Jeff Berry says his best football was as a Bulldog

For those of you not as old as me Bartlett was notorious for not hand balling, so much so that he is part of a comical Toyota Legendary Moments advert.

The advert celebrates Bartlett’s famous seven-goal haul in the Tigers 1980 premiership victory.

“It was my first game toward the end of the 1978 season, against Fitzroy at the Junction Oval. I remember my dad saying ‘I cannot believe you got your first kick after getting a handball from Hungry’,” Berry said.

Ironically in the Tigers 1980 premiership year Berry was responsible for picking up the 400-game VFL legend, having crossed to Footscray only a couple of games into the 1980 season.

“Bartlett was the worst trainer I have ever seen, he couldn’t run out of sight on a dark night. But he could read the football like nobody else and if you got caught on the wrong side of the pack against hi it was all over,” Berry said.

Berry spent three full seasons at Richmond, playing 10 senior games, and was a member of the 1977 reserves premiership team.

Berry was originally from Mildura, recruited at a similar time to Tigers legends Mark Lee and Dale Weightman.

“Mark was a year younger and Dale was younger again,” Berry said.

“He was in the Under-19 team the year we won the reserves in 1977.

“I was zoned to Richmond, being from the Sunraysia area.

“I went down in January 1977, it was the hardest thing I’ve done in terms of getting fit.

“It took me 12 months, because I was carrying a few kilos that I shouldn’t have been.

“At the end of 1977 I made a decision to change my body shape.

“We won the grand final at the end of September and I went to work from there.”

Berry remembers the grand final day, and his team, which included Michael Roach, Lee, Mick Malthouse and Robbie McGhie.

“When we started there may have been 30 or 40 thousand, but when we came out after half-time you really noticed it,” he said.

“Because of the draw in 1977 (Noth Melbourne and Collingwood played a famous draw when Twiggy Dunne kicked a goal to level the scores just before the siren) we all got called back to training on the Monday.

“The VFL wanted a game before the replayed grand final.

“We played Hawthorn in the curtain raiser, but they called a lot of the senior players back as well and I didn’t get to play.”

Berry established himself as one of the league’s first taggers because of his extraordinary running ability.

“I was super fit at the start of 1980 and played on Leigh Matthews in a pre season game at St Arnaud,” he said.

“I kept him to one or two goals for the whole game, but I didn’t get many kicks either.

“I was dropped from the senior team a week later and then a week after that I was on the interchange bench for the reserves.

“I rang Tony Jewell and refused to play the following week.”

That was the same year as Richmond went on to win the grand final, Berry initially suspended by the club for two weeks for his dissent.

He played one game at West Adelaide soon after, but made it clear to Richmond he was not going to be returning to the club.

“We were going to move to Adelaide, but on the Monday after the West Adelaide game Royce Hart (coach of Footscray in 1980) rang me and that was the start of my time at the Bulldogs,” Berry said.

In the space of three weeks Berry went from the interchange bench for Richmond reserves, to playing an SANFL game with West Adelaide and finally to tagging Michael Tuck (Hawthorn’s 400-game, premiership captain and ruck roving great) for Footscray.

In another interesting sidelight to the long-time Kyabram secondary automotive teacher’s football narrative you will discover some interesting results when you google either Geoff Berry or Jeff Berry.

They are, in this case anyway, the same person.

“When I was born my parents spelled my name with a ‘J’, but at 22 years of age I needed to get my birth certificate to get married and found out was actually spelled with a ‘G’,” he said.

Berry was one of four brothers, who all had trades.

He was a motor mechanic for 10 years, before moving across to the education field.

“I spent four as an apprentice in Mildura on trucks and tractors and six on cars in Melbourne. That’s how I ended up teaching automotive at the school,” Berry said.

“There were a lot of tradies at Richmond when I arrived, even ‘Jacko’ (larrikin full forward Mark Jackson) was a roof tiler. He was there when I was there, he came through the under-19s.”

