By Andrew Wu
Former Richmond president Ian Wilson has died at the age of 91.
The Tigers were one of the powerhouses of the league, then known as the VFL, when Wilson was at the helm from late 1973 until 1985.
Former Richmond president Ian Wilson in 2010.Credit: Paul Rovere
They won a flag in his first year in charge under the coaching of the great Tom Hafey in 1974, the second of back-to-back premierships for the club, and also made finals in 1975 and 1977 before saluting again in 1980 under coach Tony Jewell.
The Tigers made the decider again in 1982, this time with Francis Bourke as coach, but lost narrowly to Carlton.
Wilson and Alan Schwab during the Tigers’ glory days.
Tigers great Matthew Richardson sent his love to Wilson’s family and celebrated him as a legend who had achieved great things in his time at the helm.
“In my time at the club, it was always great to bump into ‘Octa’ and talk about those legendary times, he was just a great Richmond person,” Richardson said.
Wilson was also a passionate supporter of the Sorrento Sharks Football Club, where he bought a table at the start of every season, including 2025.
The flag at Sorrento Golf Club, where Wilson had been a member since 1963, was flown at half-mast on Friday.
Wilson had been vice president at Richmond from 1969 to 1973 before being elected president unopposed after the ’73 season.
The Age reported at the time: “Within minutes of his election, Mr Wilson promised continuing joy for Richmond supporters, a hard time for the Victorian Football League, and criticised the Richmond Cricket Club”.
In a 1974 interview with The Herald ahead of that season’s grand final, Wilson said:
“I know a lot of people feel we have brought Richmond to where they are today in a very ruthless fashion – particularly in the way we have taken players from other clubs.
“But I like to think of it as a determination to reward those unbelievably loyal supporters who put up with the 23 years we spent languishing at the bottom of the ladder.
“We are not ashamed of single-mindedly fighting for success – that’s our job.”
Richmond went on to win the decider by 41 points.
Wilson was awarded life membership of the club in 1975 and was inducted into the club’s hall of fame in 2010.
Wilson and his old Geelong Grammar schoolmate, longtime administrator Graeme Richmond were architects of the ruthless and successful “Eat ’em Alive” era at Punt Road when the club waged war on and off the field and usually won.
Richmond’s famed era, in which Wilson and his friend Richmond piloted the club, was described in the AFL’s 100-year anniversary documentary (in 1996) as the “kill or be killed era”.
The Herald interview explained that Wilson had been a Tigers supporter ever since his father took him to the 1943 grand final, when the Jack Dyer-led Richmond triumphed over Essendon.
Richmond’s success of the Wilson-led era at the MCG (the club having made it its home ground in 1965) was instrumental in the club’s rapid growth to become one of the competition’s most heavily supported clubs – a foundation that enabled the Tigers to weather their subsequent hard times in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Wilson’s daughter Caroline Wilson, who is still a columnist for The Age, was the first woman to report on the game full-time, and was this masthead’s chief football writer from 1999 to 2017.
In 2017, she wrote that, in a move reminiscent of those powerful Tigers of old, her father had advised the club in grand final week to stuff the AFL and wear their proper jumper – they were required to wear a yellow away guernsey – and pay the fine later.
“‘What could the AFL realistically do,’ reasoned Dad, had the team ignored head office once they ran onto the MCG,” Caroline wrote.
She also recalled Sunday celebrations at the Wilson house after a premiership, “particularly with the larger-than-life rogues’ gallery that adorned led by Whale Roberts, Robbie McGhie and later the exuberant Peter Welsh, whose growl punctuated the 1980 party”.
Current Richmond president John O’Rourke paid tribute to Ian Wilson for his massive contribution at Punt Road.
“Ian significantly helped to rebuild and re-energise the club after so many years that we spent struggling at the bottom of the ladder,” O’Rourke said in a club statement.
“With his business acumen, the Tigers became great innovators off-field, and he just had so much energy for the job. He was driven to see Richmond as a force to be reckoned with, and he worked incredibly hard to make that happen.
“It was a privilege to have Ian join us last season for our 50-year anniversary celebration of the 1974 premiership. He was so clearly revered by the playing group of that era.
“He left a mighty legacy at the club.”
The Tigers will wear black armbands in Saturday’s match against Geelong at GMHBA Stadium.
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