Vale Barrie Robran MBE

By MICHELANGELO RUCCI

Barrie Robran was South Australian football’s first “Legend” in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

But it did not take nor need a long overdue vote of recognition from the national Hall’s selectors in 2001 – 21 years after his last SANFL league game – to confirm Robran’s exalted status in the game.

Robran always will be regarded as South Australia’s greatest player, a title eagerly handed to the North Adelaide hero by the other champion repeatedly mentioned in the grand debate, four-time Magarey Medallist Russell Ebert.

“He was the best; the very best,” Ebert always acknowledged of the fellow South Australian country recruit who gave the SANFL some of its grandest moments during the late 1960s and 1970s.

Robran died on Wednesday morning as he was preparing to have knee surgery.

The South Australian Football Commission paid tribute to Robran with league president Rob Kerin recognising the rich legacy the three-time Magarey Medallist leaves on the game.

“Barrie was a champion of our game and has left an indelible mark on football in South Australia through his on-field brilliance,” Mr Kerin said.

“A true legend in South Australian footy, and a true gentleman, Barrie was highly respected by everyone who came to know him, as well as the broader football community who had the opportunity to see him play.”

Robran arrived at North Adelaide in the mid-1960s to maintain the blessing of a once-in-a-generation player – a legend – emerging at Prospect every 30 years.

North Adelaide delighted in the unrivalled ways of triple Magarey Medallist Tom McKenzie at the start of the 20th century; savoured a cult hero while Ken Farmer became the SANFL’s greatest goalkicker through the socially demanding decade of the 1930s; and then there was the greatest of all in Robran.

“Cricket had Don Bradman, billiards had Walter Lindrum and in football we had Barrie Robran,” noted Magarey Medallist and South Adelaide hero Jim Deane.

Robran, born in Whyalla in 1947, had four pre-season trials with North Adelaide in 1966 but remained in the Spencer Gulf Football League season with North Whyalla – while working as a junior clerk at BHP – until the North Adelaide selectors boldly named him at centre for the SANFL reserves second semi-final and preliminary final.

Four months later, Robran was based in Adelaide – and SANFL league football had a new sensation from the moment of his senior debut against premiers Sturt at Unley Oval.

Robran tied the count for the North Adelaide best-and-fairest award with his hero Don Lindner in 1967; had his first Magarey Medal in 1968; was named in the South Australian team for the national carnival in Adelaide in 1969; had his second Magarey Medal in 1970; was a premiership winner in 1971 and 1972; a Champion of Australia in 1972; a triple Magarey Medallist in 1973 and North Adelaide captain in 1974 when his playing career was ruined by a serious knee injury while on State duty.

The question never will be answered: Just how much was football – and Robran – robbed by injury?

Certainly the game – in particular the fans – were denied the weekly joy of watching an extraordinary player who could comfortably take to every position on the field and repeatedly mesmerised team-mates, opponents, North Adelaide supporters and opposition fans who repeatedly wished they had been blessed with Robran in their colours.

Where the knee was weakened, the spirit remained strong – as recalled by fourth-generation North Adelaide fan John Mitchell.

“Of course, Barrie was never the same after his knee injury,” Mitchell said, “but there were still some remarkable efforts. On one leg against a great Port Adelaide side in 1976, Barrie scored six goals just to remind everyone of his genius. There were huge screw punt goals in his 199th game against Norwood.

“And there was his ‘one-man band’ effort for North Adelaide in a battle for the wooden spoon in 1978. North Adelaide had not finished bottom of the ladder in 66 years and Barrie tried everything to save us from that embarrassment, but to no avail. One of the most poignant things I have ever seen on television the next day was when noted hard man and opposition coach Fos Williams simply said, ‘Barrie, I wish you would tell everyone how much you are suffering today, after your efforts yesterday’. Barrie replied: ‘I’m not too bad thanks Fos’.”

A man who had a strong devotion to the career of brash world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, Robran was in his public presentation quite the opposite to the outlandish American.

Robran was modest. He shunned the limelight. He even found it difficult to answer that question on South Australia’s greatest league footballer of all time: Robran or Ebert?

“If that is the case (that there are just two names to consider), we should respect each of us had different abilities,” Robran said in 2021. “It is nice to be mentioned … ”

Ebert, the Port Adelaide legend from the Riverland, was emphatic: “Barrie Robran was definitely the best player I have ever seen or played against.”

