Lou Richards was the king of Victoria and loved by all, writes Mike Sheahan

AS A footballer, Lou Richards might best be described as a player of note, as they liked to say in his day, but he was to scale even greater heights in retirement, writes MIKE SHEAHAN.

AS A footballer, Lou Richards might best be described as a player of note, as they liked to say in his day.

Not brilliant and dynamic in the way of teammate Bobby Rose; much more Tony Shaw than Nathan Buckley.

He was so typically Collingwood of the time: a local kid who was tough, proud, reliable and loyal; cheeky, occasionally nasty, effective, uncompromising, loved by fans.

Richards missed Collingwood’s team of the century in 1997 (updated in 2002 to accommodate Gavin Brown on the bench) and never won a best and fairest, yet, in the modern vernacular, he could play.

TRIBUTES: LOU RICHARDS DIES, AGED 94

LEGEND: LIFE AND TIMES OF LOU RICHARDS

IN PICTURES: LOU’S REMARKABLE LIFE

He was a fixture in one of the best clubs of the 1940s and early ’50s.

When he retired abruptly during the 1955 season, he had played 250 games, a figure bettered to that point by only Gordon Coventry, Jock McHale and Harry Collier, all immortal names at Collingwood.

Richards was captain for four seasons (1952-55) and led the Magpies to the 1953 premiership, when he and brother Ron were among Collingwood’s best in the win over Geelong.

Yes, he could play.

Yet, he was to scale even greater heights in retirement.

Lou Richards played 250 games for Collingwood and led the Magpies to the 1953 premiership.

In keeping with the times, he went into a pub in retirement — the Phoenix in Flinders St in central Melbourne — and quickly became the biggest name in the game in a media role as a columnist for The Sun News Pictorial, commentator for Channel 7 and 3DB, and the starring role on the much-loved Sunday afternoon television program World of Sport.

As big as Jack Dyer was at the time, as Ted Whitten and Ron Barassi became, as Sam Newman has been in recent years, Little Louie towered over them metaphorically.

Louie the Lip would make outlandish offers in his Kiss of Death role with The Sun, and then attract people in their thousands the following week when forced to deliver on such promises as cutting Whitten’s lawn with nail scissors, rowing then Geelong coach Bill Goggin across the Barwon River in a bath tub, jumping into the bay at St Kilda in the depths of winter.

Nothing unsettled the powerful teams of the day more than the Kiss of Death’s declaration on the morning of a match they couldn’t possibly lose that afternoon.

Richards became the most recognisable face in Victoria, via The Sun and Channel 7. The evangelical Barassi may have had a profile of sorts in the northern states, yet there was just one king in Victoria.

Richards knew it, too, and actually treated members of the public as subjects. Big names didn’t phase him, either. The bigger they were, the more he relished cutting them down to size.

Lou Richards welcomes Kevin Bartlett to The Sun newspaper in 1985.

Lou Richards as the, King of Moomba in 1981.

From Prime Ministers down. There was a touch of Edna Everidge about him while holding court; those who knew him always felt more comfortable out of his line of sight.

While he was genuinely funny, what made him different was his confidence, no, his brashness.

You engaged him in banter at your peril. He always had the last word.

His jokes might have been as old as he was, but, if he liked them, he kept telling them. Over and over. No one laughed louder than the man himself. As always, the art was in the delivery.

He slowed over the years, as we all do, of course.

Many of us wondered whether his mates at Channel 9 were doing him any favours by keeping him on The Sunday Footy Show for so long, yet, even in 2008, there was the odd moment that was vintage Richards, and we all marvelled at his vitality, his confidence, his durability.

I last saw Lou on December 20.

He didn’t know me when I walked into his room until I told him my name.

He was a sad sight, alone in his room, eating a sandwich for lunch with a bib, but he was funny.

Richards in the garden at his home in Toorak.

Lou remembered plenty, but kept repeating himself about age and where people worked and who had died and the loss of his wife and great mate, Edna.

“I had a great girl.”

When I asked him how old he was, he wasn’t sure.

I said: “You’re 93.”

To which he instantly replied: “I might get to 100 ... just to piss a few people off.”

He was sharp on blokes we worked with. About one bloke he said: “He was a miserable bastard ... when you went to his office, he wouldn’t let the light in.”

And another: “I told him people didn’t like him. Told him to stop being a ----.”

He was fond of long-time mate, the late Harry Gordon and Peter Simunovich and Scott Palmer. Knew Gordon’s son, Michael, worked at The Age, too.

He remembered his old pub, the Phoenix, had gone, and added: “Journos were pisspots.”

Despite his famous commitment to family, particularly the storybook relationship of more than 50 years with wife Edna, he loved his public profile.

Lou Richards was a star of the small screen.

He thrived on street life, chatting with shopkeepers and passers-by in his favourite suburbs, Toorak and Sorrento.

While his beach house was hidden away in Portsea, he would drive his Mini Moke into Sorrento, notionally to pick something up at a shop, more pressingly to engage in a little social interaction.

I vividly recall standing with him on the footpath of the main street of Sorrento one busy summer morning when both of us were smokers. Both had cigarettes, neither of us had matches.

Lou suddenly jumped onto the running board of a huge truck, poked his head in the open passenger-side window and barked to the startled driver: “Give us a light, will ya.’’

He got the light, he also lit up the life of yet another fan whose obvious shock suggested he couldn’t wait to get home and say: “You won’t believe what happened to me today?’’