Eat 'em alive
THE ball floated down to me. It was a simple mark. I had it well covered, but suddenly it was plucked from my fingers. I blushed all over and could have hidden my six foot in a stop mark. That was my first attempt at a mark when training with Richmond for the first time. I thought I was the boy wonder. I was going to kill them. Instead I was being killed.
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As the practice game continued I tried everything to get a touch of the ball, but my opponent Joe Murdoch beat me every time. Joe was to become one of my closest football friends, but he couldn’t be a friend on the field. He went right into orbit. He concentrated so deeply that at the end of the practice my tally was no marks, no kicks, no touches. He’d eaten me. He showed me I was far from a champion. He had me off balance all day and when I was given a free kick I was so flustered I couldn’t kick.
I walked from the ground friendless, almost in tears of frustration, and as Checker strolled over I knew he was going to tell me to get back with the hicks at Yarra Junction—any other coach would have.
It was then he showed what a great psychologist he really was. He was the best in the game, take Killigrew, Norm Smith and all of them. He simply said, ‘You didn’t go so well, eh?’ I had to admit he was right. Checker answered: ‘I wasn’t worried about that. I just wanted to know if you had what it takes. If you can stand up to that fellow you can stand up to anyone. That was a try-out. You were on trial for guts, to see if you could keep coming back.’ I didn’t feel friendless any more, Checker was my new idol.
All recruits feel friendless, but at times you can’t blame the clubs for not being too open-armed about them. Most recruits who turn up for a run think they are Haydn Buntons and you can’t get rid of them. We had one at Richmond called Dutchy. As a footballer he was a good billiards player and no matter what I told him he wouldn’t stop turning up to training.
‘You’re not worth a bumper,’ I told him a thousand times. He was hurt, but would say, ‘All right, I won’t come again Jack.’
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Next training night there he was again, sprinting up and down the field, getting in the way of everyone. Finally we found out he came from South Melbourne district, so I phoned the South secretary. ‘We want a clearance for a chap in your district, Dutchy—-——. He’s just an Indian as far as football goes. He’ll never make a chief; still, we think he might come in handy as a reserve.’
I knew after a spiel like that South wouldn’t clear him. Sure enough the secretary bluffed. ‘No, Jack, we won’t clear him. We’ve been watching him for some time.’ They’d never seen him or they would never have blocked his clearance.
Next training night Dutchy came to me waving a letter. ‘I can’t train with you any more, Jack. South have sent me an invitation to train and told me not to train here any more.’ He went to South and a few weeks later the South secretary phoned. ‘You no good—-——, Dyer. We can’t get rid of that cow.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if Dutchy is still there training.
It is a terrible experience for a young recruit when he first trains. On my terrifying first day I knew only one fellow. That is the hardest moment in any footballer’s career. All the others know each other and call out their personal nicknames, I was running around like a rabbit calling: ‘Hey, mister. Here.’ The regulars do not deliberately ignore the recruit, but years of training and playing together results in their making instinctive passes to the calls they know.
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On that first day I ran round and round the ground warming up. Checker was watching and I couldn’t get a touch. In the end he pulled to me. ‘What do you think you are, a prize bull at the Royal Show?'
It was an awe-inspiring introduction. I was surrounded by the big names of football, Columns and columns of newspaper stories been written about them. I was supposed to be a ruckman but how could I make the grade? They already had 10 good ones on their lists and six of them couldn’t get a game. I was a raw no-hoping kid.
However, hope dies slowly and I wouldn’t stop trying. It was gh to mix with the champions. I was soon to have my first big thrill in football. To me it was unheard of to be able to talk to a star footballer, let alone have a bath with the great George Rudolph.
I have no doubt he was the greatest big man ever to play football.
One Sunday I went to the Richmond club rooms for a rubdown and the only two present were George Rudolph and the club masseur, Mark Noble. Rudolph was a strange character, capable of doing any extraordinary thing. During a match he was just as likely to curl up on the ground or walk off in disgust. Yet he could turn the tide of a game with his brilliant play. The crowd hated him, but the more he was hooted the better he played.
So I was a bit awestruck at finally meeting my idol face to face. He asked my name and who I played for. I said, ‘Richmond, I’m hoping.’ He was in the bath and just said, ‘Hop into the bath and we’ll have a talk.’ He was 6 ft. 2 in. and over 15 stone. I was a tick over 6 foot and I couldn’t see how I could fit in, but nothing in the world would have kept me out.
