Richmond Football Club
The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers or colloquially the Tiges, is a professional Australian rules football team competing in the Australian Football League. Founded in 1885 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, the club competed in the Victorian Football Association from 1885 to 1907, winning two premierships. Richmond then joined the Victorian Football League from the 1908 season and has since won 13 premierships, most recently in 2020.
From 1885 to 1964, Richmond's home ground was the Punt Road Oval,, which is still utilised as their headquarters, training facility and hosting AFL Women's and [|reserves] matches. Since the 1965 season, the Melbourne Cricket Ground has been the club's official home ground.
Richmond traditionally wears a black guernsey with a yellow sash. The club song, "We're From Tigerland", is well known for its "yellow and black" refrain.
The club is coached by former Melbourne assistant coach Adem Yze, and is captained by Toby Nankervis. Five Richmond players have been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame as "Legends" of the sport: Kevin Bartlett, Jack Dyer, Royce Hart, Kevin Sheedy and Ian Stewart
History
Origins and VFA years (1885–1907)
A short-lived football club named Richmond formed in 1860 with Tom Wills, one of the founders of Australian rules football, serving as its inaugural secretary and captain. Wills' cousin H. C. A. Harrison captained Richmond briefly in the early 1860s before moving to Geelong. This club was disbanded in 1871 and has no continuity to the present club. A number of teams formed in Richmond during the game's rapid expansion in the 1870s and early 1880s. However, all played at a junior level and it was considered an anomaly that Richmond, one of Melbourne's most prominent suburbs, did not boast a senior side. The wait ended when the Richmond Football Club was officially formed at the Royal Hotel in Richmond on 20 February 1885. A successful application for immediate admission to the Victorian Football Association followed. The club shared the Punt Road Oval with the Richmond Cricket Club, one of the strongest cricket clubs in Australia which had been playing on the ground since 1856.At first the team wore blue guernseys and caps with yellow and black stripes in the style of the Richmond Cricket Club. The football club soon adopted yellow and black as its official colours. From the 1890s the supporters and players were often referred to as "Richmondites" and, according to The Age in 1890, The Leader in 1899 and former club secretary William Maybury the team were occasionally called "Wasps." The moniker by which they are now known, the "Tigers", was first adopted around 1908–10 period through the newspapers Punch and The Richmond Guardian.
During the late 1880s, Richmond struggled to make an impression in the VFA, and after a promising season in 1888, the club slipped backwards, in the process losing players to more successful sides. As the local economy slipped into severe depression in the early 1890s and the crowds began to dwindle, some of the VFA's strongest clubs began to agitate for a reform of the competition. Richmond was not considered part of this elite group, which usually voted as a bloc at VFA meetings.
In 1896, Richmond walked off the field in a match against South Melbourne to protest the umpiring, and later in the season, the Tigers had their half-time score annulled against Essendon when it was discovered that they had too many men on the ground. In the closing three weeks of the season, Richmond's cut of the gate takings amounted to just five pounds, and they finished the season with the wooden spoon.
In October 1896, the cabal of six strong clubs broke with the association to form the Victorian Football League. As a struggling club with a poor following, Richmond was not invited to join the new league. Richmond's performances did not immediately improve in the depleted VFA until the turn of the century.
The Tigers were boosted by a significant country recruit in 1901. George "Mallee" Johnson was an instant sensation and the first true star player at the club. Richmond leapt to third place and then in 1902, with Johnson dominating the ruck, Richmond entered the closing weeks of the season neck and neck with Port Melbourne at the head of the ladder, but Port Melbourne faltered against Williamstown to hand Richmond its first flag. Having missed a potential bonanza from a premiership play-off, the VFA decided to emulate the VFL and introduce a finals series in 1903, a fateful decision for the Tigers. After recruiting the competition's leading goalkicker, Jack Hutchinson, and finishing the season as minor premier, Richmond lost both finals and were runner-up.
The following season, the club became embroiled in a feud with umpire Allen, whom the Tigers accused of failing to curb field invasions and, in particular, the dubious tactics of arch-rival North Melbourne. In the 10 September 1904 match, during which a significant number of Richmond players sustained serious gashes, and despite the earnest requests of the Richmond players, field umpire Allen refused to exercise his legitimate, official power to check the boots of the North Melbourne players for "spikes" on the soles of their boots. When the two clubs were scheduled to meet in the 1904 VFA Grand Final, Richmond announced that they wouldn't play with Allen as umpire. The VFA called Richmond's bluff, and appointed Allen as umpire for the match, meaning that the Grand Final was scratched and North Melbourne won the premiership on forfeit.
