Kevin Bartlett is a champion of the Richmond Football Club, with an honour roll matched by few others to have worn the Yellow and Black.

His achievements include 403 games, 778 goals, five premierships, a Norm Smith Medal, five best and fairests, three years as Richmond coach, life membership.

In this extract from his new book, KB: A life in football, published by Slattery Media, Bartlett explains the lead-up to playing his 400th match.

KB: A Life in Football, is available for purchase at the Tigerland Superstore, for $64.95.  Click here to get your copy.  The first 250 are personally signed by Bartlett.



It was the man who opened the door for me the very first time I went to Punt Road who planted the seed for me to play 400 games of League football.

Bill Boromeo sent me a congratulatory note after I played my 300th game, but it was this footnote to his lovely letter - ‘Why not 400?’ - that struck a chord with me.

I read it as a challenge: to continue to play on and to continue to enjoy playing. It was unthinkable at the time for someone to play 400 games. 

But that question, posed by a lifelong friend and mentor, gave me the impetus to try.

The lead-up to my 400th game in round 19 1983 was tremendous. My 399th game was against Essendon at Windy Hill and I was photographed in the rooms after the game holding up one finger, as if to say, ‘one more game’.

That photo was used in the papers throughout the week to build up the game.  For the whole week,  there were radio, press and TV interviews as well as functions to attend.

Ron Yates was a great Richmond supporter and coterie member who had a yellow Rolls-Royce.

He picked me up on the Wednesday morning and chauffeured me to the City Square, where the Lord
Mayor presented me with the keys to the City of Melbourne.

A huge crowd had turned up and I had brought my whole family with me. I received the large key while wearing a Four’N Twenty branded pullover, as the pie company was sponsoring me at the time.

In addition, the Dimmey’s Clocktower in Swan Street, Richmond, a famous Melbourne landmark, was painted yellow and black in my honour. To this day it still has those colours. Dimmey’s is only a stone’s throw away from the house I’d grown up in.

On the night before my 400th game, I had a match-race against Jack Dyer during the harness racing meeting at Moonee Valley. Rather than relaxing at home, having fish and chips and cups of tea, resting and preparing for the big day, I was at the Valley, wearing my lace-up jumper opposite Jack, who was dressed in silks.

To this day, I have no idea what it was for. We were to do a full lap of the course.

I remember that Jack took off like lightning! He was fearless. He must have had some driving experience because he was taking it very seriously. I made up some ground in the straight but I didn’t want to go full speed, fall out of the sulky and injure myself on the night before my biggest game.

Jack beat me in a photo finish.  Looking back, it was such a stupid thing for me to do the night before such a big event.

On the morning of my 400th game, I was calm but any thoughts that it would be just a game were dashed by the size of the crowd at the MCG, which was of finals proportions. It was quite amazing when you consider that Richmond was out of finals contention and Collingwood had no more than a reasonable chance of making the finals. Before the game, I received a large card that the Collingwood
players had signed to congratulate me on my achievement, which was a nice touch.

The banner was 10 metres high and 20 metres long. It had taken 500 hours to make and it cost $400.

David Norman, the cheer squad leader, had overseen its creation. It took 29 cheer squad members to hold up the banner. I had actually seen the banner a few days earlier. I was down at the club.

The cheer squad put up the banner and I had some photos in front of it. I remember saying, ‘Gee it looks big and strong, how am I going to get through it?’ and Norman pointing out to me the ‘weak’ spots they had put in the banner for me to run through.

Maybe he pointed to the wrong part of the banner, or maybe I didn’t listen as well as I should have.
As many people remember, I ran down the race with teammates on either side of me, VFL general manager Jack Hamilton and club president Ian Wilson applauding me, and television cameras at the base of the banner.

I picked up speed and ran into it, but I couldn’t get through and fell flat on my face. So I just bounced up off the ground and kept running. I’ve always maintained that they forgot to tell me that there was a large piece of wood across the bottom, which was stabilising the banner, Running through that banner was like running through a brick wall.

