By Greg Baum
The first thing Melbourne fans need to know is that everything they’re feeling this week, Ron Barassi is feeling, too.
“I feel very nervous. Nervous and excited,” he says. “As long as they play their best. If their best is beaten, you’ve got to cop that. But if you play your best, you generally win.”
Ron Barassi is feeling everything that other Melbourne supporters are feeling in the lead-up to the grand final.Credit: Simon Schluter
This week, Melbourne sent Barassi a gift pack with a scarf and T-shirt, and president Kate Roffey sent him a personalised video message, standing in front of the recently rediscovered 1964 premiership pennant. Melbourne would be out there on Saturday to do him and his ’64 team proud, she said.
The ’64 grand final was Barassi’s last game for Melbourne, that flag the last of six for him as a player. He said later he felt oddly wrung out and played poorly in the first half, better in the second in a four-point win. Reminded that he had 17 touches, he says: “Seventeen! That’s not much. Not happy!”
Barassi drops into a half-crouch, a sparring pose, his eyes widen and shine, and momentarily he is the master player and coach again. He’s 85, but you wouldn’t know it. “You look like George Clooney,” says Cheryl, his wife.
When his mind turns again to this Saturday, he grins and says: “I’ll play”. You only have to squint a little to believe it.
Barassi was invited to this year’s grand final in Perth, but quarantine protocols made it impracticable.Credit: Simon Schluter
The Barassis have lived for decades in a pad in St Kilda, surrounded by his memories and her art. The memories have dimmed a little, as they must: there was an MCG crowd’s worth of them. For years, Barassi appended “17410” to his autograph: 17 grand finals for 10 premierships. When the Hall of Fame was instituted in 1996, Barassi was the first Legend to be inducted. No one has better good old days.
But Barassi’s trove is more than scoreboard deep. He cherishes a framed picture given to him by John Albrecht from Joel Leonard auctions after selling some memorabilia in 2016. It looks like a detail from a black-and-white team photograph, with Barassi, his father Ron senior and the legendary Norm Smith shoulder-to-shoulder among others.
It’s a mock-up, of course. Barassi senior died at Tobruk when he was 27 and Ron was five. The three would never have been together in the same room, let alone the same team. But it’s an image worth 1000 words to Barassi.
Unprompted, Barassi reminisces about Collingwood hard man Murray Weideman and how they were friends in Preston in schooldays before they became fierce arch-rivals on the field. What’s a broken cheekbone between friends after 60 years?
He still can’t quite believe that Weideman’s grandson Sam plays for Melbourne, though will not be in the grand final team. “That’s impossible,” he says. Weideman died earlier this year.
Barassi is still recognised everywhere he goes because he’s still so instantly recognisable as Ron Barassi. He gets to nearly every Melbourne game at the MCG, running the selfies gauntlet every time. He doesn’t mind.
He was invited to this year’s grand final in Perth, but quarantine protocols made it impracticable. He’ll watch instead with his two sons.
The individual days of his grand finals might blur into one another now, but the tingle up his spine remains. To hold up the cup “is such a thrill,” he says. “There probably isn’t one greater. It lasts quite a few days.” Make that decades.
A Demons scarf is draped around the statue of Barassi outside the MCG.Credit: Getty Images
Barassi is living a content life, within COVID-19’s confines. He was going to the gym twice a week, and hopes to resume gym work again at home shortly. He surprises his trainer with what he can still do: bounce a basketball into the ring, for example. It takes more strength than you might think.
He plays backgammon daily with Cheryl and chess regularly, via phone, with an old mate in Traralgon. Chess has been a lifelong love. Until lockdown, there were monthly lunches with old teammates at the Bentleigh club. Their ranks are gradually thinning, but not their joie de vivre.
In spirit, they’ll be together again on Saturday, out there with the Demons in Perth. “It’s great [to play in a grand final] because that’s your aim,” says Barassi. “Everyone around you has the same aim.”
Asked what he would say to the 2021 team, Barassi ponders for a moment, then says: “concentrate on doing your best. You can’t do any better than that. Do your best, make sure you listen to the coach – and hope the umpiring’s good.” Faintly, you could hear the old super coach declaiming again, and see the eyes of his players spinning.
A dog pokes its nose through the gate and its owners stop for a chat. Barassi pats it affectionately, but when they leave, he says: “there’s only one thing wrong with that dog. It’s black and white.”
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