When you think of Ron Barassi, premierships are not far from the surface. He played in six with Melbourne, sharing the club honours for most played with Frank ‘Bluey’ Adams.
Then, as captain-coach, he won again with Carlton in 1968, followed by another flag as coach of the Blues in 1970.
This was followed by two pioneering flags as coach of North Melbourne in 1975 and 1977, putting a wonderful flourish on the Barassi premiership legend.
For now, let us look at the premierships that took Ron Barassi from exciting youngster to captain and the club’s twelfth flag in 1964:
1955 - Melbourne 8.16 (64) defeats Collingwood 5.6 (36)
This was the victory that started it all. Coming after the bitter experience of a Grand Final loss to Footscray in 1954, and nearly a generation after the 1948 premiership - infamously won on replay against Essendon - this first flag of the fabulous 1950s was a Demon delight.
Barassi’s contribution was noted in combination with that of Denis Cordner, when it was commented by the club that ‘his speed and ability to cover the throw-in so very often, allied with exceptionally long arms and a very good leap, made this player an ideal partner for Denis Cordner’.
Barassi played nineteen games, the same as both Cordner and captain Noel McMahen, and was recognised with an Outstanding Service award.
The premiership win stirred up the ancient rivalry between Melbourne and Collingwood, particularly with the late game head clash between Adams and Collingwood’s Des Healey, which knocked both players out cold. Tempers were near boiling point, but the play carried on regardless.
On the Monday after the game, it was noted that, while there was more black and white in the stands, red and blue dominated over the fences. Of the on-field action, Hugh Buggy from The Argus wrote:
Storming through with strong and masterful football, Melbourne, in a shattering last quarter, ripped holes in a tough Collingwood defence to win the 1955 League pennant convincingly by 28 points on Saturday.
With Barassi featuring heavily in the best player listings, typically alongside Cordner, it was a stunning start to the golden era. This sole premiership also meant that both Barassi Jnr and Barassi Snr had played in a premiership apiece, with Ronald Dale echoing the achievement of his father, who had been nineteenth man in the 1940 premiership side.
1956 - Melbourne 17.19 (121) defeats Collingwood 6.12 (48)
The Olympic Premiers - That was Melbourne in 1956.
Replete with excitement and excellence, the recognition of this team would be immortalised with its wholesale induction into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2004.
Memories of the 1956 triumph – a 73-point win over Collingwood, in front of that unbelievable crowd of 115,802 – were also revitalised in 2021, when Tom McDonald’s goal after the final siren delivered Melbourne a 74-point victory over the Western Bulldogs, and a new record winning margin in Grand Finals for the Demons.
Barassi was in the thick of the action in 1956, as he had been in 1955.
While Stuart Spencer was completing his last season with typical brilliance, Barassi and Cordner – the latter also to retire at season’s end - were again constants in the best player listings.
Having overcome elements as diverse as temporary training grounds due to preparation for the Olympics, through to inaccurate kicking that occasionally threatened to take the gloss off an excellent season, Melbourne was nonetheless supreme throughout 1956, losing just two games.
The Demons also won another McClelland Trophy, premierships at all three levels showing the depth inherent in the club.
Part of that was down to the likes of Barassi, who scored 3.3 in the Grand Final victory, behind just Spencer and Webb with five apiece.
It was noted that Barassi, ‘at not yet 21 years of age, is numbered among the best players in football today. We are indeed proud of Ron and the young band of players we have at present.’
1957 - Melbourne 17.14 (114) defeats Essendon 7.13 (55)
While this season started without greats of the calibre of captain Noel McMahen, Stuart Spencer, Denis Cordner, Ken Melville and Clyde Laidlaw (later to return), anticipation was still high for success in 1957.
The new captain this season was John Beckwith, with Barassi as his deputy.
Rounding off another hattrick to complement the feats of 1939, 1940 and 1941 was the main attraction.
Top of the ladder beckoned at the end of the home and away season; with twelve wins and five losses, it was not such a barnstorming performance as the two seasons preceding, but it was still formidable for the rest of the competition to face.
