The late Richmond star Billy Barrot was a one off as a footballer as he showed in a 2004 Inside Football interview with Mal Brown. Barrot passed away today at the age of 72. The extensive interview shows the flamboyant “Bustling Billy’s” unique approach to the game.
Every Grand Final produces a big performer and Billy Barrot was the classic big-game performer in Richmond’s 1967 and 1969 flag sides. As MAL BROWN discovered, he was a fascinating and resilient character.
MAL: I think of Bill Barrot as having all the flair and the beautiful drop kicking ability. We thought of you this week because we wanted to know about preparing for finals footy. Did you prepare yourself any differently for finals than for normal home and away games.
BARROT: Mentally I did . Every night I trained in the month before the finals I prepared my brain as if someone was chasing me – an invisible man or my shadow – whichever way you want to look at it. I’d put pressure on myself in every training session to bring myself up to the maximum.
MAL: You always did extra training?
BARROT: Yes. I did a lot of body-building. I had my own set of weights from caddy money I had earned at Riversdale Golf Club when I was 14 years of age. I was lifting 140 pounds then
MAL: Every great player is eccentric. Were you eccentric at your football?
BARROT: Definitely. You could call it narrow-minded or blinkered vision. I remember nights at Richmond where I would train for two hours and I wasn’t happy with my training and I’d go home and put my runners on and practice my sprinting for another 25 minutes. So I guess you could call that eccentric. Another time I played at the MCG against Hassa Mann. I was about three or four pounds overweight. I went down to Ashwood and trained for an hour and a half with the tracksuit on and then went out and had 30 kicks. I was coach of West Torrens and I ran the players around the streets for three hours with Wayne Jackson when he was there. They had never beaten Port Adelaide at Port Adelaide, ever, and we kicked a record score!
MAL: How do you think history will remember Bill Barrot.
BARROT: History mightn’t remember Bill Barrot. I look in the mirror and think, well, your tried your hardest in a sport that you didn’t actually love – I was going to be a pro golfer when I was 15 or 16.
MAL: Do you think the football world really understood you?
BARROT: No, they never did understand me, I remember when I played for Glen Iris under-16s, I barracked for Melbourne and Richmond. My father used to take me alternately to the two games. Barassi was my hero, and still is I suppose. People never understood they the real Bill Barrot. Tommy Hafey says I always did what I wasn’t supposed to do, but that’s not really true, I always followed instructions. When I was at Carlton, Barassi was surprised that I changed my style of football from the long kick game at Richmond to handball, short pass game at Carlton. But I tell the story of Tommy Hafey sending the runner out and asking why I was running down one side of the ground when I’d been told to run down the other. I said there were two girls walking along Punt Road and I had a date with one of them!
MAL: When you started I believe that you were only 11 stone and you built up to 13 stone. Was it fair to say that for a while you concentrated more on bodybuilding than footy?
BARROT: In one way it did affect me through my reflexes, but in another way I could knock the bigger fellows down with strength. I know Graeme Richmond used to say to pull back on the weights. In summer I’d get up to 15 or 16 stone in summer time. It was just drinking milk and protein.
MAL: Did you drink much alcohol?
BARROT: No not much – a bit of stout.
MAL: You could clean and jerk 200 pounds at one stage……
BARROT: I could bench press 300 pounds. I’d do 20 minutes before training and 20 minutes after. During the summer you only had three months to get onto them.
MAL: You once did 800 sit-ups on an inclined plane in a contest that wore down four teammates.
BARROT: That’s right – I think it was Wayne Walsh, Ray Ball and Keith Smythe. I think Ray Ball had a second go. I had blisters on my bum for three days!
MAL: John Worsfold did a heap of sit-ups and they thought it may have contributed to his groin and hamstring problems.
BARROT: Well I never had a groin problem and never had a hamstring problem.
MAL: You had brilliant skills, but you were sometimes criticised for not being a team player. That seemed unfair.
