It was May, 1954. Barassi, 18, had played only eight senior games but had already been dropped four times. He had been tried in various positions at either end of the field in both the seniors and reserves, all to no avail.
The wild colt was too raw - he was a square peg in a round hole - and now his confidence was shattered. But unbeknown to Barassi, wise heads were about to change the course of his career, and football history.
Acting on a timely recommendation from team runner Hugh McPherson, coach Norm Smith agreed to experiment with the 179cm Barassi as a follower, or second ruckman - or what later became known as ruck-rover.
In that first fateful on-ball foray, a reserves match against St Kilda at the MCG, Barassi was selected as second ruck to Terry Gleeson, then 20.
Until then, ruck duties were generally shared by three players: two ruckmen who changed out of a back-pocket, and the ‘second ruck’.
But the Gleeson/Barassi partnership would be different. Gleeson had the stamina, and the desire, to do all the ruckwork. According to Barassi, Gleeson was excited that he didn’t have to share the role. In turn, Barassi was excited to suddenly be free to stalk the ball, without having to conserve energy for ruck duels.
A marauding bull had been turned loose - and it was at least partly due to Gleeson’s fitness and love of the contest.
The experiment was a raging success - Barassi was best-afield that day, and dominated the reserves for several weeks, in combination with Gleeson. Inevitably, Barassi soon earned a senior promotion and continued on in the same dominant fashion, thus giving birth to a legend.
During my research for The Red Fox: The Biography of Norm Smith, Legendary Melbourne Coach (published by The Slattery Media Group in 2008), I came across many strong personalities among the Demons of old.
Club greats like Barassi, Noel McMahen and Brian Dixon had reputations for directness that preceded them, but Gleeson was even more candid.
The then 75-year-old appreciated the opportunity to share his memories and opinions on Smith and Melbourne, and was as forthcoming as he was forthright. He called a spade a spade, and sugar-coated nothing, with the kind of earthy articulation that prompted Barassi to once describe him as “an educated larrikin”.
Gleeson certainly didn’t suffer fools, and I was careful not to portray myself as one via my questioning - a difficult task considering I was born well after the events I was writing about. But I sense Gleeson humoured me to some extent because he felt my cause - to illuminate Smith’s life - was one he believed in. And Gleeson always stood up for what he believed in.
His grieving former teammates recall him as entertaining company, a good mixer and a loyal friend. Ian Thorogood, a tough half-back flanker in the Demons’ golden years, spoke for many when he described Gleeson as “a big, lovable guy with a big heart”.
Gleeson never displayed any airs or graces, and that’s exactly how he played his football.
He arrived at Melbourne at the perfect time, just as the club was about to embark upon a dynasty. In the rebuilding season of 1953 (when the Demons finished second-bottom), Gleeson was among 15 debutants, and was one of eight long-term prospects unearthed by the club - the others being Barassi, Don Williams, Frank ‘Bluey’ Adams, Ken Melville, Geoff Case, Peter Marquis and Trevor Johnson.
Gleeson was ultimately the least prominent player among this illustrious group, but he would have been the first to admit it.
Gleeson wasn’t blessed with the talent of his younger brother, St Kilda ruckman Brian Gleeson, who won the 1957 Brownlow Medal.
He was never one of the Demons’ key players - as his selection as 19th man in 1955 and 1956 premiership sides, and the 1958 losing Grand Final attests.
Smith would playfully rib Gleeson about his kicking attempts.
“Norm knew I wasn’t the most skilful player in the world,” Gleeson said. “I had an awkward kicking style and often when I had a kick at training, Norm would say, ‘Replace your divot’.”
But what Gleeson lacked in skill, he made up for in application. In many ways, he embodied the approach Smith tried to instil in his team: total team focus, unflinching hardness, and the willingness to give everything all of the time. He was, as one teammate said, “a real trier, a dead-set goer”.
For seven seasons (1956-62), Gleeson and Smith shared lockers next to each other, and Gleeson felt they got on well.
Despite this, Smith was perhaps harder on him than most.
“But,” Gleeson explained, “that’s only because Norm knew I could cop it. He didn’t treat certain other players like that because he knew they’d go to water and it would affect them more.”
Gleeson recalled Smith’s constant command to him and his fellow ruckmen to, “Ruck ’til your nose bleeds.” Gleeson did his best to oblige; in turn, Smith admired his courage.
