Some of the antics back in those days were mad house, here's a list of my greatest hits.
1. Coming in top place was copping a pile driver from a Samoan player who was getting frustrated by my 40 possession day out. I did get a free kick for that incident but that just encouraged him to kick me in the head during a ground ball contest.
2. I was followed from Punt Road up to Richmond train station by half an opposition team who were frothing at the mouth because I pinned someone in a perfectly executed tackle and bruised him up at little. Had to get the reinforcements to ensure my safe passage back to the Belgrave/Lilydale line.
3. Played in a Grand Final and went head to head with none other than the great Duncan Kellaway of the Glen Waverly Rovers, we lost by a kick, I took the points for 3 quarters and then the floodgates opened in the last. He was probably to the best player I played against whilst playing for MHS. No nasties from Duncan but he was a very physical player and not be be messed with.
4. Having a game cancelled against a technical college due to an excessive number of metallic objects found in the opposstion change rooms. Ninja movies were all the rage back in those days, as were the butterfly knives.
5. Being hip and shouldered in the head 10 metres off the ball in an away game which was the catalyst for my retirement from football. I never found my tooth either and have spent large sums on dental work ever since that incident.
On the topic of the MHS ground, it's tiny like the SCG, you could probably line up a goal from centre half back it's that small, in fact I think David Schwarz did roost one from that far back during a Sun Shield match in the early nineties. I was fortunate enough to see some elite talent pass through the gates at MHS, plenty of big names like Matthew Knights who helped me and a mate get into the Richmond change rooms, Paul Callery also helped in that regard. Stephen Ryan was a pretty good player, as was Stephen Tingay and Andy Lovell. High level footballers but still couldn't get the job done against Assumption College for some reason.
