Lou Richards
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| Personal information | |
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| Birth | March 15, 1923 , Collingwood, Victoria |
| Recruited from | |
| Height and weight | 170 cm, 73 kg |
| Playing career¹ | |
| Debut | 1941, Collingwood vs. , at |
| Team(s) | Collingwood (1941-55)
250 Games |
| ¹ Statistics to end of 1955 season | |
| Career highlights | |
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Lewis Thomas Charles "Lou" Richards (born March 15, 1923) is a former Australian rules footballer, who played 250 games with the Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1941 and 1955. Richards married Edna Lillian Bowie in 1948 and their life-long romance has been an inspiration to Melburnians.[1] The couple have two daughters.[1]
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[edit] Playing career
Born in Collingwood, Victoria, Richards' passion for Collingwood grew out of family connections – he followed in the footsteps of his grand father Charlie H. Pannam (shortened from Pannamopoulos after migrating to Australia from Greece), and uncles Albert, Charles and Alby Pannam, all former Magpie players. His brother Ron Richards also played for the club. The Richards/Pannam dynasty made Collingwood the only club to have been captained by three generations of the one family. As a family they played over 1200 games between them.
Richards played as a rover, resting in the forward pocket wearing the #1 guernsey.
The outstanding feature of Richards' play — apart, that is, from his propensity for kicking opponents in the shins that was common to all of the Pannams — was his extraordinary capacity to successfully and relentlessly rove to a losing ruck (which he did for most of his career).
He was captain for four years. He captained Collingwood to the 1953 premiership, when the club had undergone its first ever flag ‘drought’ of 17 years.
[edit] Post-playing career
Once Richards retired from football he began managing Melbourne hotels of which the most famous was the Phoenix Hotel in Flinders Street. Ever at his side, Edna helped manage the hotel where 'journos' from the nearby Herald and Weekly Times were regulars especially on Two-up Tuesdays and for the infamous Phoenix Olympics.[2]
Richards also began a long career in the media, beginning as a sport journalist for The Argus and later The Sun News-Pictorial where he gained the nickname of 'Louie the Lip'. He was a very popular commentator on both radio and television with his great mate Jack Dyer.[4] He also appeared on the popular World of Sport program. In the 1990s and 2000s, he made regular appearances on both The Footy Show and the Sunday Footy Show. He is currently involved in handing out sponsor's prizes and continues to liven up the set with his classic humour and running of Lou's Handball, a handball game between two AFL players. Some running jokes on the show include his send up of Telefunken electronic products.
As a football tipster, Richards was known as a Kiss of Death and regularly backed-up his tips with famous dares: "I'll cut Teddy Whitten's lawn with nail scissors" or "I'll jump off St Kilda pier."[2]
1972, saw Richards appointed Court Jester to King of Moomba Johnny Farnham; he followed this by becoming King of Moomba himself in 1981.[3]
In 1996 Lou Richards was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
In 2004, due to his Greek heritage, Lou Richards was named captain of the Greek Team of Century.
Richards was devastated, in 2005, when his beloved Edna had to be admitted into care with Dementia, "I miss being with my wife all the time. We went down the street together, went to the football together. I haven't got her now... I go and see her but its not the same."[1]
On Saturday 8 March 2008 Lou's beloved wife Edna died. She was 87 years.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Lucy Beaumont, (13 Feb 2005), The Age, 'The two (or three) of us' accessed on 9 Sep 2007 at: [1]
- ^ a b Scott Palmer, (4 Jul 2007), 'Top 10 characters of the '70s' accessed on 9 Sep 2007 at: [2]
- ^ Craig Bellamy, Gordon Chisholm, Hilary Eriksen (17 Feb 2006) Moomba: A festival for the people.: [3] PDF pp 17-22
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