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Stories of being Richmond

Michael Gale, 49, Albert Park

Favourite Richmond teammate:
Paul Broderick – “He knew where you were all the time. He always gave it to someone in a better position. Brodders was so unselfish. He’d get the footy, dish it out, great skills, and just a quality fella but with a truly sh*t dress sense.”

Favourite current player:
Bachar Houli – “A lot of guys in footy are allowed to run, but are unaccountable. He’s accountable, he’s got plenty of dash and he puts his head over it. He provides lots of drive from down back. He floats across the backline.”

“So much of football is about belief,” says Michael Gale, a former player, a contender, a member of a Richmond team that for so many, after such a wait, gave so much joy. “Back yourself and believe in yourself. It’s an important part of coaching. Not just that, it’s an important part of life.”

Monday morning, clouds gathering, and I ride a bicycle to low country looking for inspiration from elsewhere.

Off to meet Michael Gale – a no-frills footballer, hard-at-it, dependable, honest – on the grass at Lakeside Oval, in South Melbourne, where part of his Melbourne story began. He’s with his youngest boy, Smith, 3, both fresh off of the boat from Tasmania. A single dad, two young boys; the three of them went back to see his mum – their grandma – in Burnie, near to where it all started.

Kick to kick: A barefoot 'Butch' with a future Richmond father-son draft pick (trade notes: raking left-foot kick)

Football is family, it’s a cycle of life, with a story that entwines us all. Historian Geoffrey Blainey, an inveterate Cats man, once wrote that the game, in every generation, gains something and loses something.

For a generation of Richmond supporters, a core of barrackers, our team in 1995 were dream-makers. They danced with angels, played like football gods. After thirteen years of without – the wooden spoons, a near bankruptcy, on-field disappointments – a group of players came together then shot for the stars.

They took us elsewhere, played above expectations; had us believe.

“You have to nurture belief,” says Gale, of a season in which a Richmond side found the knack for winning, and didn’t easily let it go. “I look back on it and we were one game away from playing in a Grand Final. We were so close, yet still so far away.”

Doubts crept in, the climb got steeper, Gary Ablett and Geelong stood in the way on a cold day at VFL Park, and a moment was lost.

“I can never forget what Johnny Northey told me years ago, that it goes like that. And it does go like that. It’s all in your hands, then it’s over.”

Playing days: in yellow and black

I arranged to meet Michael Gale because I need succour, understanding – maybe grounding – and in my mind he remains a footballing braveheart. He put his body on the line, eked all he could from his capabilities. He inspired those around him, lifted a team; carried his share of the load, and then some.

Barrackers have a place in our hearts forever for the champions – Bob Murphy, we cry for you – and we long remember those who give us everything. None could doubt Michael Gale’s commitment; his endeavour was unquestionable.

The team sheet in the semi-final win over Essendon – an afternoon at the MCG many Richmond fans can never forget – reads as a gathering of true-believers. Paul Broderick, Wayne Campbell, Nick Daffy, Stuart Maxfield, Matty Knights – all silk. Honest toilers in Scotty Turner, Chris Naish, Greg Dear and Jamie Tape. And the grunt of Chris Bond, Duncan Kellaway, and the Gale brothers – ‘Benny’ and ‘Butch’.

If football is a business of hope, this team came from nowhere, made the ball sing, and our hope, it sprung eternal.

Michael “Butch” Gale arrived at Punt Road a season earlier, after nine years and 105 games at Fitzroy, and with hamstring injuries making him a chancy prospect. His move to Richmond was a kind of homecoming; going to a club he supported as a child (“my favourite player was Francis Bourke”), and re-joining his brother, Brendon, on the field.

“We spent hours-and-hours kicking the footy up-and-down the street in Penguin, and Burnie,” he says. “People talk about finals and grand finals and state games they’ve played in, but to join your brother and play at the highest level, especially at Richmond where our grandfather had played, that was a highlight.”

Father and son: Michael Gale on the grass at Lakeside Oval where his football days in Melbourne began, with 3-year-old Smith.