BARROT: I wouldn’t say that. Although I know I sometimes knocked my teammates down on the training track. They’d say settle down, Bugsie, and I’d say to get out of my road – I’m, running in that direction. If Hafey said do something I did it and if Barassi said do something it was the same.
MAL: When you played with the Tigers you liked to roam free and Bull Richardson and Mick Bowden would pick up your man. That worked pretty well didn’t it?
BARROT: And Tony Jewell too. He’s had a rest in the centre too. I know Neville Crowe would say to get back into the centre, but I could run all day on the MCG., and we worked it out.
MAL: Does it give you the irrits today when a bloke gets 25 to 30 possessions and depending on the opposition of the game he changes his game and goes into defence to pick up easy kicks?
BARROT: We weren’t allowed to go backwards for a start, but what annoys me is when players stand there, go back take ages to kick the ball and then kick backwards. They should put goals on the wings! Then you see them in a desperate game with three minutes to go they are all kicking the ball long. Why not do that at the start? I’m not against the short pass if it is done properly. They try to kick torpedoes and you are lucky to see one or two come off. They roll it off they side of the boot.
MAL: You were part of the famous centreline with Francis Bourke and Dick Clay. Did you three have a competition to see who could kick it longest?
BARROT: No we had more of a competition to see who’d get the ball. Sometimes we’d have the ball 90 times between us. Francis could have been a far better player if he hadn’t broken his leg. After that he used to run like a crab.
MAL: Who was the best of the three?
BARROT: I always thought for all-round ability out it was Dick Clay who could play from full-back to full-forward. Royce (Hart) couldn’t play centre half back or full-back. Dick was the most versatile in my time at Richmond. Dick was a modern day sort of player.
MAL: Was the 1967 Grand Final the high point of your career? That performance would have earned a Norm Smith Medal if it had been going in those days.
BARROT: Well, I don’t know. All the papers said I was best and my statistics were that I had twice as many kicks as any other Richmond player.
MAL: Were you popular with the umpires?
BARROT: Well I went to the tribunal 16 times. I was reported for kicking Ralphie Sewer when I was playing for West Torrens. He’d kicked four goals on me in the first quarter. At the tribunal he pulled his pants down and showed the stopmarks up to his bum.
MAL: How did things turn sour for you at Richmond . There were rumours of disputes between you and some officials and there was even talk of a punch-up between you and Tony Jewell. You can tell us now 34 years later what really happened.
BARROT: Tony and I had a good punch-up in a practice game one night, but there was nothing in that. I did that with Sheedy too – I waited for him in the car park for two hours one night. Someone said to him “where did you get to, Sheedy” and he said “Bugsy was going to belt the shit out of me. I walked across the ground and caught the train home!”
MAL: So what happened that caused them to swap you?
BARROT: Nothing. I don’t know to this day. I suppose you’ve got ask did St Kilda want to get rid of Ian Stewart and did Bill Barrot want to leave Richmond? You can think about that one.
MAL: Were you were close to Tommy Hafey?
BARROT: I respected his decisions and most players were close to him. I didn’t always follow his decisions. I remember one day at Essendon, you should know that ground, Mal. I hadn’t been playing well, the runner Paddy Guinane came out 12 times to take me off the ground. Eventually I came off and as I was going up the race a guy flicked a cigarette butt in my eye. I turned around and went bang and broke his nose.
I didn’t believe in us training too hard on Thursday night. One funny scenario was that every important game for Richmond, Tommy’s father used to ring me up on a Saturday morning to see how I was going. Yet Tommy never knew about it – I told him eight or nine years ago. He’s passed on now, Mr Hafey,
MAL: There was even talk of you being offered $25,000 to play gridiron. Did you seriously consider it?
