Life with Dad, Gordon "Roy" Wright by Paul Wright
Life with Dad, Gordon "Roy" Wright
With today being my Dad's birthday (he would have been 86)
I would like to share my thoughts with his fans on what life was like growing up with Roy Wright as my Dad.
Some of my earliest recollections are around going to games while Dad was commentating for ABC and sitting in the vacant broadcast box and going back to Ripponlea for the Saturday night footy panel (footy was only played on a Saturday afternoon back then).
Dad was not particularly fond of doing media (he was coaxed into it by his friend and boss Doug Heywood) as he was quite shy.
I remember his angst every week as he tried to prepare for his weeknight spot "Wright on the ball" which was a short segment reviewing/previewing the week in football.
Occasionally on a Sunday we would head to the club for the "pleasant Sunday mornings" and I would be in awe of some of the greats that were in attendance. At the time, I was aware of what Dad had achieved in his football career (and I was very fortunate to have a fantastic Dad, who just happened to play football for the greatest club on earth) but to me he was simply my Dad, these other players were people I had watched play the game and barracked for.
Dad worked at Renown & Pearlite in Burnley and I would love going to work with him on a Monday following a game and sitting in the boardroom listening to the R & P team discuss the weekend - and what a team it was - Doug Heywood, Bob Skilton, Len Thompson, Neil Balme and Ken Hunter all worked there - better than any TV footy show I can assure you.
Dad never put any pressure on me to play football - he used to say I don't care if you play marbles, just do your best and enjoy it. When I was playing junior footy, he used to hide so nobody would put pressure on me. When people did make the connection, I would inevitably be told by the boundary experts that "you'll never be as good as your old man". A fair call I reckon!
Dad lived in Gippsland and didn’t get to many games or functions, but I remember going to Colonial Stadium as it was then and watching Richmond play West Coast in 2001. We went down to the after match function and it happened to be Joel Bowden’s 100th game. Joel spotted Dad and mentioned that he was there whilst being interviewed and that was pretty much the last I saw of Dad for a couple of hours – he was swamped by the Richmond faithful and the best I could do was get the occasional beer passed to him via the crowd.
I was reading a bit about big Bob Johnson which reminded me of Dad talking about how he used to have a little black book of notes on opposition ruckman and how they played. He would take notes after each game and then review them prior to playing them again to work out the best strategy for playing on them.
Going out anywhere as a family was always interesting as we would be eating a meal for instance and people would spot Dad and come up and start talking. Dad would always give his time to anyone and honestly loved meeting and talking to people. This was the same at the last function he attended - The Hall of Fame in 2001, where he spent most of the night signing autographs and getting photos taken.
My fondest memories would have to be just spending time with my best mate fishing on the Gippsland lakes and talking. Happy birthday Dad.
