From dual premiership player to premiership coach, to media star and diehard fan, Bob Davis has been an icon of Geelong for 60 years.
Bob Davis has spent the majority of his lifetime as one of Geelong's best-known citizens. That's the way it is in Geelong, particularly when you have been a premiership star and, later, a premiership coach. And through his media profile, he is recognised not only in Moorabool Street but around the world.
"I was having a cup of coffee in the Via Veneto in Rome one day and someone came up to me and said: 'How are you, Bobby?' No matter where you go, someone is always saying hello," Davis said, throwing back his arms.
It is a typical Davis pose and punctuated at the end with the line: "Fair dinkum unbelievable", Davis' signature phrase.
He has been a larger-than-life figure in Geelong - an icon of the club - but it could have easily been different. He was raised in Clunes, on the outskirts of Ballarat, and was a mad South Melbourne supporter.
"My mum's mother was a Clarke and I think she was some relation to Harry Clarke who was a star in the 1933 South Melbourne premiership side, so I became a very keen South supporter," he said.
"When I was about five or six we went out to live in Clunes during the Depression, my old man was a barber but he couldn't get a job so he bought the barber shop in Clunes. It had a billiard room but they didn't have an SP bookie, so he became the SP bookie.
"From going to Clunes on a bike, in two years we had a car, and he made huge money. Then there was a split up in my family, my mum went away - she got very ill - so in 1939 my father said I had better go to school in Ballarat."
Davis was sent to Ballarat College as a boarder but, while some of his fellow students missed the surroundings of family, he enjoyed his time.
"I stayed there from 1939-46 as a boarder and I hardly ever went home. I used to live at the school and I really enjoyed it," he said. "Occasionally, I'd go home to Clunes and I was playing in the Clunes senior side when I was about 12 or 13.
"The only problem I had was that I was very small, but I had my tonsils taken out and all of a sudden I had a growth spurt."
Suddenly, the young Davis was growing, and he was confident. So confident he took himself to training at South Melbourne in 1946. At the first session, he was approached by South coach William 'Bull' Adams who asked the young upstart who he was. "I'm Bob Davis," he proudly announced. "And I'm here to save South Melbourne."
Adams was none too impressed and told Davis to nick off, or words to that effect. Undeterred, Davis came back a second time a few weeks later and told Adams, "I can play a bit." Again, he was sent packing.
A third attempt also proved fruitless, even though he ran out on to the track surrounded by South stars. "He (Adams) caught me again and once again I was shown the door out of the club," Davis said.
Davis retreated to Ballarat and turned his attention to playing for the Golden Point senior side in 1947 where he was starting to "play some good football". Early that season, two smartly dressed men entered the Golden Point rooms before a game. They said they were recruiting officials from South Melbourne and were looking for talented players; better still, they would offer a guinea to the best player on the ground.
Davis starred and, after the game, the two officials approached him, handing him a guinea and offering the chance to come to South Melbourne. Mindful of his ill-fated experiences at South the previous year, Davis promptly told the two officials they could "piss off".
So, having knocked back the chance to play for his beloved South Melbourne, how did he end up at Geelong?
"I had just met (wife) Margaret and she lived in Ballarat and I went to the School of Mines in Ballarat … I think I was supposed to become an industrial chemist or something like that," Davis said.
"Anyway, Geelong came up one day and asked if I would like to play for them and they said I wouldn't have to leave Ballarat. They would bring me down by taxi to training and the games. That suited me because I didn't want to leave Ballarat, so I signed with Geelong."
In 1948, Davis started his love affair with the Geelong Football Club. "We brought three fellas to Geelong," Davis said. "Myself, Bernie Smith and Bruce Morrison. We never played in the reserves and never sat on the bench.
"Tommy Quinn was coach in 1948 and then Reginald Joseph Hickey, who is without doubt the biggest name the football club has ever had, decided he wanted to coach again. He'd done everything as a player and he was keen to coach, so he took over and we had just the most marvellous time you could imagine."
Davis was the champion half-forward flanker in a team that boasted stars on every line.
"There was no real science. You'd get 18 fellas who could really play, find their right positions and put them in and let them go. That's what Hickey did - we had champions everywhere and we were just too good," Davis said.
Meanwhile, Davis became a Geelong 'citizen' in 1952 when he married Margaret and moved from Ballarat. Four years of ferrying back and forth from Ballarat to Geelong in a taxi was, literally, becoming a pain in the stomach at times.
"There was a fella in Ballarat called Len Menzies and he owned the cream-and-green taxis," Davis recalled.
"He was a mad Geelong supporter and we used to come down on a Saturday and we'd stop at the pub in Elaine for lunch or, if we were going to Melbourne, at the Court House Hotel which (former Melbourne star) Fred Fanning had in Bacchus Marsh. We'd have roast lunch and bombe Alaska for dessert and I used to wonder why I was sick at half-time!"
Davis, a regular Victorian representative, took over as Geelong captain in 1955. Unfortunately, the wheels were starting to fall off the Geelong machine by the late 1950s and, at the end of the 1958 season, Davis was approached to become a special comments man for Channel Seven's fledgling football coverage.
"'Hick' was getting tired and I was asked if I would like to be coach, but I said while Reg Hickey is coach don't even bother asking me," Davis said.
"I was called up to Melbourne to Channel Seven and they offered me more money than I was getting playing. So I said, 'What do I have to do?' and they (Channel Seven) said, 'Just talk. Geoff Raymond is going to be the commentator and when he runs out of things to say you just say that was a marvellous kick or that was a nice bit of play'.
"I came home to Margaret and told her they want me to talk on the telly. She said: 'Is there is any money in it?' I replied that there was quite a bit of money.
"She said: 'Why don't you retire … you are never going to win the Brownlow Medal or anything like that'.
"I retired and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I worked for Channel Seven and then, in 1959, Reg retired as coach and this time I was more comfortable about replacing him, so I took over in 1960."
With the help of secretary Leo O'Brien and under the rule of long-serving president Jack Jennings, Davis set about rebuilding a Geelong team that had been in decay in the late 1950s. A night premiership in 1961 was followed by a controversial preliminary final loss to Carlton in 1962, a premiership in 1963 and finals in 1964 and 1965.
Davis was instrumental in the recruitment of some of the club's greatest players, including the recruit of all recruits, Graham 'Polly' Farmer, from East Perth.
"I talked him up from day one and everyone loved him. It was just incredible. He brought a whole new concept to Victorian football and to Geelong. He became the biggest thing the football club has ever had, apart from Hickey. His ability to bring people to the football was just fantastic. He rejuvenated the club more than anybody," Davis said.
At the end of the 1965 season, Davis was taken aback when he was asked to apply for the position he already held. After weeks of speculation, Davis headed down media street again, working for Channel Seven, for radio and writing for the afternoon daily, The Herald.
League Teams, the forerunner of so many modern football shows, became an instant hit as Davis and his sidekicks Lou Richards and Jack Dyer did everything from reading out viewers' recipes to the all-important teams each Thursday night.
"I just jumped on their coattails and kept going," Davis said.
As Davis says, football and the football club have been his life.
"When I was a little kid growing up in Clunes, all I wanted to be was a League footballer, but you never imagine anything like that would happen," he said.
"I can't thank the football club enough … it has been my second home."