BARROT: I was close to it. We could kick that gridiron ball 80 to 85 yards – myself and Barry Davis. That’s not exaggerating . The approach was through Herbie Matthews – his sister had a friend in LA – I wanted to do it, but it didn’t eventuate. They said I had to build myself up to a muscly 14 stone to withstand the punishment which I could have done.
MAL: You had some huge kicks…
BARROT: I think the longest I’ve kicked the ball was at the MCG. They measured it at 80 yards. In Dickie Clay’s first game I kicked the ball from five paces out of the centre and hit the fence on the full at the northern end. Charlie Callendar was going to measure it a thousand times but never did.
MAL: Your time at St Kilda amounted to just seven quarters of football. It was a huge story when you were dropped after just your second game. Was it a clash of personalities with Allan Jeans.
BARROT: I remember we played a practice game against Claremont and I kicked four goals in the last quarter at centre half-forward, I had played in the centre and got best on the ground in the newspapers. After the game Allan Jeans said “I don’t think you played well, son”. I thought it was a bit strange. They never played me in the centre in two games, then it was off to Carlton. Ray Dunn ( Richmond president and solicitor) did draw up my contract said just stay there for now, and when he got it organised he got me out and I went to Carlton.
MAL: Did you find it strange they never played you in the centre?
BARROT: When he said that after the practice game I’d had about 34 kicks and kicked four goals in the last quarter. I thought it was a bit strange. He didn’t like my attacking football because Allan coached as a defensive coach – not an attacking coach like Hafey or Barassi.
MAL: Did you try and adapt your style?
BARROT: For sure, money wise Ian Stewart was getting the same money at Richmond that I was at St Kilda. It was very disappointing that I didn’t succeed there.
MAL: Were you shattered at leaving Richmond?
BARROT: Oh yes. It broke my heart.
MAL: Something died in you?
BARROT: Yes. Ben Alexander tried to get me back to Richmond through Graeme Richmond and Tommy. I know he tried to get me back there a few times but it didn’t eventuate.
MAL: What stage was that?
BARROT: When I left St Kilda and later on.
MAL: You went to Carlton in the second half of the year and did well but there were said to be contract problems the following summer.
BARROT: I did pretty well at Carlton. I played 12 games and came eighth in the best and fairest – kicked six goals from the centre one day. Later on the president of Oakleigh told me that Bert Deacon wanted me to stay there. I was promised a few dollars for the next season and few players kicked up because they thought I was getting more than I really was. They had to let me go to make the other players happy.
MAL: You went to Oakleigh in 1972 and played under Big Bob Johnson. He was a character and later on he dropped you in the finals.
BARROT: We won the 1972 premiership. Later on he dropped me for a Grand Final and they had to sell a racehorse named Count Cobbler to pay me! What happened was that in ’72 we won the premiership, then I went to West Torrens where I broke my wrist after a bloke attacked me in the social club while I was having a drink with Freddie Bills and the boys. This alcoholic attacked me from behind. We went before the committee and they said ‘Barrot, you are banned from the social club for a month’, but they let the other bloke keep drinking there. That was an insult to my intelligence, and I went back to Oakleigh, played poorly and they dropped me for that finals series in 1974.
MAL: Was Big Bob a good coach?
BARROT: He could have been a better coach. He’d try and belittle you in front of others – a bit like Barassi. Lovable , but they used to say if he was having a drink in a bar don’t stand in front of him because he might whack you!
MAL: Now these days you work in sales for Noaki printing supplies, and you train horses.
ARROT: I bred racehorses for 30 years and trained them as an owner-trainer for 20 years. I only had them running around the bush.
MAL: In 1974 you said “I’m a money making machine. I get no pleasure out of football I never have. I don’t like the game, in fact in a way I hate it.” That was pretty strong stuff.
BARROT: I’ve got that at home in my scrapbook. I did write for the Herald-Sun with John Craven. When I read the articles he would twist it around to sensationalise it. It got me in big trouble. As for the money-making machine comment that’s rubbish, we all played for money, we work for money. Some of the things that were written about me were more than untrue.
