Lunch with Matthew Richardson

As a teenager in Devonport, eating out for Matthew Richardson might have been the fish and chip shop, or the Greek, or Taco Bills, or the Chinese takeaway. ''The Golden Panda. Dad loved that on a Sunday night,'' he remembers. ''But it was more of a counter-meal-at-the-pub sort of town.''

Here is Richardson now, 20-odd years later, in an airy corner of BangPop, a new Thai eatery on South Wharf distinct for its motif of red-and-yellow pushbikes, perhaps also for this injunction as I enter from maitre d' Hamish Lee: ''Don't tell me it's 'fine'. You wouldn't tell your wife when she was dressed up for the night that she looked 'fine'.''

'But at the end, people realised I wanted Richmond to win more than anything,' Matthew Richardson says.Credit: Penny Stephens

BangPop is a provident choice. After moving to Melbourne at 17, Richo lived for years in multicuisine Carlton and Fitzroy. ''Anything hot and spicy, I enjoy,'' he says. ''My girlfriend gets embarrassed when we go out for an Indian meal. I really like to sweat up. The hotter the better as far as I'm concerned.''

Richardson already has a green tea. As a matter of journalistic propriety, I order a glass of wine. I'm thinking something dry, as usual, but Lee suggests a gewurztraminer to offset the spices. It proves to be a smart game plan.

As the sunlight streams in from across the Yarra, Richo looks as he always does: as if he expects something good is about to happen. It reflects a disposition that buoyed him unfailingly through 17 fruitless and often grim seasons with his beloved Richmond. ''Every year, you get a few recruits in, a high draft pick,'' he says. ''You train all pre-season with the optimism that you're going to have a good year. People may laugh at that from the outside. But I don't think I ever didn't feel that.''

That loyalty, childlike in the best sense, at length endeared Richo to all football fans. If I'm brutally honest, it helped that he was such a flawed genius, and Richmond in his time was mostly so mediocre, which meant that you could thrill to him safely, and if he starred, it was impossible to begrudge him anyway. In 2008, aged 33, he almost won what would have been the most popular Brownlow Medal of all; at the count, the whole room was willing it.

''I felt humbled that night. I think it was the longevity thing. I didn't have a lot of success as a player. But I wore my heart on my sleeve a bit. By the end, people could see that I actually meant well by it. I made a dill of myself occasionally. But at the end, people realised it was because I wanted Richmond to win more than anything.''

Richo played the first six games of the next season, then no more; injury got him at last. Now, as he contemplates on the game for Channel Seven and 3AW, he is sometimes overcome by future shock. ''It feels like I played 100 years ago,'' he says. ''I look at the game and think, 'I'd be hopeless out there now'.''

Bangpop's red curry with mint.Credit: Penny Stephens

We order the lunch specials, he the red curry with mint and basil, me the wok-fried chicken breast with cashew and water chestnuts. Richo ladles three types of chilli preparation onto his; I stop at two. For me, the balance of taste and tang is just right, but Richo says later: ''I probably could have doubled the hotness.''

Richo was to Richmond born. Alan, his father, played in the 1967 premiership team before moving to Tasmania. Twenty-five years later, he presented at Tigerland with his precocious 16-year-old son.

Wok-fried chicken breast.Credit: Penny Stephens

''I remember the day,'' Richo says, ''1992, round 21. Richmond played Adelaide at the MCG. They got pumped. We went back to Punt Road, myself, dad, [then-Richmond chief executive] Cameron Schwab. He offered a four-year deal. Dad said, 'Thanks, we'll take it back to Devonport and have a look at it'. I said, ''No, I want to sign now'. I did.''

Another official once told me that Alan, nicknamed Bull, had a tear in his eye in that moment. So do I now, but that might be the chilli. That first contract, incidentally, was for $10,000 a year. Wins were worth $500 each; four of them swelled his first yearly cheque to $12,000.

Not even once has Richo disowned his decision. But now, working in media, he sees premiership players everywhere he looks, in his box, in the next, and the next. ''Often, you're sitting in an airport lounge and talk of premierships comes up,'' he says. ''You just check out of the conversation, go up and get a beer. That's the only time I get a bit envious.''

Conscripted to The Footy Show while playing, Richo was a media innocent. ''I was petrified,'' he says. ''They'd ring on a Tuesday, and all I would think about from Tuesday to Thursday was The Footy Show. Maybe it took my mind off footy. Maybe it was a good thing.''

He fell into full-time media during his last season, when he was often injured and needed something to do. The risk for a much-loved player who goes into media is that he becomes overexposed and loses a little of his former favour. This did not occur to Richo then, nor does it gnaw at him now. Sometimes he catches feedback on Twitter and laughs. He finds that merely the effort to reply disarms the fiercest critic. But he adds: ''If you're a player now, you'd want to have thick skin.''

The best advice he received was simply to be himself. ''When I first started, I was worried about everything I said,'' he recalls. ''I didn't want to offend anyone. I rehearsed everything I said. Four years on, I don't feel that.''

While entering happily into the irreverent spirit of the commentary box, he has not become blithe or blase. ''I want to remember always what it was like as a player when I'm commentating,'' he says. He knows his Richmond-ness still shows. ''I barracked for Richmond from the age of four. I played there. It's almost impossible to have no bias.''

A Richmond official once said to me that Richo had no idea of how big he was as a football name. Still, as a commentator he has no tickets on himself. ''I understand that you're just another ex-footballer,'' he says. ''In years to come there are going to be plenty of superstars retiring, and they're going to get jobs in the media. Someone's got to drop out.''

The tea and the wine are gone, but not the conviviality. BangPop's mellow atmosphere helps to sustain it. I'm surprised that we're not interrupted at least once, but Richo says it is a rare happening now. He is always obliging. ''It's one second of your time,'' he says. He is starting to realise that nothing in lay life can replace the feeling of victory on the MCG and the first five satisfying minutes in the rooms afterwards. ''I've got no idea where you'd find that,'' he says.

Still, his humour is to be grateful to have had it, not sulky that it is gone. He leaves to visit his father and I go back to the office, and like the memory of a Richo screamer, the taste of the wok chicken lingers vividly for the rest of the day.