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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
1969 First Semi Final
- Thread starter 23.21.159
- Start date
Yes, I should have recalled that.They lost by 65pts unfortunately. Sturt had heard Royce was getting paid $2,000 for the game and Sturt players were non too pleased and 8 minutes in, he was a part of a meat sandwich. He got up concussed but played on and still did a fantastic job.
21 kicks, 10 marks, 2 goals.
Royce's memory - "I recall going in to pick up the ball and a couple of Sturt players came at me, one from the side, the other from head on. The next thing I remember, I was in the hands of the trainers. I got up, was handed the ball, tried to take my kick, but I couldn’t recollect any more after that.
At half-time in the dressing rooms, Alf Brown, football writer of the Melbourne Herald, came in to see me and I didn’t recognise him. So apparently I played the first half without knowing what was going on. During the interval, trainers worked on me with smelling salts and I came out for the second half with only a headache.
There were no reports from the incident, but there was quite an outcry for weeks later as to whether Sturt had been out to get me. It seemed accidental to me, but to thousands of fans who saw a replay on TV, it looked deliberate. Many claimed that I held the key to Glenelg’s premiership hopes, and held it to be too much of a coincidence for me to be knocked out in the first few minutes. From then on the result was never in doubt; Sturt went on to annihilate Glenelg.
At the time I was a National Serviceman stationed in Adelaide and under Australian National Football Council rules, I was given permission to play for Glenelg . . .
It was said that the two thousand dollars I received was the highest fee paid to a player for one match. You might ask was it worth it? Too right! I’d get in the ring with Cassius Clay and get knocked out a hundred times for that sort of money."
What A Player
In the championship game between Richmond and Sturt I can recall that when a retaliatory strike occurred a commentator said, “ there was a lot of hart in that bump”.
Can’t recall which tiger dished it out.