Berry won Red Cliffs senior best and fairest as a teenager, but it was not until he left that the club really had any team success.

“A couple of years after I left for Richmond, they won a few grand finals in a row under Mark Cross.”

Berry met his wife of the past 41 years, Lyn, while in Melbourne.

She was a primary school teacher and a hockey star.

The collage of hockey frames detailing her success more than rivals the opposing side of the garage wall, where pictures of Jeff’s career adorn the wall.

“I started teaching when I was a 26-year-old, I’d go to university two days a week and spend the other three days teaching the apprentices.”

Berry recalls his Bulldogs days and, like anyone who was of that era, has a funny Doug Hawkins tale to share.

“Doug used to have a Sandman panel van and we’d always have to go to training on Sunday morning. It was Royce Hart ritual,” he said.

“He (Hawkins) used to park it at the club and then climb out of it on Sunday morning to train.”

Berry said the arrival of his former Richmond teammate, Mick Malthouse - two years after he had finished at Footscray – was fantastic for the club.

Footscray went from cellar dweller to contesting a preliminary final under Malthouse in 1985.

“Him going to the Bulldogs was the best thing for that team,” Berry said.

“He was pretty ruthless on the field, he had a pretty good upper cut, and he always knew where he was going.

“I remember he got four weeks (suspension) in that 1977 reserves grand final.”

Berry played with Malthouse, Lee and several others in the same basketball team at Sandringham outside of their football duties.

In 1980 he finished fourth in the Bulldogs best and fairest, 271 disposals in 17 games, spending a lot of time in the midfield in a tagging role.

Halfway through the 1982 season Berry joined Preston after being “sacked’’ at the Bulldogs.

He had played 35 senior games in his three seasons at the club.

His last game was off the interchange bench, playing on Peter Daicos against Collingwood.

“Daicos kicked two goals early, so I was put on him. He only got another two, we lost by 15 goals though, and I was sacked on the Monday afterwards,” he said.

His representative duties, which included country championships with the Goulburn Valley and a Victorian Country Guernsey, started when he finished fourth in the VFA’s Liston Trophy in the 1983 season, a premiership season for Preston.

He was, however, on the sidelines with a knee injury.

Berry arrived in Kyabram in 1984, appointed assistant coach of the club.

In the 1985 season he applied to coach the club, but lost out to Shane Loveless – who he had played with at Footscray.

He re-located to Echuca that season, coaching the club for three years (1985-87).

“We had a great side in that first year, but lost the elimination final,” Berry said.

“We offloaded 10 paid players at the end of 1985, we dragged five or six kids out of the thirds and we made the preliminary final.”

After a recruiting drive which landed Tony and John Jones at Echuca, Berry’s team made the grand final, but lost to Shepparton United in his last season of coaching.

Berry finished his playing career at Kyabram in 1990, losing an elimination final at Seymour to Rochester.

He moved into umpiring, his first game in 1993, having spent a lot of time in cross country running.

Soon after he was umpiring senior GVL football and eventually earned a gong as a country championships final umpire.

He ended up umpiring more than 200 games and won an Ian Coates award, recognising the Umpire of the Year.

He is a father of two and a grandfather of four.

Daughter Kaitlin lives in Kyabram and has two boys, Caleb and Finn, who is a mad Bulldogs supporter. His other daughter, Leesa, also has two boys, - Aden and Nate.

A knee replacement and hip replacement, in October last year, has seen Berry not as active in the running space as previous years.

He has now taken up golf, living close to the Parkland course, but his real passion is harness racing.

He and Lyn have shares in Always Ready, a two-time Victorian Harness Racing Horse of the Year, who has won $240,000 in prizemoney.

“We only have a small share in him, but we have had several other horses and probably racking up nearly 50 winners,” Berry said.

“Always Ready is still a full colt, so he will be valuable as a stallion.”

But all his attentions this weekend will be on the Bulldogs as his 10th, 11th and 12th finished from his three seasons of playing there pale against the team’s bid for an AFL premiership.