Kelvin Templeton

I reckon that the departure of Tommy Hafey from Richmond at the end of 1976 was probably the 2nd biggest coaching mystery but it is still behind the number 1 which is Norm Smith in 1965.

I heard a story from a bloke that a lot of old football footage was deliberately destroyed from the order of a former President of an AFL Club who is now deceased. Now there is no concrete basis to that story, it is only what this mate of a mate told me one night. It could be a garbage story, but I know that this bloke telling me this tale isn't a liar or a big noter. He was a big collector of old rare football videos and so I imagine he had some merit to be taken seriously. As for the AFL Club President- well it wasn't Peter Gordon, Joe Gutnick or Ian Ridley. Well those three are still alive so that rules them out. It wasn't Sir Billy Snedden or Graham Huggins either so I am not speaking ill of the dead in those two cases.

I have been watching the Tony Charlton interview with Norm Smith from 1965. It just seems incredible that he was sacked in 1965. There have been some reasons put forward - the clash with the field umpire, he supposedly tolerating Barassi's defection to Carlton. They are some reasons put forward =by non- Melbourne supporters. However are there any Melbourne fans who played devils advocate at the time and supported his dismissal or at the least accepted or tolerated it? It is arguably the most famous and controversial sacking since the start of the war- and I mean 1914.

Really! Where can you get them from? Although I don't require 1961 as I already have that on both video and dvd. Then again if 1961 should now be shown in colour- well I will buy it again. The 1963 Grand Final is evidently the equally most requested video / dvd for the Name A Game staff with the 1964 Grand Final the other one. Its a wonder that they don't or can't colourise some of these old black and white Grand Finals(well and any other game) I have seen colour highlights of the 1966,1967 and 1972 Grand Finals as well as some from before then. Its a wonder they can't cut and paste the colour action to the Butch Gale and Mike Williamson tapes. In the Sensational Seventies Video/dvd, they present some highlights of the 1974 Grand Final. It is in black and white as you would expect with colour television not coming into place in Australia until 1975. Yet some years later, the 1974 Richmond v North Melbourne Grand Final is now always shown in full colour despite it still being a few months before colour television was implemented.

I bet Name A Game wish that the 1961 Grand Final never existed, because if that was the case, then they wouldn't receive such a massive volume of correspondence from people requesting the 1962, 1963 and 1964 Grand Finals. People would just assume that they started in 1966 (until the "lost" Grand Final of 1965) was found. A mate of mine- an Essendon fan(he is older than I am) claims that he saw as a young lad, either the last quarter or the full game of the 1964 Grand Final that Saturday night back then on either the old Channel 0 or Channel 9? The tape of the 1964 Grand Final is apparently around somewhere, waiting to see the light of day. The 1961 Grand Final is just a small mercy for Footscray fans- all 7 goals in black and white. Better than nothing and I have both the video and dvd of it, but North Melbourne, Richmond, Carlton and Essendon, Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong fans don't know how lucky they are when it comes to seeing their team in action on Grand Final Day. In my previous life I must have been a horrible supervisor when working on the construction of the Pyramids. My retribution as karma was to be a Footscray supporter. You may not have won a flag in my lifetime, like St Kilda and Geelong, but at least you can say that you made it in 1988 and 2000. My mob can't even make the Grand Final of that two bit Ansett, Wizard, NAB or whatever they call it Cup let alone the fair dinkum Grand Final.

It seems a good topical time to ask this question just after the Queens Birthday game. A bloke I work with has told me about the day he went with his policeman father to Victoria Park for a Collingwood v Melbourne game when he was a child. His reminisces are that Melbourne won the game and how at the end of the match, the Collingwood crowd hurled bottles at their defeated players as they came off the field. I asked him what year, it was however he couldn't immediately pinpoint it. So I asked whether it was 1976 and he thought that it wasn't as it would have happened earlier. So therefore I hopped onto the internet and went into the AFL Tables website http://www.aflstats.tk and searched around and the previous Melbourne triumph at Victoria Park was in 1968. He agreed with 1968 and said "Yes that must have been the year that it happened" The scores were - Round 8- Saturday 08th June 1968 Collingwood 11.13.79 Melbourne 13.7.85 So round 8 on June 8 of 68 So would anyone here remember this game? If so were you there and also did you see the Collingwood fans throwing bottles at their own players(or throwing them at anyone or anything?)