The RIP thread | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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The RIP thread

RIP Max Merritt, another favourite of mine gone.
Loved Max & The Meteors, very sad news.
 
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waiting said:
Apparently played for the Tigers U19’s. Is that correct?
Was he a tigers supporter???
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He grew up in Mount Waverley or Glen Waverley which is the old Richmond zone. I wasn't aware that he played for our U/19s but if he played for anyone it would have been us. He was a gun junior footballer according to my mate who played school footy and cricket with him.

He played cricket for Carlton and his old man was a Carlton CC legend. I believe he supported Carlton FC as well but not entirely sure.
 
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Ridley said:
He grew up in Mount Waverley or Glen Waverley which is the old Richmond zone. I wasn't aware that he played for our U/19s but if he played for anyone it would have been us. He was a gun junior footballer according to my mate who played school footy and cricket with him.

He played cricket for Carlton and his old man was a Carlton CC legend. I believe he supported Carlton FC as well but not entirely sure.
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Thanks for that Riddles.
 
Grew up watching him play, loved him as he was the only Victorian batsman that could stay in the test team and one dayers. His running between wickets was the best of the time.
RIP
 
The Big Richo said:
Not ashamed to say I've spent most of the last 24 hours very emotional at this news.

Dean Jones was one of my first sporting heroes. I did everything like him on the cricket field, minus the ability.

When the penny dropped that I wasn't good enough to make it as a professional sportsman, it was people like the Legend who inspired me to find a way to get involved in the game another way. I was lucky enough to end up in the Australian cricket set-up in a professional capacity and I owe people like him some thanks for that.

In the Australian Cricket team dressing room, past players are revered. Always made welcome and treated with the upmost respect. It's an unwritten tradition but a very special one. But when Deano walked in the door it was different. The guys of that era had all idolised him and couldn't spend time with him fast enough. Even the King, Warnie, was like a kid around Deano.

Aussie cricketers would often talk about him in awe. If you've ever been to Chennai (Madras when he batted there) and felt the heat and humidity you'd appreciate the awesomeness of his double hundred there. I've seen guys bowl four overs and field for 16 in the IPL and lose 3 kilos. Whenever conditions or training was hard, one of the Aussie players would bring it up. It didn't attract the same attention but guys also always said a double hundred he got in Adelaide against the West Indies in mid 30 degrees temperature was another of the all time great test knocks as well.

As a young bloke I ran into him the day after he was controversially dropped from the Australian team. I was at golf tournament and he was in the gallery following his good mate Wayne Grady, who had Greg Ritchie as his caddy. Hat on, sunglasses on, he noticed me staring, knew he was spotted and said G'Day mate. I cherished it like an Olympic medal.

Years later I'd been in the same room as him many times but had never had the courage to go up to him and talk. Cricket is a very different game for support staff, you are treated as an equal and become one of the team with the players. I'd chatted to just about every Australian cricketer from the past three decades but never Deano. He was too great for me to approach.

Then one day in 2009, I hopped on a plane to head to South Africa for the IPL and found a silver haired bloke in the seat next to me. The Legend himself.

Before the plane had taxied to the runway we were chatting and for the next 14 hours we barely stopped. I couldn't get enough cricket questions out and once he found out I was soon to start with an AFL club he couldn't talk enough footy. Some of his footy opinions would have fit right in here, everyone was a champion or the worst player in the history of the game, nothing in between. At a certain point we switched to golf and compared notes on courses around Central Vic as he was living in Romsey, about an hour from where I grew up. The sort of bloke you could spend 5 minutes talking to and feel like you'd known him all your life. I guess I kind of had.

Once the ice was broken I had a mate for life. A week after that plane flight I sat at a restaurant and listened to Warne, Kevin Pieterson and Brad Hodge talk cricket. Not prizes for guessing who held court. I stayed real quiet. The promised game of golf at Romsey came and quite a few others after that.

When I changed AFL clubs and came back to Victoria it made Deano very happy because he had some inside word and a ticket into the rooms, not that he needed one. In return he would get me onto golf courses in Melbourne that even AFL stars would struggle to find a way in.

He sounded me out about joining him at a Pakistan 20/20 league side at one point but it wasn't the right time and my wife would have killed me if I'd seriously considered it and rightly so.

I didn't know The Legend well but I was lucky enough to know him a little bit. A warm, generous and kind man. He was huge in India, as big as Warnie, but I never saw him lose his cool with the masses of people who swamped him.

They say never meet your heroes, I feel bloody lucky to have met one of mine and had the chance to spend some small amount of time in his company. I just wish I'd had the guts to speak to him years earlier.

Vale Ledge.
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Thanks for sharing this TBR. I think as fans we 'get to know' our sporting heroes through following their careers, but you have actually got to know Deano. He changed the one-day game with his attacking batting and running between the wickets. Fantastic to watch. I can totally relate to you sitting next to Deano on the plane and talking non-stop, I would have done exactly that! His nickname of Legend was a nod to his self confidence, but it was well placed. RIP Legend.
 