Robran repeatedly – out of loyalty to North Adelaide and a commitment to stay with his family in Adelaide – rebuffed offers to move to the VFL during a decade when the Victorians argued its league was the true measuring stick of a footballer’s ability.

But the Carlton players – in particular fellow national Hall of Fame “Legend” Alex Jesaulenko – made up their minds on Robran at the end of the 1972 season.

Jesaulenko applauded Robran after a passage of play during the 1972 Champions of Australia final, won by North Adelaide, at Adelaide Oval where Robran is remembered with a statue at the southern gates.

The admiration continued when Robran, as a member of the “All-Stars” team of VFL and non-Victorian stars, joined the Carlton squad on a promotional tour of London, Stuttgart in then West Germany, Moscow, Athens and Singapore.

Carlton premiership forward – and future premiership coach – Robert Walls recalls the impression Robran left on the Blues.

“At the end of that series,” said Walls, “every Carlton player, to a man, said Robran was the stand out among all the players we saw from outside the VFL – and that included (future Brownlow Medallist) Malcolm Blight.

“Left, right, he was so fluid on either side.

“There was no doubt among us that if Robran came to Victoria he would have been a star.”

Australian football lost greatly – on a day in 1974 when a South Australia v Victoria State game was supposed to build the game’s future outside traditional heartlands – by the knee injury suffered by Robran at the SCG.

Late in the match, already won by the Big V, Robran – who was State captain for the second time – chased a mistimed handball from team-mate Rick Davies and was crunched by Leigh Matthews. His left knee buckled.

“Barrie lost the freedom in his movement,” said team-mate Bohdan Jaworskyj.

“He was restricted in his movements – and could never again fully impose himself on a football match.”

Adds Glenelg premiership rival Graham Cornes: “The game always is bigger than any rival, but that day it lost an icon. There is no doubt about that. We never realised at that moment just how serious that incident was.”

Robran, after many operations and while wearing a heavy knee brace, worked his way to his 200th SANFL league game – at Prospect Oval on June 7, 1980 – and retired as a league player after his 201st match.

“Barrie’s love of the game is noted by his playing at (amateur club) Walkerville after that … until he suffered a serious ankle injury.”

Eager to take up many sports during his country upbringing, Robran is among a small group who represented South Australia in both league football and Sheffield Shield cricket.

He played two Shield matches in 1971-72 as a right-hand batsman against Western Australia and Victoria. Robran was active in sport in his later years with lawn bowls.

Robran gave such joy in football across so many quarters that there are telling tributes from five critical aspects of the game:

TEAM-MATE: Bohdan Jaworskyj, a member of North Adelaide’s Team of the Century, played 208 SANFL league games that began before Robran’s arrival at Prospect and ended with Robran as his senior coach.

As a player, Barrie was very special. He needed to be when he arrived from Whyalla and was named in a reserves team to play a final. That day I had to see what had inspired the selectors to make such a bold move.

And when you saw Barrie take the ball with one hand and put it to his boot – in one smooth motion across one step – you quickly understood why he was playing first up in a final.

I saw Barrie as a team-mate in games and as an opponent in trial matches. At centre half-forward, the toughest spot on the ground, he did everything you had to do.

But it was when he went onto the ball where he had room to move that that you saw everything that made Barrie the very special player he was.

He had strong evasive skills, probably formed while he was playing basketball in Whyalla. He would ‘wrong foot’ his opponent on the basketball court – and he would do it with ease on the football field.

He would easily run around players rather than quickly side-step them because he created that invaluable split second by putting them on the wrong foot.

Even I had to endure such a moment at training. I attempted to tackle Barrie from behind at one session. I had him cold … or so I thought.

Because once I went to wrap my arms around him, I was holding nothing but cold air.

Barrie had a presence on the field. You knew where he was. He knew what he had to do. He knew how to evade opponents.

Whatever was ‘natural’ with Barrie also was enhanced by his hard work on his skill base at training.

He would get to Prospect an hour before training to work on his own, developing greater skills with his kick and his control of the ball.

As a team player, Barrie was selfless. You just can’t find enough accolades to sum up Barrie.

I was just happy to be there at that time to be part of something so special with Barrie’s presence at North Adelaide.

As a man, Barrie was humble. He did not think he was so special. And he was the master of bad jokes. In fact, he relished telling bad jokes.

OPPONENT: Graham Cornes knew Robran as an opponent during his 317-game career at Glenelg – and at Robran’s home base at Whyalla.