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It was a tight squeeze, but we made it. We talked there for an hour on football with a not very pleased Mark Noble working on Rudolph. I think Mark could cheerfully have drowned me, only there wasn’t room. Little did he know at that stage he would be rubbing me down for the next 15 years and looking after me like a baby.
Rudolph was the one man I would have loved to have teamed with, but he was to leave Richmond the next year and play with Oakleigh. As a footballer, he was like an antelope. He could turn on a trey bit and despite his bulk could rove and play wing if necessary.
With Rudolph’s encouragement and Checker’s coaching my form improved as I continued to practise, but I was also learning the meaning of the Tiger war-cry ‘Eat ’em Alive’. They played it just as hard on the training track as they did when the real thing came up. They were ferocious and they were fearless and I knew before I played my first game that a V.F.L. football ground would be no place for weakies. It’s a man’s game, and never forget it.
My heart was thumping when the Richmond 1931 training lists were posted. I couldn’t be sure I had made the grade. But there it was, ‘J. Dyer’. I felt like running 10 laps of the oval. I had myself a guernsey. Whether I would ever wear it with the senior side was yet to be decided. Richmond’s first game was to be played against Collingwood, their most bitter rivals. I was half hoping I wouldn’t make the team.
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The thought of facing up to the awe-inspiring Rumney (right), the Colliers and the Coventrys was a frightening prospect. The Collingwood champions were tearing through the packs and the opposition players regardless of the consequences. When the selectors met and announced the team I was 19th man, and that is even more terrifying than being named in the side.
Sitting shivering on the bench alongside Checker Hughes was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. I knew I would be on with the first injury. What a baptism to League football, to be thrown in against the mightiest Magpie combination ever assembled. I trembled at every bump and whenever a Richmond player hit the turf my spine crawled. It was a grudge match out of the ordinary. I was frightened and praying not to have to go on.
In those days players were not allowed off a ground except on a stretcher. They took a very dim view of it if you walked off—they figured if you could walk you could play. They hated sending the 19th man on, one reason being they had to pay him if they did.
As luck had it my prayers were answered and Richmond finished with all players intact and myself still on the bench and we’d won. Next week I was relegated to the seconds and my chances of making the seniors that season appeared very slim. They had a ruck combination which has seen few peers. I thought so little of my chances I even gave my much prized guernsey to my brother Vin.
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Halfway through the season Richmond had a walkover match scheduled against North Melbourne and Jack Bissett decided to give me a chance to play with the seniors. He ‘developed’ a hand injury and I was selected in his place. They weren’t happy about giving me another guernsey.
The big day came.
I ran on to the ground with butterflies fluttering about my stomach. The roars of ‘Eat ’em Alive’, ‘Carn the Tigers’ almost caused me to double-back off the field again. This was the game to decide my future. The Shinboners, as they were known in those days, were a pretty ruthless mob and no doubt planned to give me is acid test. You needed shin-guards against that mob, they preferred to kick a player than the ball. I was calculating without my teammates.
Before the ball was bounced my Richmond protectors had given is Shinboners the warning. ‘Lay Off the kid. Touch him and they'll carry you off—in pieces.’ It was an ominous warning and is North players knew it was no bluff. They didn’t have the muscle to buck the Richmond machine, so they gave me a clear go. With the help of that armchair ride I played at my peak and was named best on the ground. A tremendous boost in your first game.
My form was so hot the selectors couldn’t drop me the next week, and Bissett had to spend another week on the sidelines. ‘It’s the last time I’ll ever help a kid out,’ he growled at me, being depression days it must have hurt and it was a poor reward for his decency. But what could I do?
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He wasn’t on the sidelines long. My next game was one of my worst. It was tough football against Footscray and my team-mates had their own hands full and unable to give me all the protection I needed. I was slammed into the fence twice by Bullet Lamb¹ and couldn’t get into a gallop. I was in more trouble than the early settlers and Bissett was in the side next game and I was back in the seconds in disgrace.
The Richmond seconds were loaded with older players struggling to hold their position and keep the extra bit of depression day money coming in. I don’t know whether they ganged up on me because I was a newcomer and threatening their security but I couldn’t get a kick. They didn’t play to me or through me. I got fed-up and quit the club. My Richmond career and V.F.L. career could have finished right there.
The Richmond Hill mob welcomed me back with open arms and I played a few games with them before Richmond secretary Perc Page suddenly realized I was missing. He came looking for me. ‘I'm not playing with a team that won’t play with me,’ I told him. He was surprised to learn there was a clique at Richmond, but he wasn’t a man to mince matters. He went back and gave the seconds a complete shake-up. A number of players were given open clearances to any League club. One of them even managed to make the state team.
