""So when we got to Melbourne on the Thursday, he took me out to Collingwood, and I trained out there for the first night and that was unbelievable. I was 15 at the time, and to be with the Lou Richards and Colliers (the Colliers had finished playing, but they were always at the Club) Phonse Kyne and those great players, Fothergill, I could hardly believe it, and I was in some pretty shabby old gear because the war had just finished and things were pretty tough in Nyah West, so yes, Lou Richards and the boys have let me know over the years about that silly-looking green and white guernsey that I was wearing, with motheaten holes in it. But it was really a bombshell to be able to run out on to the nice green grass, because droughts were pretty prominent in the Mallee at that time, and we were almost playing on clay grounds...""