Armchair ride into
RAY Card thought he might have been on the way out before the season that enshrined him among Geelong Football Club’s hallowed Carji Greeves medallists.
The preceding year, 1982, had not been the kindest, with only seven senior games, the least Card had played since debut in 1977, and Melbourne was knocking on his door.
New Cats coach Tommy Hafey talked him around, but then he started the first three games of ’83 on the bench in days long before rapid rotations.
“So I had to work my way into the team,” the Cats Past Players and Officials Club president said this week.
And work he did, the Carji was his reward for determination.
“For someone who doubted their ability to play VFL, and then for that to happen with blokes like Mick Turner and the Nankervis brothers and Gary Malarkey in the team, it was a bit humbling really,” Card said.
After having won the count he used the phone in club secretary Terry Hogan’s office to call his dad, former Cats ruckman George, with the good news.
George was suitably delighted and wondered if a Ford town might provide a fitting reward for its best player.
“He thought I might have won a new car, but I got a recliner-rocker,” Card said with a laugh.
An armchair ride into distinguished Cats history.
Teammates called him “Swap” and though humour has always been his one of his characteristics, his feats on the field were rarely a joke in a tough football era.
“Probably one of the funniest and nicest blokes I’ve ever met,” teammate and skipper Michael Turner said.
“Always pretty much a leader around the club . . . and he was a very tough, hard, back flanker, very courageous.”
Card measured 183cm and by his own reckoning “didn’t have much pace, and not much skill”, so relied on fitness and strength to wage one-onone duels with some of the bigger names the game has known.
He is often remembered for his obliterating hip and shoulder on North Melbourne champion Keith Greig in 1978, but direct rivals across the seasons included Leigh Matthews, Tim Watson, Phil Carman, Peter Bosustow, Michael Roach, Roger Merrett, Tony Lockett.
He estimates he held his own twice against “Lethal Leigh” but had his pants pulled down in the other. He says the Tony Lockett he played against was only a baby and that he “might have been in a bit of strife” if he had tried the same tactics against the colossus down the track.
Ray’s dad was a 195cm brickie from Yallourn whose 46 games in the ruck for Geelong in the late 1940s became etched in folklore alongside the legendary Russ “Hooker” Renfrey.
“Him and Hooker are credited with starting the ruck and ruck-rover combination,” Ray said.
“And if you get Hooker on to that he’ll dive into it straight away, it wasn’t Ron Barassi!”
Young Ray won best and fairests at every level through juniors and played seniors for Morwell at 16.
A letter from Cats secretary Hogan first raised the prospect of a father-son recruitment and then Cats recruiting seer Bill McMaster and his offsider, George’s Cats teammate Syd “Spudda” Tate came to watch him play.
“I can remember Bill saying there’s a lot of rough edges but I was very keen and enthusiastic,” Card said.
Winning Morwell’s bestand-fairest at 19 in 1976 may have helped him over the line.
And so the Cats became indelible part of his heart.
Card’s career in the hoops spanned a decade but his senior games total of 110 was evidence of cruelling by a brutal sequences of injuries, some shoulders but mainly major knees — in ’81, ’85, ’86.
“I missed probably 3½ years with injury,” he said.
“And I reckon over the journey I spent over three months in hospital.”
After having called time on the VFL in 1987 — “30 and stuffed” — Card was playing coach of Wangaratta in the Ovens and Murray league for three years, and socialised a bit with club president Terry Johnson, who had a kid named Steve running around with a footy in the back yard.
In time young Stevie Johnson wore No.20 for the Cats because Ray Card had carried it on his back.
The two even came to share a flag at Kardinia, Johnson a prodigy and Card assistant coach for the talent-laden 2002 VFL premiership side.
Now 60, father of Teegan, Ashlee and partner of Mandy, Card says the Cats are always front of mind. He demonstrates his devotion through his leadership of the 280-member past players and officials organisation, loving its fellowship, community involvements, willingness to step up for mates in need and financial backing of the club’s Simonds Stadium redevelopment.
“I’m really impressed with the way the footy club embraces the history and past, through Colin Carter, Brian Cook and, of course, Bob Gartland,” he said.
He figures the harder they