Fond memories of Gary Baker wearing the #1 jumper at Melbourne

Looked fearsome and played that way

One grab mark was a feature of his play and was a great protector of smaller players as nobody from the opposition would dare go near him when a fight started

Started at Footscray wearing #27 in 1972

Moved to Melbourne in 1974 wearing #1 until 1981 before ending his career with Sydney

Gary was no slouch as he did win Melbourne's Best and Fairest award in 1978

A knee injury did shorten his career

We were a very poor side back then

As for Garry Hardeman

Should have been in the VFL/AFL Hall of Fame long ago

One wonders how long it will take

One of the first picked in the State Side

Would have been a multi All Australian selection at CHB if they had it back in those days

yeah id' forgotten that, as he was like the likable smiling assassin.

Just met Gary Baker ex Demon ruckman who owns a restaraunt in Hobart called Rockwall.

Top bloke who was one of my heroes as a kid.

I had the Barrassi special, which is an Eye fillet steak with melted blue cheese....amazingly good.

He sat down and had a chat with me about Dees stuff, he was chuffed that Hoges won the rising star, and we got talking about past champs, and he said Gary Hardeman was one of the most underrated players in the History of the VFL /AFL, played centre half back and regularly beat superstar centre half forwards in his day.

A great night, totally unexpected after a good day for the Dees.

Better get the great man's spelling right. Barassi, one R. Cheers.

this shouts volumes, doesn't it ???

I'm not sure what you mean, but football was not fully professional is those days so players often moved between States for better opportunities. Sometimes the opportunity was nothing more than a real job or a small business (such as running a newsagency) which the football club could organise for the player. It happened with all clubs. Where Melbourne fell behind was that it didn't even go this far to appreciate that matters external to the football career itself were an important criteria when players decided where they might play.

It was all of the hirsute players. One of Barassi's first edicts was that all the beards had to go. The mo's survived the cut though

Bakes was a ripper. Great one grab mark

Hardeman is still the best CHB I've seen play for Melbourne. And we lost a couple of his prime years. I'm pretty sure he went to SA for a quid

Pretty sure that one of my favourite players, Peter Giles got the ultimatum about having the haircut in the early Barassi era. Peter came from Sandi IIRC and I always loved the way he went about his footy.