Dick Condon

Dick Condon

Personal information
Birth	19 March 1876(1876-03-19)
Recruited from	Collingwood Juniors
Height and weight	180 cm / 72 kg
Death	1946,
Playing career¹
Team(s)	Collingwood (1897-1900; 1902-1906) 149 games, 101 goals Richmond (1907-1909) 32 games, 26 goals
Coaching career¹
Team(s)	Richmond (1908-1909)
¹ Statistics to end of 2006 season
Career highlights
Collingwood Premiership Player 1902, 1903 Collingwood Captain 1899-1900 Richmond Captain/Coach 1908-1909

Richard 'Dick' Condon (19 March 1876 — 1946) was a highly controversial, exceptionally brilliant champion Australian rules footballer who played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) and the Victorian Football League (VFL) from 1894 to 1909.

He is the only player to have played 100 games for the Collingwood Football Club who has not been awarded Life Membership.

Talent

Condon was a highly skilled player, a wiry and tenacious man of greater than average height (5'11"; 180 cm), with great speed, brilliant evasive skills, and an outstanding capacity for reading a game.

He played mainly as a "follower" (see Early VFL Final systems#The 1897 VFL Premiership).

He is widely credited as the man who contributed the most to the development of the stab-kick which (once the specially designed "blunter" Sherrin Match II football was introduced into the VFL) became the central feature of the Collingwood football team's pattern of play.

An 18 August 1905 newspaper report, referring to him as "that fiery football genius Bill Condon", described his coaching style as a "combination of brimstone oratory and skilful [sic] tactics".^[1]

Physical skills

In physical terms he was an extremely flexible and well-balanced player. He was able to pick the ball up from the ground with either hand, he was able to kick place-kicks, punt-kicks, drop-kicks, and stab-kicks with either foot, and he could handball with either hand.^[2]

Abrasive nature

He was far from well-balanced in terms of his threshold for violence (directed at his own teammates as often as his opponents), his short temper with club and match officials, his view that things must always be seen from his own perspective, his intolerance of failure, and his propensity for continuously abusing field umpires, all of which were continuously displayed throughout his long career.

Lifetime suspension

Halfway through the 1900 season, Condon was appointed captain of Collingwood. In his new role as captain, he gave the umpires an even harder time.

He abused field umpire Bill Freame on 7 July 1900 continuously throughout the match against South Melbourne Football Club at the Lake Oval after a number of decisions went against the Magpies; he was suspended for three weeks by the VFL. Two weeks later, whilst still under VFL suspension, he got into a fist-fight with teammate Arthur Robson in the middle of Collingwood's three-quarter time huddle; the pair had to be restrained by the umpires, teammates and Collingwood club officials.

On 1 September 1900, during Collingwood's second round-robin finals match against Geelong Football Club at the Corio Oval, Condon became so upset with the umpiring of Dick Gibson^[3] during the last quarter of the match that he lost his temper, stormed off the Corio Oval, and signalled his teammates to follow, also demanding that the Collingwood match committee order the Collingwood players from the field. The Collingwood match committee refused to do so and, instead, ordered Condon and the team to return to the playing field or be banished from the club. At that stage Collingwood was a point ahead of Geelong, but Condon's behaviour so unsettled his team that it did not score again, and lost to Geelong 6.8 (44) to 4.7 (31). It was the loss in this match that eliminated Collingwood from premiership calculations in that year.

In the final match of the three round-robin match series the following week, Collingwood played against Melbourne Football Club at the Lake Oval. The field umpire for the match, Henry "Ivo" Crapp, was considered to be the most experienced umpire in the competition.^[4] After a decision went against the Magpies in the first quarter, Condon abused Crapp throughout the remainder of the match, culminating in his infamous barrage of insults involving the umpire's daughter.