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The Big Richo said:
Cheers, Ossie. In my experience the best blokes in professional sport are the ones who have never forgotten what it is like to be a fan. Deano was like a puppy dog around the Carlton boys, Warne is the same with St Kilda. Gilchrist would actually go and have a beer in a bar with supporter groups on tour overseas after play. Those sort of guys never seem to lose the feeling we all have as kids loving sport and for all the confidence and arrogance they show in their sport, have none of it off the field.
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That's so true TBR. I think deep down we all have our heroes and what you have said sums up how we feel when we get to see or mingle with our heroes. I remember as a 10 year-old boy meeting Mick Malthouse in his parents' home in Ballarat. Mick asked me who my favourite Tigers players were and I blurted out Disco and Rainsey. Probably should have given Mick a rap also! Even these past few weeks our school have arranged to purchase some socks from Cotch's 'Possisocks' company and emailing back and forth with Cotch gives me a buzz. Your background mingling with so many sports people has given you the chance to probably be a bit starstruck at times, but that's exciting!
 
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The Big Richo said:
Not ashamed to say I've spent most of the last 24 hours very emotional at this news.

Dean Jones was one of my first sporting heroes. I did everything like him on the cricket field, minus the ability.

When the penny dropped that I wasn't good enough to make it as a professional sportsman, it was people like the Legend who inspired me to find a way to get involved in the game another way. I was lucky enough to end up in the Australian cricket set-up in a professional capacity and I owe people like him some thanks for that.

In the Australian Cricket team dressing room, past players are revered. Always made welcome and treated with the upmost respect. It's an unwritten tradition but a very special one. But when Deano walked in the door it was different. The guys of that era had all idolised him and couldn't spend time with him fast enough. Even the King, Warnie, was like a kid around Deano.

Aussie cricketers would often talk about him in awe. If you've ever been to Chennai (Madras when he batted there) and felt the heat and humidity you'd appreciate the awesomeness of his double hundred there. I've seen guys bowl four overs and field for 16 in the IPL and lose 3 kilos. Whenever conditions or training was hard, one of the Aussie players would bring it up. It didn't attract the same attention but guys also always said a double hundred he got in Adelaide against the West Indies in mid 30 degrees temperature was another of the all time great test knocks as well.

As a young bloke I ran into him the day after he was controversially dropped from the Australian team. I was at golf tournament and he was in the gallery following his good mate Wayne Grady, who had Greg Ritchie as his caddy. Hat on, sunglasses on, he noticed me staring, knew he was spotted and said G'Day mate. I cherished it like an Olympic medal.

Years later I'd been in the same room as him many times but had never had the courage to go up to him and talk. Cricket is a very different game for support staff, you are treated as an equal and become one of the team with the players. I'd chatted to just about every Australian cricketer from the past three decades but never Deano. He was too great for me to approach.

Then one day in 2009, I hopped on a plane to head to South Africa for the IPL and found a silver haired bloke in the seat next to me. The Legend himself.

Before the plane had taxied to the runway we were chatting and for the next 14 hours we barely stopped. I couldn't get enough cricket questions out and once he found out I was soon to start with an AFL club he couldn't talk enough footy. Some of his footy opinions would have fit right in here, everyone was a champion or the worst player in the history of the game, nothing in between. At a certain point we switched to golf and compared notes on courses around Central Vic as he was living in Romsey, about an hour from where I grew up. The sort of bloke you could spend 5 minutes talking to and feel like you'd known him all your life. I guess I kind of had.

Once the ice was broken I had a mate for life. A week after that plane flight I sat at a restaurant and listened to Warne, Kevin Pieterson and Brad Hodge talk cricket. Not prizes for guessing who held court. I stayed real quiet. The promised game of golf at Romsey came and quite a few others after that.

When I changed AFL clubs and came back to Victoria it made Deano very happy because he had some inside word and a ticket into the rooms, not that he needed one. In return he would get me onto golf courses in Melbourne that even AFL stars would struggle to find a way in.

He sounded me out about joining him at a Pakistan 20/20 league side at one point but it wasn't the right time and my wife would have killed me if I'd seriously considered it and rightly so.

I didn't know The Legend well but I was lucky enough to know him a little bit. A warm, generous and kind man. He was huge in India, as big as Warnie, but I never saw him lose his cool with the masses of people who swamped him.

They say never meet your heroes, I feel bloody lucky to have met one of mine and had the chance to spend some small amount of time in his company. I just wish I'd had the guts to speak to him years earlier.

Vale Ledge.
Click to expand...
Great post Richo thanks for the personal insight.

He was one of my favourites. Loved the way he played. Thought he was very poorly treated by selectors at the end. I was very annoyed by that at the time. Should have played a lot more tests. Damien Martyn pfffffft.
 
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In contrast to TBR, I didn't hesitate at my one and only chance to meet Deano, who - as for so many of us 80s boys, was my hero.

It was the 1984 Boxing Day Test against the West Indies. My brother, my cousin and I were hanging out in the MCC members, front row of the second tier, edge of the old Ponsford Stand right next to the the old pavilion.

Deano was already my favourite player, even though he'd only played a couple of Tests in the West Indies and a handful of one-dayers. He didn't play in this series but I spied him sitting at ground level and pointed him out.

