Footy tigers

Researching the history of the Richmond Football Club using Trove
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Rhett Bartlett has been researching the history of the Richmond Football Club since 1999. Today he is the Club’s official historian, and he has Trove as his sidekick. As Rhett says:

'Without Trove, the documented history of the Richmond Football Club wouldn’t be as complete. There would be many questions left unanswered still hidden away on a scratched microfilm copy in the State Library of Victoria. It has helped me solve mysteries. You can’t do any better than that.'

Richmond Football Team (18 players) pose for a photo in from of a grandstand full of fans.
Charles Edward Boyles, Richmond Football Club in front of a grandstand, 1941, trove.nla.gov.au/work/167152094  

It’s the digitised newspapers and ‘the ease at which it can be accessed’ that Rhett loves most about Trove. 

‘I also love that they continue to add newspapers from across the country on there, making for some unexpected discoveries in interstate newspapers.’ 

Rhett began using Trove around 2014 to access historical newspapers when building Tigerland Archive – a website where he continues to publish the history of the Richmond Football Club. Prior to this, Rhett published the club’s history book, Richmond Football Club: A Century of League Football, in celebration of the Club’s 2008 centenary League celebration. 

‘My god, where to begin’ 

We asked Rhett to share some of the discoveries he has made through Trove, and he gave us a shopping list worth. Top of his list was the discovery of a new player, Walter Johnston, who has previously been mistaken for Alex Johnson, a North Melbourne player who came across to Richmond to play a couple of games in 1908. The discovery ‘rewrote [the Club’s] entire history’.

Rhett has used Trove to compile a list of approximately 500 Richmond footballers who have served in a war. ‘Prior to that, the club may have only had around 100 names or so it knew of.’ 

Amongst the men in that list is Frank “Checker” Hughes. "Checker” wrote a heart-wrenching letter about his experiences in the trenches during WWI, which was published in the Richmond Guardian on 24 November 1917. The inaugural ‘Checker’ Hughes award was given out on the eve of ANZAC Day 2021 to the best player on the field. 

He has also created a chronology on the history of women’s contribution to the club. It was 2018 when the Club debuted their first women’s team, but the first match played by women was in 1923. The match was played to raise money for the men to have an interstate trip. “The Tigeress” – made up of women workers from the Bryant and May Match Factory – defeated the Richmond Reserves... and they did it in fancy dress.

newspaper photo of the Richmond women's football team. The women are dressed in a costume including masks and knee-high socks.
‘Richmond Ladies Football Team’, Richmond Guardian, 18 August 1923, nla.news-article265742011 

New tricks for old players 

Rhett has been doing historical sports research for a long time.

‘In my early days of researching, I would head into the State Library of Victoria to manually scroll through the microfilms of newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s and copy by hand the information I was looking for onto loose leaf pages.’ 

Trove has changed the way this research can be achieved. But how do you get started? We asked Rhett for some of his top tips. 

‘If you can break down year by year what you are searching for, that will make things a bit easier, rather than just a wide search across all the years.’ 

He also recommends trying different spellings of keywords and using quotation marks to search for phrases, like “Richmond football club captain”. 

‘Advertising, and the details lists, results [and] guides are worth investigating as they will often bring up really left of field search results that will lead you in new directions.’

A man in Richmond football uniform hold a football and prepares to kick it
Charles Edward Boyles, Richmond football player Leo Merrett holding a football, 1945, trove.nla.gov.au/work/167144664  

Digitising the Richmond Guardian 

In addition to using Trove for his research, Rhett has supported the digitisation of the Richmond Guardian newspaper since 2018 to make it available in Trove. With Rhett’s support, The National Library of Australia – working in collaboration with principal Trove Partner, the State Library of Victoria – has been able to digitise this newspaper in progressive spans for Trove. 

‘I felt it was important that the Richmond Guardian newspaper was digitised on Trove. It was a newspaper that entirely focused on the Richmond suburb, and particularly during the war years was so important to residents regarding news of residents fighting in war. 

The paper was edited by “Robbo”, Henry Llewellyn “Lou” Roberts – who later was appointed vice president and president of the Richmond Football Club. His footy pages often include inside information and informative descriptions of players that other papers wouldn’t have.’

Newspaper clipping that says: Football The Tigers Wander Far Afield To-day in search of a Few Points NEW BLOOD GETS A CHANCE IN THE RUCK— G. RUDOLPH AND G. WEATHERILL WILL MANIPULATE THE THROW IN Hughie James " Resting on His Sore Knee" By "ROBBO.'
‘Football’, Richmond Guardian, 27 May 1922, nla.news-article264275569 

Rhett looked at multiple funding avenues to raise the money needed to have the newspaper digitised, but in the end, he decided to pay for it himself.  

‘I tried to search around for grants but found they would take too long or were too cumbersome... So, in the end I just thought, I’ll pay for it myself. 

Occasionally I would create a fundraiser for my Twitter followers to donate money too – and that helped generate several hundreds of dollars which was very helpful.’ 

Find out more about digitisation for Trove