It was also new territory for the Demons when the team suffered an unexpected semi-final loss to Essendon.
Fortunately, a stunning victory over Hawthorn in the Preliminary Final restored equilibrium, and the Bombers were then defeated in front of 100,324 by 61 points in the Grand Final; an unwelcome turnaround from two weeks before, and a sad farewell for retiring captain, Bill Hutchison.
Of course, it was anything but sad for anyone wearing red and blue, not least of all Ron Barassi.
As summed up by Ben Collins, ‘Barassi had produced one of the greatest games of his legendary career: 24 kicks, six marks, five handballs and 5.2.’ (Ben Collins, Grand Finals Vol II: 1939-1978, p. 204).
The club loved Barassi’s contribution, saying in annual review that:
This season must have been his greatest for the side and his magnificent football in the final series will be long remembered; in the Grand Final, his goal within seconds of the commencement of the game set the game rolling our way. Ron finished the year as runner-up to John Beckwith as our best and fairest player, and with his youth and enthusiasm he will undoubtedly go on to greater heights in football. We are very fortunate to have Ronnie associated with our team.
1959 - Melbourne 17.15 (113) defeats Essendon 11.12 (78)
This season, above all, stands as partial redemption from the hollow loss of 1958, when Collingwood triumphed against all expectations, denying Melbourne four premierships in a row (which may have ended up as six with 1959 and 1960 added to the mix).
In 1959, it wasn’t Collingwood fronting up for that one day in September. That ultimate redemption would have to wait for another season. But playing against Essendon was enticing enough.
Despite a lull in form that saw the side unexpectedly drop three games mid-season, the Demons finished on top of the ladder at the end of the home and away season for the fifth year running.
Essendon – speedy and accurate as they were – was being coached by Dick Reynolds, who had forecast to Don Cordner way back in 1948 that the Grand Final might be a draw.
Unfortunately, he could not forecast any good fortune for his Bombers a decade on, although he might possibly have had a premonition about the Demon dynamo that was Ron Barassi in the 1959 Grand Final.
The Melbourne Football Club annual report for the season mentions Barassi’s ‘aggressive spirit and determination’, while Peter Ryan, looking well back to past glories, reviews it beautifully, stating that:
The Demons were in danger of losing touch, but that was the cue for one of the most brilliant individual bursts in Grand Final history. In seven sublime minutes before half-time, Barassi, opposed to Essendon playmaker Hugh Mitchell, kicked three defining, half-chance goals – the first two from imposing pack marks and the third from a superb snap. These heroics, perhaps more than anything else, came to define Barassi as a player who produced his best when it was needed most, and confirmed his status as a legend.
…
The Demon avalanche continued in the final term, as they added 6.3 to 1.2 to win by 37 points.
Order had been restored. Melbourne had won its fourth premiership in five years.
Barassi had delivered another signature performance on football’s biggest stage – indeed, some regard it as one of the all-time great Grand Final efforts. Stung by the memory of being a poor player in an unforgivable team debacle almost exactly 12 months earlier, the champ had been a constant, unstoppable force, amassing 23 kicks, seven marks, three handballs and 4.3. (Peter Ryan, Grand Finals Vol II: 1939-1978, pp. 222 – 223).
To add a further shine to the occasion, captain John Beckwith had the honour of raising the first ever VFL premiership cup as we know it today. He and vice-captain Barassi were chaired off the MCG after formalities had ended, ready for celebrations to begin.
1960 - Melbourne 8.14 (62) defeats Collingwood 2.2 (14)
Now it was time to defeat Collingwood. First, though, departures and tragedies had to be faced. Don Williams, Athol Webb and Dick Fenton-Smith were absent from the playing ranks, while Norm’s sounding board, dual Brownlow Medallist and 1926 premiership player Ivor Warne-Smith, passed away in March 1960.
