Dr Vernon Vivian, Richmond Football Club’s Honorary Medical Officer from 1965 to 1969, during the golden era at Tigerland, has died aged 97.

Dr Vivian died peacefully surrounded by his wife Raine of 72 years, sons David and Simon, and daughters-in-law Kristen and Karen, on July 27 2023.

Appointed to the medical role by Tiger administrator Graeme Richmond, Dr Vivian was front and centre at some of the most famous footy injuries of the 1967 season.

In Round 1, Bill Barrot was accidentally kicked in the face by Essendon’s Ken Fletcher. The boot studs cut open Barrot’s jaw, and on the insistence of the champion centreman, Dr Vivian stitched him up on the boundary line … without anaesthetic.

Later that season against Footscray, he stitched up – not a Tiger player – but the champion Bulldogs ruckman John Schultz’s gashed head during the first quarter, after their club doctor had yet to arrive at the ground.

In the Round 15 clash against North Melbourne he helped carried off an unconscious Royce Hart after a marking incident with John Dugdale.

At season’s end he was the appointed doctor on the inaugural “Galahs” Gaelic World tour which culminated in a famous fiery brawl on Nov 5, 1967 at Gaelic Park, New York City that saw Ron Barassi’s nose broken by narcotics detective Brendan Tumulty, (which Vivian duly straightened), and Hassa Mann’s jaw broken by their Irish ruckman/policeman.

Outside of football, he worked for the Amateur League, was the doctor for the gymnastic events at the 1956 Commonwealth Games, and ran his own practice at 1233 Hoddle Street in East Melbourne.

In July 2021 he conducted an interview with Rhett Bartlett about his life, and we publish that below in his memory.

RB:  Vern, did you barrack for Richmond growing up as a kid? 

VV: No, South Melbourne. Because when I started my practice, South Melbourne were kicking all the goals and winning so I barracked for them. Then when I went to Richmond I changed over and barracked for Richmond.¹

RB: What was your background? 

VV: I was the doctor for the Gymnastics at the Olympics Games in Melbourne in 1956. Every time the gymnasts were on the floor I was there.²

RB: Where did you study to be a doctor, and where did that passion come from?

VV:  I studied at Melbourne University.  My family GP, I looked up to him, he was a great 6ft 4 fellow and he was my god. Even when I was 12 years of age, I said I wanted to be a doctor and I just kept on doing it.³

RB: How lovely. How long did you practice as a doctor? 

VV: I practiced until 1990 when I was around 64 years of age.⁴

RB: So, you came to Richmond around the mid-60s? 

VV: The last year of Len Smith’s coaching. Graeme Richmond came down to the surgery and sat in the surgery and said I’m not going until you sign up with Richmond.  

He had booked himself in as a patient.  

See, I had been looking after the Amateur Football League, and I used to conduct an open surgery at my clinic on Saturday afternoons. Anyone in the Amateurs could come turn up and I used to look after them.⁵

RB:  Would the club pay for that? 

VV: It was a complimentary service. That’s where Graeme got onto me. He saw me working. I used to go out and fix fellows up in the field, you couldn’t take them off in those days. I’d sew players up in the field and they’d continue playing. The Amateurs were pretty tough.     

RB: Did you get paid in your time at Richmond?  

VV: Graeme sat in front of me and said we want you to come to Richmond. And he said what do you want.  

I said if I come to Richmond I’d had to every training session and every match.  

He said how much you want for it? And I said I’d do it for nothing, and he said no you’ve got to get something.  So, I said 500 pound.   

So, the next thing he’s gone and wrapped 500 pounds in an envelope, cause he had it all stashed away in his house, because he was running the pub over in Hawthorn.  

RB: When you were working at Richmond did you still have your practice. 

VV: Oh yes, it was only down the road you see in Hoddle St. Just before you got to Victoria Parade.  

RB: When you got to Tigerland what was the medical room like? 

VV: It was nothing. I probably did have a special room, but whatever it was, was pretty basic. 