With new enemies scattered everywhere I went back to the new-look Richmond. Now the seconds were a young side and Fritz Heifner was put with me in the ruck to develop understanding with me. Against Collingwood I was to meet one of the sacked Richmond players, Porridge Langdon. The message came along the grapevine that he was out to get me. Soon after the ball bounced he made an almighty charge at me. He had me right in his sights and I couldn’t get out of the road. I did the next-best thing and brought my knee up and sent him crashing to the ground. When he regained his breath he snarled, ‘I’ll have you after the match.’
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It was a soaking wet day and I was pretty worried about the formidable Porridge, but I knew I’d have to face him or be branded a coward. While all the others dressed I sat in my tags waiting for him, shivering with cold and fright. Twenty minutes later he walked in, freshly showered, fully dressed. He came over to me. ‘Nice to see you’re not a squib, anyway, hop off and have a shower.’ I was never so happy to get under a shower.
My hopes of playing with the seniors again in 1931 were pretty faint, but in the last game before the finals Perc Bentley broke his hand and was out for the finals. It was my big chance and I was keyed up all week knowing I was a certainty to play in Bentley’s position. I had to play a Wednesday match for Yellow Cabs and I was scared stiff of being injured. It was my chance to play in a V.F.L. final and I didn’t want it spoiled. The worst happened. I wasn’t injured—I was reported.
There were 13 other players reported from that match and I was certain I would be rubbed out because I knew I was guilty. It was my first visit to the tribunal, although there were to be my more such visits in subsequent years. Richmond were far from happy about the business, but they couldn’t very well forbid me to play mid-week. I was employed by Yellow Cabs and it wasn’t easy to get a job in depression days. So when Yellow Cabs told me to play, I played.
The charge against me was hacking. A nice word for kicking. During the Wednesday match I had been kicked 16 times by this fellow, a real football desperado. Eventually he made a mistake in going for the ball as I was running head on into him. I gave a tremendous kick at the ball and tried to send it, my boot and everything else right through him. The central umpire missed the incident but the goal umpire picked it up from 60 yards away. It was a nice rugged match and it was lucky only 14 of us were reported.
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We all faced the tribunal which was held in a dungeon at Eastern Hill, three days before the final. They used to administer pretty ruthlessly in those days and I was the last to be granted audience. One after the other the accused came out, ‘Two weeks’, ‘four weeks',' six weeks’, eight weeks’, ‘twelve weeks’. It kept going up. By the time I went in I was preparing for a life sentence.
Fortunately Richmond needed me badly on the Saturday and the president of the tribunal was also president of Richmond with the result I was the only one of the 14. to be cleared. It was the unwritten law that a player never squeal on another player at a tribunal hearing. If he did the whisper went around the clubs and he was dealt with very seriously in future matches. So it was usually the players v. umpires, and you had to be a good talker or have a good mouthpiece, because they gave the umpires a good hearing.
After the tribunal let-off I was automatically selected to play in the 1931 final series. We played Geelong in the first semi-final and I was alight. We won easily and I kicked three goals. The reason I did so well was that we had 17 stars in the side and the Geelong players were told to concentrate on the stars and not to worry about a kid playing his third game.
The story was vastly different in the Grand Final when we met again. Geelong’s Bull Coghlan was my opponent, a nice tough guy if I have ever seen one. His opening gambit, ‘Hello, has Mother let you out today, Sonny?’ He followed this pleasantry up with a backhander while the umpire was going about his business at the other end of the ground. After that I was a nervous wreck and played accordingly. So did the rest of the team and we were soundly beaten.
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During the game I was switched to Geelong’s Reg Hickey (left) and that was my first big lesson in football. Hickey was very strong and very fair. I thank God for that. I stood on his toes, pulled his guernsey and did everything to put him off his game. The more treatment he got, the better he played. He handled me like a baby. He taught me a football lesson in concentration.
After the match I was petrified about what he would do to me. He came to me asking, ‘What’s your name, Sonny?’ I answered ‘Dyer, Mr. Hickey’. The only time I have called a man Mister on the football field. ‘Stick to it and you will be a pretty good footballer one day. I think you’ll be all right, son,’ Hickey said and then trotted off.
My baptism year into League football had been one of mixed fortunes, but I was becoming confident I would make the grade.
Footnotes
1. Alf 'Bullet' Lambe's surname is incorrectly spelt by both Dyer and in accompanying the picture of him.
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