Hooker a larger than life Cat great
GEELONG premiership great Russell “Hooker” Renfrey was the bedrock of the invincible Cats teams of the early 1950s and the glue that kept everyone together for the decades that followed.
The only player to feature in each game of the club’s record 26-match unbeaten streak between 1952-53, Renfrey was also a founding member of the Cats’ Past Players and Officials Association that was rocked by news of his passing on Saturday during the Cats’ clash with Sydney.
Closing in on his 95th birthday in August, the charismatic Renfrey was Geelong’s oldest living premiership player after a brilliant 201-game career from 1946-1956 that included the 1951 and ’52 premierships, Victorian representation, acclaim as the game’s original ruck-rover — and not one reserves match during one of the club’s most famous eras.
“He is going to leave a very big hole at our club, I think,” Geelong Cats vicepresident and the club’s Honouring the Past Committee chairman Bob Gartland said yesterday.
“Every time I think of Hooker, I can’t help but smile. You could hear his laugh from 40m away and every time I think of that, I can’t help but smile.”
Not only a champion footballer and Geelong past players’ association mainstay, Renfrey was a soldier, World War II veteran, longrunning successful business- man and a former Newtown City councillor.
He grew up in tough times near Drysdale, went to work at 13 and for 58 years had a connection with the trucking industry, before retiring from Renfrey Transport in 2005, having run a fleet of more than 25 trucks alongside sons Wayne and Daryl and daughter Jonda.
“Every time you see his photograph, he’s got the biggest smile and he’s up to something cheeky,” Gartland said. “His laugh was just infectious.” Gartland credited Renfrey with keeping the Cats’ Past Players and Officials Association thriving.
“He was involved, until his last breath,” he said.
“His contribution is unparalleled, I believe.
“I made a comment that I’m not sure that the past players would have survived if it wasn’t for Hooker Renfrey.
“He had a knack of just getting everyone together. That 1951-52 team, they just stuck together.
“He was a happy fellow and he was one of those blokes who was larger than life.”
When dozens of Cats greats gathered to toast Renfrey’s 93rd birthday in 2016, a birthday gathering that had extra resonance after the death of his wife and partner of 57 years Iva just weeks earlier and his ill health, one message stood out.
“Today we celebrate one of our greatest legends of the football club and I stress that’s on and off the field,” toastmaster and premiership teammate John Hyde said.