Richmond were now openly at odds with the VFA, and matters failed to improve in the next few years. The club was campaigning against violence, ungentlemanly conduct and poor sportsmanship, issues that plagued the VFA to a far greater extent than the rival VFL since the 1896 split. Richmond cultivated links with some VFL clubs by playing practice matches against them. Richmond knew that they were a major asset to the VFA, had built up a large following and played on one of the best grounds in the competition, where they remained unbeaten for five years. In 1905, Richmond confirmed their status with a second premiership, this time overcoming bitter rivals North Melbourne, "Mallee" Johnson had moved to Carlton, but youngster Charlie Ricketts dominated the season and won plaudits among the pressmen, who voted him the best player in the VFA.
However, Ricketts was also lost to the VFL and injury hit the club hard. In 1906–07, the Tigers played finals without looking likely to win the flag. The club earned a rebuke from the VFA for scheduling a practice match against Geelong before the 1907 season, then went ahead with the commitment and earned further censure. Later in the year it became clear that the VFL wanted to expand its competition and Richmond won a place ahead of North Melbourne, which had been strengthened by an amalgamation with the bankrupt West Melbourne as part of their bid. Richmond were granted admission to the VFL on 18 October 1907.
Entry into the VFL (1908–1944)
The first few seasons in the VFL were less than spectacular. Although the club turned up some star players, it let a lot of talent leave and the administration was unstable after George Bennett's death at the end of the 1908 season. In 1916, the side won its first wooden spoon while also playing in the finals for the first time – World War I having reduced the competition to just four clubs, finals qualification was automatic.Finally, in 1919, Richmond made their first Grand Final appearance, losing to Collingwood. Richmond stoked a rivalry with Collingwood by recruiting their former skipper Dan Minogue as playing coach and gained vengeance by beating Collingwood in the 1920 VFL Grand Final to secure a first flag in the big league. This was followed by an even better performance the next year. The only club that continued to beat Richmond on a regular basis was Carlton. Finishing minor premier with only one loss for the season in 1921, Carlton were the hottest premiership favourite, yet Richmond managed to beat them in two classic finals matches played over successive weeks to go back-to-back.
The rest of the decade saw four more Grand Final appearances, all of which would end in frustration. From 1927 to 1929 Richmond became the first club in the VFL to lose three consecutive Grand Finals, all of which were to neighbouring archrivals, Collingwood.
The next VFL flag came in 1932, with Richmond's triumph over Carlton in a tough encounter which saw Richmond wingman Allan Geddes play the second half with a broken jaw. Another premiership came in 1934, this time against South Melbourne's famed "Foreign Legion", avenging Richmond's loss in the 1933 VFL Grand Final.
Prior to the commencement of the 1940 season, internal problems were brewing between the key personalities at the club. Some felt that the uneven performance of the team was due to Percy Bentley's coaching methods, and that he should be replaced. Jack Dyer walked out on the club and threatened to play in the VFA after his father, a committeeman who was involved with the anti-Bentley faction, lost his position at the board elections. Finally, the matter was resolved and Bentley kept his job, while Dyer returned to training on the eve of the season. The problems appeared to have been solved when Richmond won the semi-final against Melbourne to go straight into the 1940 VFL Grand Final. However, Melbourne reversed this result with a crushing win to pinch the premiership. Richmond had been out-thought by their old mentor Frank 'Checker' Hughes, who had assigned a tagger to negate Dyer. Dyer was furious that Bentley had done nothing to prevent his opponent taking him out of the game. The Richmond committee agreed with this assessment, so when Bentley attempted to negotiate a higher fee to continue his coaching tenure, he was rebuffed. Incensed, Bentley quit Punt Road and moved to Carlton as coach, adding further spice to an already fierce rivalry between the two clubs.
Despite the tribulations created by the Second World War, Richmond was able to maintain a commendable level of consistency on the field. The club had quite a lot of players in reserved occupations who remained at home, while the administration became adept at securing star players who were temporarily in Melbourne on war service. Dyer was a fearsome presence in his role as playing coach, but he was unable to improve Richmond's ability to win finals matches. A loss in the 1942 VFL Grand Final to Essendon meant that over the previous 18 years, Richmond had won two flags but been runner-up eight times. Jack Titus set a still unbeaten record of playing in six losing Grand Final teams. In 1943, Richmond broke through to beat Essendon in a thrilling Grand Final by five points, a win that the club dedicated to ex-player Bill Cosgrove, an RAF pilot who had been killed in action a few weeks before the match. But another Grand Final loss followed in 1944, when Dyer's team failed against Fitzroy on a very hot day.