Shortly before his death, Warne-Smith oversaw a changing of the leadership guard, with Barassi taking over the captaincy, and Beckwith staying as vice-captain. Hassa Mann, then in just his second season, saw the combination of Barassi and Smith as being electric, if not always safe, describing Barassi as the ‘dynamo of the side, and the guy that probably always provided the spark’. (Grand Finals Vol II: p. 228)
The energy of Melbourne was undeniable, and helped to carry the team to an eleven game winning streak – following a bad loss to the Magpies at Victoria Park – before fading late in the season.
However, once again, they finished the home and away season at the top of the ladder, then thrashed Len Smith’s Fitzroy in the second semi-final, taking them to a seventh consecutive Grand Final appearance.
The opponents? – Collingwood, on a wet day at the MCG. It was time for focus and determination, led by the captain, with Barassi saying that ‘We were just so disciplined and focused and so hell-bent on gaining vengeance that the atmosphere in the rooms was electric.’ (Grand Finals Vol II: p. 231)
By day’s end, there was no doubt. Vengeance belonged to the Melbourne Football Club, victorious by 48 points, and holding Collingwood to just two goals.
It was a fitting career sign off for John Beckwith, and a wonderful way for Barassi to start his captaincy, holding another premiership cup aloft.
1964 - Melbourne 8.16 (64) defeats Collingwood 8.12 (60)
This was it; the end of an era, Barassi’s last season wearing the red and blue No. 31, the season of the twelfth VFL premiership that would stand lonely at the end of the line until 2021.
Nobody really knew that then, of course. The preceding seasons had been good, but not Grand Final-worthy.
Players had departed – the likes of Ridley, Mithen, Tunbridge, Case, Rowarth among them – while the newcomers and younger players were building into something special.
Names such as Hassa Mann, Bryan Kenneally, Barry Bourke and Frank Davis had taken or were shaping their place in the roll call, building something special for 1964.
After a stuttering start to the season, Melbourne repeated the feat of winning eleven games in a row, before finding that the top of the ladder was precarious, and they had to win against Hawthorn in the last round to ensure playing in finals.
Mann was the saviour on this occasion, kicking ‘a rather well known goal’ that just made it through to deliver finals and first place on the ladder, despite losing to Footscray in the last home and away game.
Annihilating Collingwood by 89 points in the second semi-final, the stage was set for yet another battle against the Magpies in the Grand Final.
There were 102,469 looking on, and by the last quarter, it was shaping up as a real nailbiter.
Captain Barassi – determined and dogged always, typically thriving when the going got tough – was under the pump, and later described that interminable last quarter as ‘the most high pressure quarter of my playing career.’ (Grand Finals Vol II: p. 271)
Inaccuracy by multiple Melbourne players denied them the chance to take the lead, until the late game heroics by backman Neil Crompton that will always have a happy place in MFC folklore.
Every red and blue devotee knows the footage, knows the scenario – Brian Dixon kicks the ball into Melbourne’s forward line, it spills free, an out of position Neil Crompton collects the ball, and kicks a goal.
Four points ahead. Time on. Bourke marks the ball in defence. Collingwood’s Ian Graham goes for the ball, is bumped in the head by Bourke. Free kick? No, bounce of the ball.
Siren sounds. MELBOURNE. Premiers by four points. Breathe again, then – if you were there - hold that memory close for another half a century.
It is also the final memory of captain Ron Barassi in his No. 31, and he finishes it off with a second Best and Fairest to complement that won in 1961, hailed by the club as it comments on the 1964 achievement:
Led by a magnificent Captain in Ron Barassi, who has been ably supported by Frank Adams, Brian Dixon and John Lord, players with years of experience behind them, the team deserves the highest praise that can be given.
Later, Barassi would recall the moment when he stood alongside ‘Bluey’ Adams, the cup aloft:
Bluey Adams and I were the only players from that era to play in all six premierships. He had announced it was going to be his last game. I didn’t know at the time, but it was also to be my last game for Melbourne. (Icons of Australian Sport: Ron Barassi, p. 101)
Six chapters of the Barassi story were over, and he – like Adams – was leaving so much behind, never to be forgotten, often to be spoken of, recalled and prized.
Six premierships had been won. Both Barassi and Adams had lived through and given so much to half of the Melbourne Football Club’s premiership history.