MAL: I was talking to a group of current players recently who said the two things that diappoint me most were the AFL and its regulations, and the media. Was that the same in your day?
BARROT: Especially when they are waiting outside your home at three o’clock in the morning . And some of the stories that come out from the club, from leaks, were terrible. They’ve got to sell newspapers and it gets to that stage where you don’t want to go out. Even today I don’t go out a lot because of the public image – not because of being in trouble or anything, but your nervous system can’t cope with that.
MAL: At the end of 1977 you quit the VFA because you were sick of football and had been concussed three times.
BARROT: I coached Oakleigh and had concussion five weeks in a row and kept playing. In the last game against Yarraville with David Thorpe I copped a knock to the side of the head and I didn’t even remember driving home. At the end of the year I had a nervous breakdown.
MAL: Until the Jeff Kennett initiatives these days would you have said that in the open?
BARROT: I tell the truth. I’m a Christian minded person. I’ve read the Bible right through – the new testament twice. That’s just me – I’ve been like that since I was 11 years of age.
MAL: How did you get through that nervous breakdown?
BARROT: You are not in control of your own thoughts or system at the time. There’s some other situation putting stupid thoughts in your head. People wouldn’t understand it. Anything to help people get through it is good.
MAL: Who helped you. Did you get through it yourself?
BARROT: You always do. You are the best healer of one’s self. I wouldn’t want to go that hard – it’s like a thousand football games in one day. It was great learning curve for me and taught me a lot about life and how to be a better person. I’ve always been super-honest and being that honest can get you in a lot of trouble – as you know, Mal!
I’ve nearly died five times. When I was 11 I almost drowned , when I was 23 I had a heart attack while I was running up sandhills at Torquay – my heart stopped and I collapsed and fell flat on my face. I even played half a practice game the next day. I didn’t train hard for the next there months. I had an appendix operation where I was in and out of consciousness for the next there or four days. Then the nervous breakdown and the heart attacks at Punt Road last year.
MAL: You’ve had a fibrillator put in. If you hadn’t been playing football (in the veterans game) and had attention at Epworth Hospital 200 metres away you might not have lived.
BARROT: I trained two or three months before the game even if I was a little bit overweight. Dr David Marsh explained to me that it was cholestorol that broke off and blocked the main artery. He said it was just like being in a car accident and it was a fluke. Otherwise I’d be at home and the dog would be licking my face as I was on the floor. It was good that I was with people at the time.
MAL: Now on a lighter note, you’ve had your battle with depression. How much of it’s been brought on by the Tigers ?
BARROT: Ha ha! The more I stay away the better I feel!
MAL: You played under 16 different coaches including some legendary names such as Tom Hafey, Len Smith, Allan Jeans and Ron Barassi.
BARROT: I started under Dickie Harris , Des Rowe , Alan McDonald … Tommy Hafey was an endurance coach, like a Melbourne Cup trainer and you would run your opposition off your feet – like a Bart Cummings. Ron Barassi was an “Angus Armanasco” type – quick handball, quick short pass, quick in the mind type of coach. Bob Johnson was a little bit different again. He had a bit of Melbourne in him. As long as you kicked it to Bob you got a game. But unfortunately I used to go “bang” and have a shot! Allan Jeans was more of a defensive coach.
MAL: What was your funniest moment as a footballer?
BARROT: I don’t know, I’ve never thought about that. It’s not easy being a footballer. You’ve got to live your life as a footballer whether you are out on the ground or in the public. To get up each day, and think where did I go wrong. They’ve got the TV replays now and they say ‘look at that why did you do that wrong?’ There’s too much control of football these days and they should open up their minds and let them do what they want to do more. I don’t believe in control. I’m uncontrollable to a degree, I know right from wrong , but I don’t like to be controlled. As for the funniest thing – I suppose sitting here and telling you the truth!