Nine years earlier, he had left for the mainland, recruited by Fitzroy, training at Lakeside Oval with a club low on resources, but big on heart. Debuting in 1986 – a first-round win over Geelong at Kardinia Park – he played alongside household football names: Doug Barwick, Ross Lyon, Richard Osborne, Gary Pert, Bernie Quinlan, Paul Roos. It proved Fitzroy’s last hurrah, a fairy tale, with September wins over Essendon and Sydney, before losing a preliminary final to eventual premiers, Hawthorn.

In all three finals, Michael Gale was an emergency.

In his first season at Richmond, coming over with Paul Broderick and Matty Dundas in a lop-sided trade that added only further misery on Fitzroy, he played 17 games. The team finished ninth, missing the finals on percentage from Melbourne and Collingwood, establishing a pattern that later become a long-running heartbreak.

Then came 1995; a streak of wins, third on the home-and-away ladder, a double-chance, and winning a memorable final.

Green pastures: A ball, an arc, a ritual, a belonging

Returned for a first time to Lakeside Oval, looking back on his playing days – 196 games across two clubs, starting as a 19-year-old, ending at 31 – Michael is even-minded about his football days, which he attributes to his 79-year-old mother, and his family. His love of Tasmania is a moderating influence, as are his three older and three younger sisters.

“I’ve got a philosophical outlook,” he says. “I’ve got a great mum who always says you’re lucky to be involved in the game. She talks about ‘you’re lucky to have two legs and two arms’.”

But competitive by nature and nurture, it still doesn’t make the losing easier. And he knows first-hand how it gnaws at his younger brother, Richmond’s chief executive officer, Brendon Gale.

“They’ve got great facilities, a great membership base, great staff around the footy club, and a terrific coach who has built a winning team in recent years” he says. “It’s all up. There’s no downside. Everything is put in place but at the end of the day, it’s all about the football.”

Playing days: a football-warrior

Michael Gale looks still a footballer – taut and fit, rugged and strong – and perhaps more than most understands what the current team may be experiencing. “Once you become a Richmond player there’s a lot of expectation,” he says. “It can weigh people down, but it really shouldn’t. You have to adapt. And it’s what you want, a bit of pressure.”

He’s seen this group of footballers develop, and knows their potential.  “When they’re all together, when they click, anything could happen. But you can’t wait for it to click. You’ve got to make it click yourself.”

As with all barrackers, he has opinions and views, desires and dreams, which are as valid as any other on the sidelines. We all look over the fence, wanting the best for our team, for the group of players who wear the colours we hold dear, who represent something bigger than themselves.

A message for the team, travelling to Perth to slay a behemoth?

“They’re under the pump,” he says. “I don’t think Damien would have to say too much. They have done it before and will take confidence from that, They will find it within themselves, they’ve got to find it within themselves this weekend. It’s real simple, get together, play for one another.”

Walking to the car park, holding his youngest son, returning to our everyday lives, in gentle chit-chat it sounds as if Michael has made a good life for himself after football. He surfs when he can, is busy with a plumbing business, employs a few apprentices, has two young boys. Being a single dad was unforeseen, but not all in life goes always to script.

He seems happy, contended, in control of his destiny, always with the comfort and fall-back of a large, loving family. And he talks with affection for his former teammates, many of whom he catches up with regularly. The bond is unbreakable.

Tasmanian Tiger quintet: (L-R) C Bond, B Harrison, M Richardson, B Gale and M Gale (circa 1996)

Bicycling home around Albert Park Lake, I remember a question I forgot to ask.

Long ago at a game at the MCG, standing in the outer, Richmond playing, I remember Michael Gale – socks down, a football-warrior, all biceps, long hair in a ponytail – running back with the flight of the ball. A big game, big crowd, the result in sway. The ball floated high into the centre square, into contested ground, and he ran back and underneath it, toward the Punt Road end of the square, eyes only for the ball, and all held their breath as he put himself in harm’s way for his team, his club, for us.

The shirtfront came; he was laid on the grass. A wounded bull, helped from the ground.

I stood in the outer, concerned for his welfare. I stood in the outer, honouring him, for showing us all the valour we so admire in Australian footballers.

He was fearless that afternoon, brave and courageous, and I can never forget what it may have meant for others.

Go Tiges, forever!

If you would like to nominate a Richmond fan who has a story to tell about their barracking please email Dugald Jellie with details: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

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