There are heroes, and there are superheroes

By The General

Sep 20, 2023

The Barassi Line: A better idea than giving away the Top End. Photo: AAP

Along with James Bond and The Phantom, Ron Barassi was one of The Boss’s first heroes.

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While Ted Whitten, Bobby Skilton and Polly Farmer were also there, it was Barassi who owned those years: in the first six years of The Boss’s schooling, Ron’s Melbourne Demons won the grand final in five of them.

He tells me Barassi’s name was on every lad’s lips and the winter banter in the schoolyard was all about Ron and his magical exploits in the weekend game.

He admits the finer points of Barassi’s influence on the game were lost on him and his friends until later: that Ron invented the “ruck-rover” role that we see reflected in the big mid-fielder of today; his efforts to ease congestion with a centre square; his influence on securing more umpires on the ground, expanding Aussie rules into a national competition and bringing in the Irish.

By the time The Boss got to university, Barassi had cemented his legend, with six grand finals as player and captain of the Demons and two coaching for Carlton.

It was just before the second of those, in the epic 1970 grand final when Barassi urged his team to “handball, handball” — and Carlton came back from a 44-point deficit to defeat Collingwood — that The Boss encountered the annual “Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture” by Ian Turner, an associate professor of history at Monash University.

Prof Turner delivered his annual lecture in grand final week and packed out the vast Robert Blackwood Hall, where he strode to the lectern wearing a Richmond beanie, carrying a can of VB and a cold pie with sauce.

Prof Turner had started his first “memorial” Barassi lecture in 1966 as something of a satire and it became impossible to get in, particularly for interloping students from Melbourne and La Trobe.

It was Prof Turner who first intersected Australia with his famous “Barassi Line,” which soon eclipsed the alleged “Brisbane Line,” a contentious World War II defence proposal to concede the northern half of Australia to the Japanese in the event of an invasion.

The Barassi Line stretched from Cape Howe up through Canberra through to East Arnhem Land, separating the south and west parts of the country who idolised Australian Rules from the rugby states.

The Barassi Line is immortalised on Federation Way between Corowa and Wagunyah, with sets of goalposts on each side of the road.

Barassi went on to secure North Melbourne’s first two grand finals for the club and took on the challenge to move to Sydney, preparing the ailing Swans for their first winning streak. He was a hero all right. Woof!