How they pinched Polly

THE Geelong memorial service for beloved football legend Graham “Polly” Farmer included a little-known “naughty” story of how the Cats pinched Polly from St Kilda.

Former teammate Fred Wooller told the service how the Geelong Football Club’s coach Bob Davis and secretary Leo O’Brien first tried to woo the incredible West Australian ruckman in the early 1960s — as other clubs circled the East Perth star.

“At the end of the 1961 season, they came up with a great plan. They invited Polly to fly from Western Australia to join us at an end-of-season trip,” Wooller said.

“Pol joined us up there and I think that was probably one of the little steps that influenced Pol to come to Geelong, because Pol and all the players had a chance to relax in a lovely environment … and I really think that brought us closer together.”

But it was another factor that Wooller admitted was “a little naughty, to say the least” that may have ultimately encouraged Farmer to become a Cat.

“Polly was brought to Melbourne by St Kilda Football Club for a long weekend so they could show him around the slums of St Kilda, and the other awful sights around that part of the city,” Wooller said to a chorus of laughs.

“So after doing that on the Friday and Saturday, they said, ‘We’ll give you a free day Pol, you can just go wherever you like and we’ll see you again on Monday’.

“O’Brien and Davis found out about this, so they went down, talked Polly and (his wife) Marlene into going to Geelong to have a look at our lovely country city, with all the beaches, the surrounding areas, schools, the lovely housing estates.

“And that, I think, was the second most influencing factor that decided on Marlene and Pol coming to Geelong, because he had to make a decision then between Geelong and St Kilda.”