He was reported for his conduct, and the VFL Investigative Committee immediately suspended Condon for life. A newspaper report of 17 September 1900 suggested that Condon would now be able to "spend the rest of his days thinking about the joy and glory of his lost future in the game", observed that 'Collingwood has turned away from him", and noted that "club discipline has outweighed any sympathy for a fallen hero",^[5] provided additional details of the incident:

[The third match of the round-robin series against Melbourne was] umpired by an experienced man in H. "Ivo" Crapp. Condon would not leave Crapp alone all day. He sealed his fate when he was free-kicked for tripping a Melbourne man in the second quarter and said to Crapp: "Your girl's a bloody whore."

We may be left only memories of this man who made a specialty of twisting in the air as he took a mark, hitting the ground running towards goal. He could pick the ball up with each hand with equal sureness, and kick accurately, short or long, with both feet. He was fast, had tremendous balance, and was the best man in the game at getting out of trouble — except for his mouth.^[6]

Appeal and reinstatement

Over an eighteen month period, Condon appealed against his lifetime ban on three occasions.^[7]

His last appeal was successful, and, having not played a single game in 1901, he played his first return game for Collingwood against Melbourne at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 19 May 1902.

Senior football career

• 1894-1896: 45 games, 14 goals for Collingwood in the VFA competition.
• 1897-1900, 1902-1906: 149 games, 101 goals for Collingwood in the VFL competition.
• 1899-1900: Was intermittently the captain of Collingwood.
• 1905-1906: Captain-Coach of Collingwood (37 games, 26 wins, 11 losses^[8])
  • His abrasive character caused so much irritation at Collingwood that he was asked to leave at the end of 1906.
• 1907: Spent season in Tasmania as a field umpire.
• 1908-1909: 32 games, 26 goals for Richmond.
• 1908-1909: Coach of Richmond (36 games, 12 wins, 24 losses) in its first two years in the VFL competition.^[9]
  • His abrasive character caused so much irritation at Richmond that he was asked to leave at the end of 1909.
• 1910: Non-playing coach of New South Wales Football League team East Sydney.^[10]
• He is unique amongst Collingwood's ten year/100 game players in that he has never been made a life member.

Footnotes

1. ^ Ross, (1996), p.60.
2. ^ According to Hogan (1996, p.44), Condon's ability to kick with both feet and handball with both hands "was virtually unheard of during that era".
3. ^ Gibson, formerly a player with South Melbourne Football Club in both the VFA and the VFL, who had also played football against Condon on a number of occasions, took up umpiring in 1899.
4. ^ In his umpiring career from 1897 to 1905, he umpired 147 matches including 17 finals, 7 Grand Finals, and 3 Interstate matches.
5. ^ Ross, (1996), p.47. Ross does not cite the name of the newspaper.
6. ^ Ross, (1996), p.47.
7. ^ Hogan, 1996, p.44.
8. ^ Collingwood had been the VFL's "Minor Premier" in 1905, and two of these 11 losses included the loss against Carlton in the 1905 "Semi-Final", and the loss in the "challenge" match against the 1905 "Preliminary Final" winners Fitzroy.
9. ^ Although Condon was the coach of Richmond in 1908, the team's captain was Condon's former Collingwood team-mate Charles Pannamopoulos, better known as Charlie Pannam. In 1909, Condon was also captain and, thus, captain-coach. (Hogan, 1996, pp.44-45, 171, 267.)
10. ^ In his only season with East Sydney, his team reached the "Grand Final". It lost the final against Y.M.C.A. 5.18 (48) to 3.6 (24).

References

• Hogan, P., The Tigers Of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN 0-646-18748-1
• Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN 0-670-86814-0

External links

• AFL Statistics: Dick Condon
• Full Points Footy Biography: Dick Condon
• Australian Football League Umpires Association: Henry Crapp, VFL's First "Prince of Umpires"
• 1900 Season - AFL Tables

Persondata
Name	Condon, Dick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	19 March 1876
Place of birth
Date of death	1946
Place of death