PuntRoadEnd member Roar34 shares his real life memories of Jack Dyer.
PuntRoadEnd member Roar34
shares his real life memories of Jack Dyer.
I saw my first Richmond
game in 1939. For those who are too young to realise what living
in those days was like, we were just coming out of a depression, some people
would never really recover from those times.
Then, we had WW2 and Darwin was bombed in 1942. Sorry about the history
lesson but it is necessary to get those points over. Football was the
opiate of Melbourne.
For one day of the week, yes footy only on Saturdays, we forgot what was
happening in
the world around us because we had footy! Our heroes strode the turf and
each long week telescoped to those couple of hours on a Saturday arvo.
Forget about Sunday, that was a day for reliving the glory of your team winning
the day before...if they lost, well there was always a mark or a goal that your
team pulled off and, somehow, it made the following week all the more bearable.
If, in my case, Richmond beat those black & whites, then it was all the
sweeter, almost as good as winning a flag.
And talking of flags, yes, I saw the Tiges win one in 1943! Nobody was
spritelier, nobody could leap as high or kick as long as my glorious Tigers, and
the king of them all was No 17, Jack Dyer, the fabulous and feared Captain
Blood. And he wasn't a big man, certainly not in the mould of, say, Roy
Wright (God, I shudder to think what he would have done to the opposition if
he'd had the physique of the Gentle Giant!).
I bet there are wingers playing today who are bigger and taller than JD but,
boy, he could hit hard.
I met him just prior to our short-lived appearance in the 1947 finals. I
was at the zoo, and Jack was there for a newspaper photo of him looking
thoughtfully at a gorilla in a cage (Richmond was due to meet Fitzroy, then
known as the Gorillas, in the first semi (?) Final). It is difficult now
to
convey what effect shaking the great man's hand had on a 12 y.o. He was a
god. And I got his autograph!
Jack had been instrumental in helping us make the finals that year but, alas, we
were soon out of it and roamed the football wilderness until 1967.
I saw his last game at Punt Road. He kicked 6 goals if my memory serves me
correctly. Think on that, some of you present Richmond players...he played
312 games on proppy knees, was always pitched against bigger and stronger men,
the target of the opposition bullies, he was physically ill before games, but he
kicked 6 goals in his last game. How many current Richmond
players can kick 6 goals in a game?
No, Jack belongs to us, to all the Tiger supporters, and he was a gentleman,
he made my world worthwhile, he was our Captain Blood.
Further articles-
A
TRIBUTE TO JACK PRE member Bunnerz85 wrote this tribute in memory of
Jack to commemorate the second anniversary of his sad passing away.
JACK DYER
A biography from the RFC site.
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD
FAREWELL TO THE LEGENDARY CAPTAIN BLOOD
DYER'S GONE: TIGERS OF OLD ARE IN SHORT SUPPLY
LOU RICHARDS: JACK A GREAT MATE