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Benny "Nostradamus" Gale
- Thread starter rush
- Start date
He should present the Cup if we happen to win.
Gale has been a godsend for our club.
Gale has been a godsend for our club.
Benny was also a great soldier for the Tiges, dropping back in defence taking timely marks.
Did the Swamp Fox's number 25 proud.
Never saw him lose it as a player. He must be a very calm and calculating operator giving enormous respect to all employees at Tigerland.
Did the Swamp Fox's number 25 proud.
Never saw him lose it as a player. He must be a very calm and calculating operator giving enormous respect to all employees at Tigerland.
Yep, he was an expert at dropping back in the hole and taking intercept marks. When he started, he couldn't take an overhead mark to save himself...but turned into an extremely reliable overhead mark. I always use Benny as an example of young KP players who drop marks early in their career. With confidence and experience they start to clunk marks more than they drop them. Think Balta. Mabs isn't there yet, but I think we should persist.
I remember his game in the 95 semi against Essendon. Was probably the worst game I've seen anyone play. He couldn't do a thing right. Fortunately we won and he was able to have a laugh about it later.
Great man
But you’re right about his marking in early days. There used to be great photos in the Monday’s papers showing Benny above the pack in a marking contest and the ball about to arrive in his outstretched hands. Trouble was that in real life he’d usually have fumbled the bloody thing.
He deserves this one as much as anyone does
One memory of Benny I’ll treasure till I go to my grave happened long after he finished his playing career. September 29th 2017, the day before the great day. I was walking up punt road alongside the ground, early on for the parade. Up ahead, near the traffic lights next to the car park exit, I saw a lanky guy looking like he was trying to hail a taxi. My eyesight isn’t flash so I didn’t notice who it was until I was basically a few metres from him. I don’t normally do this but I just yelled out “ Benny!!!” It must have been a bit loud because it made him jump a little 
I went up to him and we shook hands and I said to him I just wanted to thank him for everything he had done to bring our club to where it was then. He took the time to chat to me for a few minutes. Really humble guy. Said let’s hope it goes well tomorrow.
He did an awesome job to get us the position where we could play off for our first flag in nearly 4 decades. He has done a monumental job to make us even better since then.
I went up to him and we shook hands and I said to him I just wanted to thank him for everything he had done to bring our club to where it was then. He took the time to chat to me for a few minutes. Really humble guy. Said let’s hope it goes well tomorrow.He did an awesome job to get us the position where we could play off for our first flag in nearly 4 decades. He has done a monumental job to make us even better since then.
It would be great to see Benny interview Gazzy about his Melbourne plans all those years ago.. 
I always liked Benny as a player. During the shutdown this season they played a games against the Dogs in ‘94. Probably Benny’s best game as a player. He was everywhere that day, forward, ruck, defence, wound up saving the game and we snuck over the line by less than a goal.
Bennnny
Punt Road End. The best place to watch The Tiges.
I've known Brendan since the 90's. He has a wonderful family, loves music passionately, especially the Beasts of Bourbon. I talked to him at the family day after 2019 GF and praised him. He just said it was the team around him, wouldn't single himself out. We owe him and the team so much.
Benny's work...
How Richmond have embarrassed Dons, Pies and Blues
How Richmond have embarrassed Dons, Pies and Blues
Richmond's performances, on and off the field, over the past four seasons - despite a season marred by scandals - have embarrassed rivals Essendon, Carlton and Collingwood.
On the day that Richmond prevailed over Port Adelaide to enter a third grand final in four seasons, Essendon's new president announced an investigation into all aspects of the football program.
Essendon's investigation had been sparked by the exit of Adam Saad, which the president Paul Brasher admitted had "blindsided" him. The Bombers had known that Joe Daniher, having sought a trade last year, was likely to leave, and that the lure of home for Irishman Conor McKenna and South Australian Orazio Fantasia could lead to them departing.
The Tigers have left their big Victorian rivals behind in recent years.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
"The club's first step is to build back respect as a formidable on-field opponent," Brasher told The Age and the Herald.
On the previous day, Collingwood had been not exactly blindsided, but still confronted with the legal force of a Supreme Court writ by former 2010 premiership player Heritier Lumumba – a situation the Magpies had at least been braced for, having announced their own investigation into Lumumba's allegations of racism at the club from 2005 until 2014.
That investigation is being conducted by noted Indigenous academic Larissa Behrendt. It is unclear what impact, if any, Lumumba's lawsuit will have on Collingwood's internal probe, the Magpies having foreshadowed that a mea culpa was on the cards.
Lumumba had said he would not participate in the club's investigation.
Carlton, meanwhile, have completed yet another season without finals, while watching the coach the Blues brutally jettisoned in 2012, Brett Ratten, coax St Kilda into finals and to a spirited effort in the semi-final against Richmond, who themselves enter this grand final week as the competition's nonpareil club. Only Geelong have claims to rivalling the Tigers for consistent performance.