I remember Len Smith got up and said I want to introduce you to the new doctor and he will be here for every training session.  

RB: What were some of the worst injuries you saw.  

VV: One of the worst was John Schultz, Footscray player. His doctor hadn’t turned up, was delivering a baby or something, and Schultz was running around the forward with blood running down out of his head. He was bleeding so badly it was running over the back of his jumper and down his back.   

Their trainer came around and said the doctor hasn’t turned up, can you go and have a look at Schultz, and Graeme Richmond said No, f*$% him.  

So, I said to Graeme I’ll have to go out to see him. I went out and eventually caught up to him, and I had a special bag for sewing players up. I eventually tracked him down at the Jolimont End, and I said I’m one of the doctors for Richmond your doctor hasn’t turned up, would you like me to have a look at you. So, he got down on the ground and I sewed him up.  

After the match, I took him in my car to St Vincent Private Hospital and got him in there and sewed him up properly.⁶

RB: Was it common for doctors of other clubs to help out?  

VV: No. The common occurrence was your doctor was there and he looked after you. In the Amateurs, I looked after Collegians FC for five years before I went to Richmond, and when one of the oppositions were injured, they often didn’t have a doctor with them at all.⁷

RB: Where did you sit at the games when working for Richmond? 

VV: I sat between Len Smith and Graeme. It was very interesting because Len was the coach but Graeme was doing all the directing.  

When Tommy coached did you sit next to him on the bench?

VV: No. I really can’t tell you why. Tommy had come down from the country and he really wasn’t up to what was going on in the League. He had a great name up in Shepparton, and I didn’t agree with all the things he was doing, so I sat away from him.  

We never had a disagreement. I never said anything. I just shut up. 

RB: Did you have assistant doctors? 

VV: No. I used to go down to all the practice sessions because it was just down the road, in between patients. The Richmond Football Club was part of the practice. The fellows used to come, bring their wives, daughters, sisters.  

RB: Bill Barrot was with Richmond at that stage, how was Billy?  

VV: I’m trying to think of a game we played on the MCG and it was an important match to win to get into the Four. And Bill was wandering around in the middle of the field as he was hit in the head. I said to Graeme I’ll have to go out and take him off, and Graeme said no bugger that, leave him on. Eventually I took him off.⁸

RB: Roger Dean was a tough player as well Vern. 

VV: Roger Dean was the toughest bloke ever. I have great respect for Roger. I sat beside him on one of Harry Beitzel’s tours overseas when we were in Dublin.⁹

RB: Were you the doctor in the Galahs tour? 

VV: The first one. It was absolutely fantastic. In one game the big Irish ruckman and policeman king-hit Hassa Mann. We were playing in a stadium in New York.  

I said to Roger Dean we have to go to St Vincent Hospital in New York. And the big surgeon came out and said have a look at this boy, he’s got a bad jaw, we will wire it up. 

I said to Hassa, we will get out of here, so we just packed his things and got out, and we took him home and put a couple of bandages on him and said to Harry Beitzel we are going back to Melbourne.  

So, Harry organised for me to sit beside Hassa first class back to Melbourne and we got him fixed up here.¹⁰

RB: Some of those games were very tough, weren’t they? 

VV: Oh yes. In the same game Barassi had his nose broken. I fixed his fractured nose up. He nose was better after I fixed it up because it had been broken a few times before. It was almost like a plastic surgeon’s job. He had a better nose after he had it fractured over in America, than he did when he went over there.¹¹

RB: What do you remember about Richmond President Ray Dunn? 

VV: He was the most fantastic man I think I ever met. He had great insight. He was a defence lawyer. One day we were playing practice match against Geelong down at Ocean Grove and for some reason or other we were running late and we got a police escort! We came down the highway with the sirens going all the way doing 110 mph all the way down to Geelong. The coppers looked after him.¹²

RB: Of all the players you saw play who were the best for Richmond? 