My cousin's cousin on the other side was with us too. He was a year or two older, and challenged me: "Oh, that's Dean Jones, is it?" "Yep." "Go talk to him then." "Okay."

So I marched down and sat next to him on those old faded green aluminium benches that burnt your legs if the sun was out and you had shorts on.

"G'day, Deano."

"G'day, mate!"

"You should be in the team."

"I know, mate. Tell the selectors."

That's all I remember, other than he was wearing a light pink business shirt and was very accommodating to a star-struck 12-year-old.

God, he could play. Brilliant, brave, dashing, batted the way you wished you could bat, and danced to his own drum. To me, there's a line of players in that ilk: Kim Hughes, Dean Jones, Michael Slater, Glenn Maxwell. They've all been my favourite batsman at one point.

I spoke to my Dad about him this morning and he remembered that meeting too. His cricket hero Neil Harvey outlived mine. *smile* 'in life.
 
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Ridley said:
Great post Richo thanks for the personal insight.

He was one of my favourites. Loved the way he played. Thought he was very poorly treated by selectors at the end. I was very annoyed by that at the time. Should have played a lot more tests. Damien Martyn pfffffft.
Click to expand...
There's a long list of Victorian bastmen treated shabbily by the selectors, back as far as Graham Yallop, Jones, Matthew Elliott, Brad Hodge, and Jamie Siddons, (never got a look in).
 
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The Big Richo said:
Not ashamed to say I've spent most of the last 24 hours very emotional at this news.

Dean Jones was one of my first sporting heroes. I did everything like him on the cricket field, minus the ability.

When the penny dropped that I wasn't good enough to make it as a professional sportsman, it was people like the Legend who inspired me to find a way to get involved in the game another way. I was lucky enough to end up in the Australian cricket set-up in a professional capacity and I owe people like him some thanks for that.

In the Australian Cricket team dressing room, past players are revered. Always made welcome and treated with the upmost respect. It's an unwritten tradition but a very special one. But when Deano walked in the door it was different. The guys of that era had all idolised him and couldn't spend time with him fast enough. Even the King, Warnie, was like a kid around Deano.

Aussie cricketers would often talk about him in awe. If you've ever been to Chennai (Madras when he batted there) and felt the heat and humidity you'd appreciate the awesomeness of his double hundred there. I've seen guys bowl four overs and field for 16 in the IPL and lose 3 kilos. Whenever conditions or training was hard, one of the Aussie players would bring it up. It didn't attract the same attention but guys also always said a double hundred he got in Adelaide against the West Indies in mid 30 degrees temperature was another of the all time great test knocks as well.

As a young bloke I ran into him the day after he was controversially dropped from the Australian team. I was at golf tournament and he was in the gallery following his good mate Wayne Grady, who had Greg Ritchie as his caddy. Hat on, sunglasses on, he noticed me staring, knew he was spotted and said G'Day mate. I cherished it like an Olympic medal.

Years later I'd been in the same room as him many times but had never had the courage to go up to him and talk. Cricket is a very different game for support staff, you are treated as an equal and become one of the team with the players. I'd chatted to just about every Australian cricketer from the past three decades but never Deano. He was too great for me to approach.

Then one day in 2009, I hopped on a plane to head to South Africa for the IPL and found a silver haired bloke in the seat next to me. The Legend himself.

Before the plane had taxied to the runway we were chatting and for the next 14 hours we barely stopped. I couldn't get enough cricket questions out and once he found out I was soon to start with an AFL club he couldn't talk enough footy. Some of his footy opinions would have fit right in here, everyone was a champion or the worst player in the history of the game, nothing in between. At a certain point we switched to golf and compared notes on courses around Central Vic as he was living in Romsey, about an hour from where I grew up. The sort of bloke you could spend 5 minutes talking to and feel like you'd known him all your life. I guess I kind of had.

Once the ice was broken I had a mate for life. A week after that plane flight I sat at a restaurant and listened to Warne, Kevin Pieterson and Brad Hodge talk cricket. Not prizes for guessing who held court. I stayed real quiet. The promised game of golf at Romsey came and quite a few others after that.

When I changed AFL clubs and came back to Victoria it made Deano very happy because he had some inside word and a ticket into the rooms, not that he needed one. In return he would get me onto golf courses in Melbourne that even AFL stars would struggle to find a way in.

He sounded me out about joining him at a Pakistan 20/20 league side at one point but it wasn't the right time and my wife would have killed me if I'd seriously considered it and rightly so.

I didn't know The Legend well but I was lucky enough to know him a little bit. A warm, generous and kind man. He was huge in India, as big as Warnie, but I never saw him lose his cool with the masses of people who swamped him.

They say never meet your heroes, I feel bloody lucky to have met one of mine and had the chance to spend some small amount of time in his company. I just wish I'd had the guts to speak to him years earlier.

Vale Ledge.
Click to expand...
That was wonderful reading.
Brought a tear.
Lucky guy Richo to have met your Aust Cricket idol and have held such conversations.

Still in shock .
 
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