Barrie was just sublime. He glided across the ground. He did everything so effortlessly, or so it appeared. He was impassible to tackle. And I don’t know why. Or how he did that. He was just so difficult to tackle. He had beautiful skills, either on the left or right foot.

I had known Barrie when I was playing at Centrals at Whyalla and Barrie was at North Whyalla. And when he came to Adelaide, Whyalla stopped and watched.

Barrie was a scrupulously fair player. He was the epitome of everything required of a best-and-fairest player. But there was a limit to his tolerance.

At Prospect one day, Neil Kerley had given me the task of negating Barrie. After half-time, we reached that limit with Barrie’s tolerance when he put his knee in my back. I was in shock, but the crowd at Prospect loved it.

You cannot ignore Barrie was a fantastic guy. A great player, a modest man.

UMPIRE: Hall of Fame umpire Murray Ducker filed Magarey Medal voting slips during the late 1960s and early 1970s when Robran wrote itself alongside “3 votes”.

Barrie was, as I call it, a ‘freak’. He would get in a pack of players, extract the ball and then run backwards to create space and players would chase but never catch him.

And then he made space for a team-mate with a handpass or perfect kick.

The number of times I would see Barrie get the ball and go backwards from a pack. Opponents went full pace forward and could not get him.

I would stand there as an umpire and ask myself, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ He was a freak.

Barrie was a brilliant mark; better than Russell Ebert. That is what settles it for me as to who was the better player.

Otherwise it is a 50-50 debate.

Barrie also was a gentle man. There was not a bad word in him.

MEDIA: Walkley Award-winning photographer – and North Adelaide devotee – Ray Titus regards a front-page image he captured at Adelaide Oval of Robran gracefully rising to the sky for a towering mark as his finest in five decades behind the camera.

Barrie was perfection. And perfection in everything he did on the football field, from his pick up of the ball to his high marks.

No matter what the situation was or demanded, Barrie was capable of making the toughest tasks appear so simple to him.

As a photographer, you had to keep the lens on him. The eye never wanted to look away from Barrie anyway. He was so smooth. He was elegant.

If he executed the stab pass or the drop kick, he did it with elegance. He was poetry in motion. It was beautiful to watch and to put on film.

FAN: John Mitchell, a fourth-generation North Adelaide supporter who saw all of Robran’s 201 SANFL league matches.

Like much of South Australia, the first time I set eyes on Barrie Robran was in the second semi-final for the seconds in 1966.

The seconds games were televised live in those days and the commentators couldn’t stop raving about this tall, lean centre half-forward.

North Adelaide lost that game and such was Robran’s form in the seconds preliminary final the week after that all the talk before the league game was that Robran would make his SANFL league debut in the grand final.

There was only one catch: North Adelaide was playing the mighty Sturt side who ultimately won by 85 points …

Incredibly, there wasn’t much talk about Robran during the summer until the week of the first game of the 1967 season.

On the Thursday night 5AD football show, Neil Kerley not only picked North Adelaide to beat the reigning premier, he also added that this kid, Robran, named to play centre, would be a great player.

He was right in that North Adelaide did beat Sturt but wrong about Robran. He turned out to be much better than great.

His efforts in the first half of that game led Sturt All-Australian Rick Schoff to turn to his captain John Halbert at half-time and ask “Who the hell is number 10?”.

Players of the ilk of Shearman, Bagshaw, Tilbrook and Schoff were all thrashed by Robran that day.

Let’s just say that Barrie could mark like his hero Don Lindner; he could handle the ball and baulk like Lindsay Head; he could kick either foot 60 yards and with pin-point accuracy and he had the courage similar to contemporaries like John Cahill and Ken Eustice.

He was the complete footballer and if only he hadn’t injured his knee in the final minutes of the 1974 State game, who knows how many Magarey Medals he would have won and how many more flags would North Adelaide have?

Some 15 years ago I told a West Adelaide supporter that I had seen every game that Barrie Robran played. This West supporter said to me: “You will never win the lottery; but by watching every game that Barrie has played, you have had more luck than any man deserves.”

Played: 201 SANFL league games with North Adelaide, 1967-1980; represented South Australia 17 times.
Coached: North Adelaide, 1978-1980.
Honours: Magarey Medallist, 1968, 1970 1973; North Adelaide premiership player, 1971 and 1972; North Adelaide best-and-fairest, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973; State captain, 1974; Champion of Australia with North Adelaide, 1972; Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend; South Australian Football Hall of Fame.