Almanac Obituary: Barry Dickins – Bye Bye Royboy
It’s so sad, yesterday we didn’t just lose the wonderful duck lover and actor, Sam Neill, but Barry Dickins stepped off the Orb too. A Melbourne fixture for many years, a playwright, poet, writer, actor and all round character with a big heart, a dishevelled one at that.
Barry was a big reason I became a Royboy not long after moving to Melbourne from Sydney in the early 1980s. (I even believe he may have invented the term!)
Barry was writing his ‘Sentimental Roymance’ columns for the ‘Religion’ page of the Melbourne Times, the wonderful, free inner-city newspaper of the day. Barry’s columns were often outrageous, silly and nonsensical – and only sometimes about the football. He expressed his deep love for his Roys over and over again…and they loved him back. Well sometimes they did, other times they caused him pain, grief and hurt. But mostly it was love…the hurt usually came from the buffoons and villains running the VFL /AFL.
So, I figured I had to go and see this crazy team and club Barry was writing about. I ventured to Victoria Park, a few hundred yards from where I was living back then, and the Roys home ground at the time. They lost (of course) and it was love at first sight, true head-over-heels stuff. The rest is history…well, my history, anyway…
I interviewed Barry for Maroon & Blue back in the early 2000s, and as I expected, it was eventful. We wandered for about half an hour around Northcote while Barry looked for somewhere comfortable to sit. Outside. We finally settled on a bench seat next to the tennis courts. First thing he said as the tape player went on was: “You’ll find I speak like I write.”
And he did. Deliriously beautiful and heartfelt and honest, brutally honest. Full of smudges and stains and chuckles and the most insane but truthful observations on football and the Roys that I’d ever heard. Like a drunk describing clouds, happily, joyously, while lying on their back in a park, looking skyward.
I told him he was responsible for my Love of the Roy – he was genuinely chuffed at that, humbled.
And so Barry’s story featured in Maroon & Blue. It was, and still remains, one of my favourite chapters.
I’ll never forget you, Barry.
Go Royboys! Go Barry!
More from Adam Muyt Here.
*NB: Barry Dickins published a number of stories on the Footy Almanac. Check them out HERE.
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Born into rugby league, found Aussie rules, fell for soccer, flirts a little with union.
Author of three books, including ‘Clogball’ (2023) and ‘Maroon & Blue’ (2006).
Lives in Tasmania and is looking forward to soon yelling out, ‘Go Devils!’
This is the ‘Sentimental Roymance’ Barry kindly let me reprint in Maroon & Blue. Last home and away game of 1991, Fitzroy bottom of the ladder, Weagles three games clear at the top. One of my very favourite Royboy games, ever.
Roys finally make ’91 noise
Joy turned up. A ring-in. I’d never seen her before. I tell you what: does she feel any good!
Fitzroy felled the West Coast Buzzards at Princes Park last Saturday, and that is the end of life as they knew it. We won. We did them. Go back to Perth and get on the drink!
But it won’t do you any good. At last the truth arrives, right on time. The wooden- spooners defeat the real college-looking ones! St Georges Road overcomes the Salary Cap. Fitzroy overcome themselves!
At one lowly stage we were one goal, ten behinds. I shrieked, ‘Come on You Girlies!’ and we were six goals, fourteen behinds. It worked! I’ve never seen as many behinds. It was like Men Against Rape. It was like nothing on or below earth. It felt amaz- ing. Like a prisoner given a can of Fanta with a bit still in it with a bubble in it. That last suck. That’s me. I’ll always love Fitzroy. They give good loss. But then again they
give good win. We won!!!
Gee, I feel detached!
I feel completely liberated. Like Carlton’s still got life in it. Like it’s not just Italian waiters and Watson’s Wine Bar all closed up.
Will Gluth and Robbo and me repaired outside the park at interval, the usual thing. A stretch of the legs and a boot of the ball. Only we never had a ball. We just longed for change of life. And it came! Life is Tattslotto with beer all over it. Life is many things. It’s nothing like what you say it is.
It was great to see Matthew Rendell run around again like a sheep dog with 9 on his back. We’ve missed you, Matthew. Ah, how many times have I flaked on the couch after the game and seen you holding up the cup of life. Dreaming Fitzroy won the Grand Final! Seen it!
Well, we won the Grand Final. We won it as a dog wins a feed. It cops a chop in the gutter instead of a cuff over the earhole, or any other hole.
None of the so-called footy writers gave us a prayer. That’s because they’re all atheists. They only believe in what they don’t see. They worship things like skill, having a ground and decent players.
Pagans they are! Pagans and atheists and Roy loathers! Bugger them. Oh well, the AFL is doing that for them.
My nerves were ticking like a run-down Valiant engine in need of tappets. But you never worry about tappets. You never worry about anything when Fitzroy play like this . . .
You can easy say it was Harding who saved us. Harding did save us. But Leon Weigard saved us too, with his tireless campaigning and white wine. The only thing I was yearning for was the sight of ‘Big J’.
(John Ironmonger, who won it for us against North not long back. The man Robbo saw spear an enemy a while ago. Like a javelin spear: he did a backpocket player for them a while ago. Just left him speared in the mud.)
The sight of Matthew Rendell, our lion-hearted captain, our former manager of the Highbridge Hotel, the sight of him getting carted off knocked me out. It’s been a long and frustrating year for all of us. For Robert Shaw, coach. And every Royboy and Roygirl on earth. But it was worth it.
When Fitzroy take off they are capable of anything. The debts been cleared. Quit will sponsor us another year, even Royboys who smoke.
The flag is ours in 1992.
One of those characters you simply cannot replace!