Through a combination of injury and form issues, Gleeson missed the 1957, 1959 and 1960 premierships. At a celebratory dinner following the 1960 triumph, Smith singled out Gleeson for a special mention.
“We haven’t forgotten you, Terry,” Smith said. “You helped us get into the finals... You’re a great trier, an honest player who battles and battles, and a fine team man. You even trained on a cracked leg to try to get on to the reserves’ bench for the finals.”
When Gleeson appeared on HSV 7’s World Of Sport one Sunday morning, Jack Dyer remarked that he must enjoy playing under Smith, to which Gleeson replied, “Shit, yeah.”
Gleeson told me, “The TV screens of people at home went black. I think I was the first person to say shit on TV!”
Gleeson had another claim to fame - albeit in a more private forum - that also highlighted his larrikin streak.
One night, on an end-of-season trip in Adelaide, Gleeson had voluntarily worked behind the bar, and Smith thanked Gleeson for keeping everyone refreshed.
“There’s no doubt about you, Norm,” Gleeson replied, “you’ve always been very fair and just.”
Smith appeared pleased with the critique.
“It’s very nice of you to say that, Terry. Thanks.”
“Yeah, fair and just,” Gleeson repeated. “A fair bastard and just a prick!”
No one spoke to Smith in such a way and expected to get away with it. But Gleeson did. Smith brushed it off with a wry grin and a shake of the head.
Gleeson told me, “With things like that, Norm’s reaction depended on what mood he was in and who said it. You had to pick your moment.”
It’s little wonder that, more than 50 years later, the very mention of the phrase ‘fair and just’ causes great amusement among players of the Smith era.
Smith hastened Gleeson’s retirement from football at the end of 1962, at the age of almost 29, and the coach then encouraged him to his stay involved at Melbourne in an official capacity.
Described by Barassi as an “an educated larrikin”, Gleeson had studied commerce at university in his early years at Melbourne before venturing into the business world.
“In my last year,” Gleeson said, “I had a fairly senior job, and I arrived late for training one night and my secretary had left a message for me to call her. I went straight into the secretary’s room to ring her and Norm blew the hell out of me - ‘You’re here for footy, not work!’ It was becoming too difficult to combine the two, so I retired.”
Smith then persuaded Gleeson to join the Demons’ committee.
“There was a certain part of Melbourne’s culture that Norm didn’t like - the top-of-the-town people who associated with the club - and I think he felt that having someone like myself on the committee might help to balance things a little.
“I stood for election and got on, and it was probably only because Norm had advised me to do it that it came about.”
Remarkably, Gleeson was a member of the Melbourne committee that sensationally sacked coach Norm Smith 13 rounds into the 1965 season (only to reinstate him four days later).
An incensed Smith publicly referred to the “12 guilty men” of the committee, but Gleeson insisted the ruckus didn’t cause any fracture in his relationship with Smith, who apparently understood his predicament and didn’t hold it against him.
This was reinforced almost eight years later, in 1973, when Smith was close to death with a terminal brain tumour.
Gleeson visited his old coach at his holiday house in Rosebud. At one point, Smith’s wife Marg took Gleeson aside and asked him, “Who was the player Norm loved the most?”
“Oh, Barassi,” Gleeson said, emphatically.
“No, Ron is family,” she said. “Norm loved you the most.”
Gleeson told me the compliment “surprised” and “really touched” him.
“I wasn’t Norm’s special pet or anything because that’s so far from the truth,” he said. “I think he liked the larrikin side of me, so to speak. Take-no-bullshit type of thing, being truthful and speaking my mind, rather than dodging around it. He generally liked blokes who were like that.”
Even so, Gleeson managed to show enough diplomacy to become the mayor of Moorabbin in the early 1970s. (When Smith was scheduled to coach South Melbourne against St Kilda at Moorabbin one day, Gleeson even arranged a mayoral reception for his former mentor and a few close friends.)
However, diplomacy often gave way to his raw passion, which was never far from the surface.
Thorogood recalls an annual general meeting years later in which Gleeson made his views heard loud and clear.
“Terry didn’t hold any official capacity at the club at the time, he was just a member, and a very passionate one at that,” Thorogood says.
“The big fella stood up and absolutely laid the law down to someone on the board. He shook his finger and basically said, ‘You are taking this club in the wrong bloody direction!’ He got a great round of applause for it, too - not that he ever did anything to be popular.”
That was Terry Gleeson: always prepared to call it as he saw it, and do it passionately, regardless of whether others agreed with him. Especially where the Demons were concerned.