VV: Oh, Bill Barrot, Kevin Bartlett, Royce Hart, Kevin Sheedy. 

How I got mixed up with Kevin Sheedy was he was playing with Prahran and because I was looking after the Amateurs at the time, he was injured and they sent him down to my home in Washington Street, Toorak. And after that Kevin was part of my family, he used to come and play with my children in the street playing kick to kick. 

RB: You were there for the premierships. Where did you go after Richmond? 

VV: That was it. I enjoyed it.  

RB: Sounds like you loved your time at Richmond. 

VV: Absolutely.  

Though I stopped going to watch the matches as I used to get jumpy. I would say that fellow is injured and should be looked after properly. I was still doing my work. I had to stop going. It was making me stressed.  

RB: I know all Richmond supporters are thankful and grateful for your service at the club.  

VV: Rightio, nice to talk to you.  

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¹ Vern began practising medicine in 1954 at 1233 Hoddle Street, East Melbourne, joining the existing practice of Stuart Esnouf MD. South Melbourne Football Club at the time however, often finished in the middle to lower part of the ladder.  From 1954 until 1964 (when Vern joined Richmond) they finished 10th, 10th, 9th, 10th, 9th, 9th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 11th, 11th.  However just before he began his practice, Sth Melb FC did finish 8th, 5th, 8th from 1951-1953 

² There were 15 gymnastic events at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, held at the West Melbourne Stadium (now known as Festival Hall) between December 3 and December 7.  

³ Vern’s family doctor was Meredith Smith M.D (born Llewellyn Meredith Smith, and dying in 1984) 

⁴ Further investigation supplied to me by Vern’s son Simon shows that Vern retired from his last practice in Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale in 1988, and then did locums in regional Victoria and Brisbane until 2002, and then assisted, part-time, at his son’s David’s Metro Pain Group in Melbourne until 2014 when he was 88.  

⁵ Len Smith coached Richmond in 1964-1965, before a second heart-attack ended his career. Graeme was Secretary at the time. The Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) that Vern refers to was founded in 1892 and is the largest senior community Australia Rules football competition.  

⁶ The match in question is Round 13, 1967, Richmond vs Footscray at MCG. Richmond won by 72 points, and it was the start of a 11-game winning streak that would last until Rd 4 1968.  Schultz, was at the end of career, playing just 1 more season.  

⁷ The Collegians FC won the A Grade premierships in 1958, 1959, and 1961 when Vern was there.  

⁸ The game in question is Round 1 Richmond v Essendon at MCG. Richmond won by 29 pts. In “Richmond F.C” oral history book, Barrot remembered his facial injury he received: “One day, Ken Fletcher’s boots and stops got caught in my jaw. It just opened up like that. You could have put three fingers in there. So, Dr Vern Vivian said “You’re going to hospital”, and I said “I’m not going to hospital, fix it up.” So, he put five or six stitches there and then three or four stitches there, without anaesthetic. Trainer Sid McCrae, the club doctor, and Charlie Callander held me down. It really did hurt. I was on the ground, lying down on the boundary line and they stitched me up without any anaesthetic. I was screaming in pain. I kept playing and got nearly best on ground that day. I played in shock. After the game, I said “Come on Vern, let’s go back and re-do it.” He said “No Bill, we are going up there to have two or three scotches first.” So, we went upstairs and had a couple of scotches and he put 11 stitches in there and five in there. 

⁹ Roger Dean wasn’t scheduled to be in the first “Galahs” tour of 1967, however Neville Crowe became injured on the eve of the tour, and Dean was selected as a replacement.  

¹⁰ The Galahs game in question was Nov 5 1967 at Gaelic Park, New York City. The hospital they went to was St Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centre at 203 W 12th St, New York.  

¹¹ Ron Barassi’s nose was broken in the same match by New York narcotics detective Brendan Tumulty. 

¹² Raymond Hudson Dunn was born June 21, 1910 in Geelong. He was Richmond President from 1964 until August 26 1971, where he died in office.