Height/Weight 170cm / 73kg Spouse Edna Richards (m. 1948) Years Club Original team Abbotsford | Siblings Ron Richards Name Lou Richards | |
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Full name Lewis Thomas Charles Richards Date of birth (1923-03-15) 15 March 1923 (age 92) Role Australian Rules Footballer Movies and TV shows Wide World of Sports, The Great MacArthy People also search for Ron Richards, Edna Richards, David Baker | ||
Lou richards makes a rare public appearance afl
Lewis Thomas Charles "Lou" Richards, MBE (15 March 1923 – 8 May 2017) was an Australian rules footballer who played 250 games for the Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1941 and 1955. He captained the team from 1952-55, including a premiership win in 1953. He later became a hotel manager and a highly prominent sports journalist, in print, radio and television, and was known for his wit and vivacity.
Contents
- Lou richards makes a rare public appearance afl
- 1993 ken hinkley interview with lou richards on nine news geelong afl
- Playing career
- Post playing career
- Honours
- Personal life
- References
1993 ken hinkley interview with lou richards on nine news geelong afl
Playing career
Born in Collingwood, Victoria, Richards' passion for Collingwood grew out of family connections – he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather Charlie Pannam (shortened from Pannamopoulos after migrating to Australia from Greece), and uncles Charles and Alby Pannam, both former Magpie players. His brother Ron Richards also played for the club. The Richards/Pannam dynasty made Collingwood the only club to have been captained by three generations of the one family. As a family they played over 1200 games between them.
Richards played as a rover, resting in the forward pocket.
He was captain of the club for four years, including Collingwood's 1953 premiership team.
Post-playing career
After his retirement from football, Richards managed a number of Melbourne hotels, including the well-known Phoenix Hotel in Flinders Street, whose regular customers included journalists from the nearby Herald and Weekly Times.
Richards also had a long career in the media, beginning as a sport journalist for The Argus and later The Sun News-Pictorial where he gained the nickname of "Louie the Lip". He was a very popular commentator on both radio and television with his great mate Jack Dyer. He also appeared on the popular World of Sport program. In the 1990s and 2000s, he made regular appearances on both The Footy Show and the Sunday Footy Show.
As a football tipster, Richards was known as a Kiss of Death and regularly backed-up his tips with famous dares: "I'll cut Teddy Whitten's lawn with nail scissors" or "I'll jump off St Kilda pier."
In 1972, Richards was appointed Court Jester to King of Moomba Johnny Farnham and was the King of Moomba himself in 1981.
In 1989, he released a memoir, The Kiss of Death: Memoirs of a Sporting Legend; an updated version was released in 2012, entitled Lou: My Wonderful Life.
At the end of 2008, Richards retired from hosting the handball segment on the Sunday Footy Show, and subsequently made only occasional public appearances.
Honours
Richards was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1981, received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000, and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001. In 1996 Richards was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame and in 2004, he was named as the captain of the Greek Team of the Century, due to his Greek heritage. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2008.
Personal life
Richards married Edna Lillian Bowie in 1948; the couple had two daughters. Edna was admitted into care with dementia in 2005. She died, aged 87, in March 2008.
On 8 May 2017, Richards died at his nursing home in the Melbourne suburb of Windsor at the age of 94. The Richards family accepted the Victorian Government's offer of a state funeral, which took place at St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral on the 17th of May 2017.