Richmond's performances, on and off-field, over the past four seasons – despite a 2020 marred by scandals – have embarrassed Essendon, Carlton and even Collingwood.
Or they should have embarrassed those clubs, who have not kept pace with Richmond where it counts most: winning games, finals and premierships.
Essendon's failing is the most egregious compared with their yellow-sash rivals, who have donated not only incoming coach Ben Rutten, his assistant Blake Caracella and football boss Daniel Richardson, but four decades ago, handed the then-mediocre Bombers the figure who would become the club's most towering figure since the second world war, Kevin Sheedy.
That Sheedy was enlisted on to the club board – having served as a paid ambassador over the past few years – was a measure of Essendon's need to pacify increasingly angry and despondent fans.
It was a political appointment at a highly political club, which has been lumbered with the legacy of the drug saga, just as the Blues spent a long time under the weight of the 2002 draft penalties for salary cap cheating.
Richmond, for so long a laughing stock among the "big four" – or what Brian Cook, Geelong's sage chief executive once called "The Beatles" – have out-performed Essendon, Carlton and, to a lesser extent, the Magpies on every football front: list management, coaching and conditioning.
The failings of the Dons, Blues and Pies compared with Richmond are not uniform, but a few are shared. One is that Richmond's coaching is well ahead.
Richmond have a complex defensive system.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
The Tigers, third again this home and away season, do not have an overpowering level of talent in the manner of Geelong of 2007-2011 or Hawthorn of 2012-2015, though their list has depth.
Their finals-built game plan involves taking territory, pressure and embracing chaos, yet is complex defensively. A third flag with this list – in which role players such as Kane Lambert are meshed with superstars – would arguably be the greatest achievement by an AFL senior coach and his panel yet.
Significantly, the Tigers have all bar one of their nine coaches in their Gold Coast hub in a year of slashed budgets.
The Bombers, most obviously, have sought to fuse Richmond elements into their game style, without Richmond's personnel, on-field leadership or hard-edged resilience.
Collingwood emulated aspects of Richmond's "connection" between players and sped up their ball movement in 2018, only to fall back to a more indirect, possession-heavy style compared with the Tigers' leaner method.
Collingwood's main failing, relative to the Tigers, has been in list management planning, notably (not) for a key forward, as symbolised by Tom Lynch, and in some long-term legacy contracts that have seen the Pies become a bystander in free agency and with limited scope for trades.
The Lumumba situation can be contrasted with Richmond's success in the multicultural arena. Tellingly, the Tigers have had enormous success with Indigenous talent, while Collingwood, unless they find a player this post-season, will not have one Indigenous player on the list next year after Travis Varcoe's retirement - a reflection of each club's support network as much as recruiting calls.
To be measured against Richmond is galling for the Magpies, given they've been tantalisingly close to the grail and are the only club to upend the Tigers in a cut-throat final since 2017; the inches that separate those clubs have turned into premiership miles.
The Blues haven't gone down a Richmond-esque path in coaching, but have imported two key figures with Richmond passports.
First was chief executive Cain Liddle, who presided over the Tigers' membership growth in 2017 and was hired, in part, to propel that kind of groundswell within a long-dormant and disillusioned Carlton fan base.
The second executive with a tinge of Tigerland was list manager Nick Austin, who had worked in recruiting at Richmond and then the Bulldogs. Austin had replaced Stephen Silvagni, the favourite son whom Liddle had forced out.
Carlton's aggression in acquiring Zac Williams and then seeking to trade in Saad confirmed that the club had moved past that ground-zero rebuild of 2015. The Blues, if some distance away, at least have a direction.
Essendon's issues have been largely football-based, since the club has brilliantly recovered financially, in no small measure due to the hard toil of Brasher and chief executive Xavier Campbell.
But, as that pair have discovered, fans give administrations little credit for fiscal recitude or recovery; they care only for the win-loss ledger.
agreed. Struggling for footy news this week I guess.
In the comments section aside from the usual angst from non-Tigers about it just being our turn and no Martin no Richmond, we would not have him if we had been any good, 30+ years of ineptitude, ninethmond etc etc but the most vitriol seems to be around Niall lumping cwood in with carl and ess.
I guess I can see the cwood fans could feel insulted, being aligned with those 2 cheating non-performing clubs.
We were at rock bottom and about to open the season with a 9-game losing streak. Imagine North’s CEO (what’s his name?) saying this now and you get a sense of how audacious the plan seemed at the time. Its scope was magnificent and its (virtual) fulfilment has been breathtaking in its execution.
He's part of the team so maybe not this year but I'd be happy for him to present every one we win once he's moved on from his job.
Benny Gale will go down as one of the most influential figures in our club's history. Up there with Jack Dyer & Tom Hafey and in my opinion above Graeme Richmond
