When the dam wall finally broke on the Western Bulldogs’ fairytale premiership of 2016, I was standing at the MCG in a row of eight – three generations of Bulldogs fans. To my left, my Grandpa dabbed at tears with a handkerchief. It was the first and last time I would see him cry. He passed away before the next flag was won by Richmond.
In Bob Murphy’s newly-released memoir, Leather Soul, he describes his impromptu speech to teammates at the Railway Hotel in Yarraville after that famous win. “This premiership, for some long-suffering Bulldogs people, means they can actually die happy,” he told them from a bar stool, pint in hand. Murphy remembers a quick rebuke from former captain Matthew Boyd, who told him the observation was “a bit fucking morbid”. Over coffee, Murphy and I agree that for many, it was true.
“You take on the heaviness of the Bulldogs when you arrive,” says Murphy. “But now that heaviness isn’t there. That’s a great thing and something we should all be really proud of.”
As history will record, however, the 2017 and 2018 seasons have resembled more of a return to the lean past for the sons of the west – leading many to speculate on what brought the team crashing back to Earth.
“I get really offended by [the term] ‘premiership hangover’,” says Murphy. “Hangovers last maybe one to three days. This is a different thing, [and] it’s different to navigate emotionally. This is a club that’s over 100 years old. Any time you’re reshaping identity, that’s a big deal.”
Of course, Murphy had his own emotional challenges to navigate on grand final day, and Leather Soul paints a poignant picture of a man struggling to overcome the enormity of missing out on the game of his life – as the captain of his beloved club. Perhaps its most arresting image is of Murphy putting on his Bulldogs guernsey on grand final day; as he describes it, “to indulge in the pain”. Just as he lifts the jumper over his head, his wife Justine walks in.
“A heavily silence films the room: a man and his wife, both knowing there is nothing to say that will make things better,” he writes. “After a moment, Justine leaves in tears. It’s going to be a hell of day.”
Now that the book is out, Murphy feels that some of the emotional weight of that time has been lifted. “It’s a bit like taking the backpack off, and going: ‘you know what, I’ve dealt with that. It’s your problem now. See if you can handle it, [because] I’m done.’”
He doesn’t like the idea of writing another book just yet – “pass me the bucket” is his response – but, as a Fairfax columnist and writing for the Bulldogs’ website, he will continue to sharpen the skills he says gave him a “creative outlet” outside the rigid, professional world of AFL.
“I loved [football], but I was restless in it. When I started writing it gave me a sense of balance. It might sound pretentious but I like the discipline of it: not everyone can do it. As fun as it is sitting on a panel show talking football, you’re just talking shit ... I like that [writing] is treated like a craft.”
The memoir is quintessential Murphy – consistent with the voice he has cultivated in his weekly columns – but there was one line in it that jarred. After describing how he scrawled “NO WAR” on his arm for a team photo in 2003 – in protest of Australia’s participation in the Iraq war – Murphy writes that he’s “not a political animal”. As I run him through his list of political acts: from wearing Adam Goodes’ number at a coin toss in protest of the racism the now-retired Sydney player had endured, to talking to media about how Australia’s lack of marriage equality was “embarrassing” just to name a few, Murphy feels compelled to qualify.
“On political issues, when I’m in, I’m in. I am in on those things: I get passionate, frustrated, the fires burn. But I don’t care what Bill Shorten’s up to. The politics of this country, its politicians, they don’t speak to me ... It’s much easier just to put on Adam Goodes’ number and toss the coin.”
When assured that qualifies as political – that sport is a powerful platform given how much it is revered in this country – Murphy nods.
“The symbolism is powerful,” he says. “Whatever you think of Goodes, he’s a master of symbolism. It was Jordan [Roughead]’s idea to wear the jumper, but it was almost a homage to him as a symbologist as much as the cause and reason behind it.”
In a political sense then, Murphy says he is proud to leave the game in a better place than when he debuted, naming AFLW (a women’s team, he says, was the club’s “missing piece”) and the current “hip” nature of vulnerability in football circles as two examples of the game’s “maturity”.
“In 2016, our psychologist Lisa Stevens – who was the fifth Beatle of our premiership – said of our team: ‘we hug and we shrug.’ Someone would get injured and we would let it all out, there’d be a real sadness. We were free to express our emotions, but then, when it finished, you’d shrug and get back into it. There’s a real strength in that.”
The image of my grandpa – tears welling in his eyes as the siren sounded on that first Saturday in October two years ago – flashes before me. With Murphy’s leadership driving the culture of the 2016 Bulldogs, he no longer had to hold back: the club’s long-awaited healing allowed him, finally, to cry.
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Leather Soul: A Half-back Flanker’s Rhythm And Blues is out now, published by Nero
