History will repeat itself before Richmond’s 2021 season-opener against Carlton at the MCG on Thursday, March 18, when the Club unfurls two flags – the 2019 and 2020 premiership pennants.

It was exactly 100 years ago, in 1921 at Punt Road, in the same round, and against the same team, that Richmond also unfurled two flags.

The first was its 1920 premiership pennant won against Collingwood. 

The flagpole for its hoisting was planted at one end of the Club’s grandstand, surrounded by some of the 32,000 spectators that day.

Flag unfurling honours went to Eugenie Wood, the wife of the Club’s president Alf Wood. As was commonplace in newspaper reports back then, she was simply referred to as Mrs. A. Wood.

There was, however, another flag for her to unfurl shortly afterwards.

Back in February 1920, the Club officially adopted the “Tiger” as its symbol and placed it on the front of that year’s membership tickets.

Then, in early 1921, the Richmond committee decided to have a club flag made. It measured 12 feet by six feet and cost six pounds.

On it was “the fiercest kind of tiger with a most flamboyant tail”, The Argus newspaper remembered.

The Age newspaper described it as “a fierce-looking tiger for a centrepiece, an inordinately long tail, also spread itself gaily to the breeze”.

The Advocate newspaper said it had “an enraged tiger rampant...and certainly that animal looks a little more energetic than the tame cat emblazoned on the members ticket.”

The Club flag was designed to be a universal symbol embraced by all our supporters, and a starting point for the fierce animal as our mascot.

Eugenie Wood unfurled this flag at the other end of the grandstand before the game to cheers and laughter.

The Age seemed unimpressed, not with the flag itself, but where it was to flutter from.

“The flag, comprising a tiger worked on a black background may well typify some of the characteristics of the team, but it is doubtful whether the innovation is a good one.

The stands which in the main are in themselves architectural adornments to the grounds sometimes look hideous through the “over-splashing” of colour from pole tops and peak.”

After Carlton upset the reigning premier by nine points on its home ground, the Tiger supporters went home disappointed, and the Club flag was lowered. Or, as the press reported, “It disappeared into the jungle for a rest.”

But when Richmond won its second consecutive premiership later that year, the Club flag was flown proudly from the flagpole at the Richmond Town Hall.

There was another occasion where two Richmond flags were unfurled at once. In Round 2, 1933 vs North Melbourne at Punt Road, the Tigers’ 1932 premiership flag was unfurled by Alice Herbert, wife of Club president Barney, followed by the unfurling of Richmond’s 1932 C-grade baseball pennant by baseball captain J. Moore.