Gary Frangalas reunited with 1988 Richmond Football Club jumper

How a former Under 19s hopeful kept for more than 30 years the jumper worn in league football by Gary Frangalas. And how he came to pass it on to ‘Franga’.

It started with a tweet.

For Gary Frangalas, it ended with a Father’s Day treat.

On Sunday the former league footballer’s family presented him with the No 9 jumper he wore at Richmond in 1988.

And it still made a good fit for the trim 58-year-old, a Tiger from 1987-89 after earlier playing 51 games for the Sydney Swans.

For more than 30 years the jumper had been in the keeping of Garry Embleton.

Embleton had trained with the Richmond Under 19s ahead of the 1989 season.

Since he was 18 and had his driver’s licence, the Tigers asked him to help out with some school clinics in the southeast.

He didn’t have a jumper so the property steward went to a cupboard and pulled one out. Frangalas’s strip from the previous season – he played five games in 1988 – was on top of the pile.

The jumper worn by Gary Frangalas in 1988.

Embleton, now 51, didn’t make the Under 19 squad – he was let go after breaking his thumb in a practice match – but he held on to the jumper.

It was his reminder of his brief time with the Tigers and how he tried out for league football.

“It’s travelled everywhere with me,’’ Embleton said this morning.

Over the years he trained in it – Embleton played some reserves football at Oakleigh in the old VFA and later became a prominent umpire in local football – and fished it out of the closet for his children and even the family dogs to pull on.

“I’m a Carlton supporter but the last few years I’ve become a Richmond supporter for a month and I’ve dragged it out and I wore it to one of the finals,’’ he said.

But he was careful to keep it in good condition.

“It’s in perfect nick, as good as the day it came out of the box,’’ he said.

Earlier this year a sports reporter posted on Twitter a photo of Frangalas at Shepley Oval in Dandenong, where he and his wife, Sharyn, were watching their son, Sam, play for the Dandenong Stingrays in the NAB League.

Garry Embleton’s dog once slipped on the jumper.

Embleton replied, saying he had Frangalas’s old jumper and explaining how it came about.

Frangalas’s daughter Chloe saw the thread and contacted Embleton about the possibility of him giving the jumper to the Frangalas family.

One side of him wanted to keep it. But he thought it was right that it finished with Frangalas, who has little memorabilia from his playing days (he played 51 games for the Swans and 17 for the Tigers).

“I certainly had an attachment to it,’’ Embleton said.

“It’s my story of almost being there. There are thousands of guys who were almost there. There aren’t many who were actually there and wore the jumper in battle. So he should have it back. I got some stories out of it over time but realistically it should be with Gary.’’

On Sunday Frangalas’s family presented it to him as a Father’s Day gift.

“Nah, get out of here,’’ he said as he unwrapped it.

“Serious? Is that my No 9 jumper? Who’s that from? Where did you get that from?’’

As he held it in front of him, Frangalas said: “That’s my No 9 jumper.’’

He later phoned Embleton to thank him for passing it on.

Embleton no longer has the Richmond strip but he does still have the Oakleigh VFA jumper, one of the more distinctive strips in the old association.