football for all of the 1972 season and sent him into retirement again three months ago.

This week Green, 27, has answered the Tigers’ call for help and is about to make his second comeback.

“And the second will be my last for sure,” he says.

The Tigers want him back as a ruckman and somehow he’ll find time away from his city law practice to train four nights this week.

After that, he’ll get to training early one night a week and he frankly admits that will be hard to manage.

“I can’t really afford the time for football and I’d say I was a week-to-week proposition,” said the ruckman who has played in four Richmond premierships.

“I’m not playing for the money. I suppose I’ve come back because the club has asked me to.

“Richmond has been good to me and I feel some sort of obligation to help if I can.”

After another training session tonight and a final work-out tomorrow, Green will probably find himself in his familiar No. 37 guernsey doing battle against Carlton in Saturday’s big game at Princes Park.”

Green kicked two goals in his comeback match against Carlton and was a valuable contributor for the Tigers in 10 games all-up throughout the remainder of that season, including the 17-point preliminary final loss to North Melbourne at Waverley Park, which this time, definitely, was the last time he pulled on the famous Yellow and Black guernsey.