It could have been the end of my 400th game then and there. My opponent was Ray Byrne, a half-back flanker who was a bit of a character. He had a comb in his sock that had no teeth and he presented it to me.

I don’t know what happened to it, but perhaps I threw it on the ground in disgust. He thought it was a bit of fun.

My 400th game was fair, nothing more than that.  I was at the end of my career and my body and mind had just about had it. I ended up with 16 kicks and six marks and we lost the game, but the day as a whole was a great thrill for me.

Nobody had ever played 400 games before. Most previous record-holders had reached 300 games or the current League games record, played one more game and then that was it. I think I broke the League record by the greatest number of games ever.

It was 336 when I reached it and I ended up playing 403 - 67 games more than the previous record.
I was pleased I got to 400 because I felt it would be a great incentive for other players to play on.

There was always talk that when players got to 300 they were at the end of their career, but I didn’t buy that. I was saying that when you get into your mid-30s, if you’re still enthusiastic about the game then you should continue to play.

It doesn’t matter if the media think your time is up. If your enthusiasm is there and you have the support of the club, then keep playing.

I am a surprised that the great Hawthorn champion Michael Tuck is the only other player to have reached 400 games because in this modern era, with superior training and increased medical support, the milestone seems attainable for a full-time footballer.

I expect that we should see more players passing the 400-game milestone in the coming decades, especially as there are more rotations. In theory you don’t play a full game these days because everyone gets rotated off the ground at some stage, midfielders particularly so.

We will see. At the time of writing, the player closest to 400 is Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher, who at the age of 36 had played 328 games. To reach 400 games he’s need to play until he was 40. Perhaps the number is further away than we might imagine.

In my time, I was on the field for the whole game - 403 times over, unless I was dragged or injured.
After the 400th game, there was a party back at the house of coterie supporter Bruce Gough, with some 200 of my closest friends.

Newspapers covered the event. A gorilla-gram turned up, but Dale Weightman threw him into the swimming pool, so the poor man had to dry his gorilla suit in the clothes dryer. I don’t think he cared in the end because he stayed for the whole party.

The next day at Punt Road, the club held a huge afternoon for supporters, where fans could have a photograph taken with me for $2. Later on, there was a function at the Regent Hotel in the city. Tickets cost $100 each and it was packed.

Many friends and people from my past got up to speak.  I remember that Mike Williamson interviewed my mother, which was a first for her. There were musical acts and comedians. Mike Brady of Up There Cazaly fame had written a new song about my career called Hungry, which he played.

The following week we played St Kilda in my 401st game and I kicked 2.3. It was the last time
I kicked a goal in League football. My 402nd game was against Sydney at the MCG where I had just one kick and one handball.

I was on the bench for the whole game until very late in the last quarter. It was the last winning game of football I played in.

And then came my last game. Hardly anyone knows this story. In the week leading up to my 403rd and last game for Richmond I tore my quad muscle in my right leg at training early in the week.

I swore the club doctor to secrecy because there was no way I was going to miss this game. So on the
Thursday night before my last training session he gave me a couple of jabs in my leg. I was able to get through training but it was very sore the next day and I was unable to lift my leg.

I needed a couple of jabs to get out there for my final game. My leg was OK for the first half but after half-time my thigh muscle was shot. I stayed on but it was very difficult to run and if I got the ball it was pretty hard to kick it. I ended my career with 10 kicks, four marks and four behinds. I was 36 years 174 days old. My journey was over.

By the time of my retirement I was able to take a moment and look back at my career. Sadly, my first two coaches, Len Smith and Jack Titus, had both passed on. My first opponent, St Kilda’s Daryl Griffiths, had been retired for 13 years.

Tom Hafey had entered our lives as coach and left a legacy of four premierships. I no longer had as much hair on my head.

A lace-up jumper had replaced long, woollen jumpers. And I finished my 19 seasons of football by appearing on the MCG for the 200th time. It was the same ground on which I’d started my career, way back in 1965.blog comments powered by Disqus