This weekend, Bob Murphy plays his 250th game for Bulldogs, and we’re excited: for him, for footy, for his family, his team, for one of the good guys. If you like football, music and humans, you like Bob.
It’s a funny thing to say about someone about to reach a major milestone in professional sport, but sometimes it’s easy to forget just how good he is. In between his excellent weekly column for The Age, his appearances on AFL360 and his general upstanding good-guy-ness, it’s easy to overlook the fact that he also dabbles in a bit of elite football playing on the side. If anyone embodies the expression ‘modest champion’ it’s him. On the rare occasion he talks about his own playing abilities you’d be excused for thinking that he’s a decent half back flanker with a bit of toe. Of course, he’s much more than that. You don’t play 250 games of AFL football unless you’re at the absolute top of the pile. We’ve been wracking our brain to think of anything we’ve done well 250 times, let alone play football at an elite level, and frankly, we’re drawing a blank. Ordering a coffee?
Bob plays football, loves music, and is one of nature’s gentlemen. That’s a fair resume. He’s a champion of his club and of the game, and we salute him the only way we know how: through an interpretive dance performance that charts the rise of the skinny schoolboy from Warragul as promising young recruit to modern day renaissance footballer. On the off chance we can’t get this together in time, we simply salute him, and say champs like him…well, you know the rest.
AK