In Jim Main's series, 'Swan Songs', on great players from the past, this week he talks to Peter Bedford...
Born: April 11, 1947
Played: 1968-76
Games: 178
Goals: 325

The Swans can consider themselves fortunate that one of their greatest champions strained a hamstring playing cricket in the lead-up to the 1970 season.

Brilliant centreman/half-forward Peter Bedford was playing cricket for Victoria in a Sheffield Shield match at the MCG when he tweaked his left hamstring while fielding.

Convinced the injury was not serious, he declared himself available for another Shield match the following week and failed to reach double figures in either innings.

Bedford played his rare poor game just days after a newspaper headline blared: BEDFORD CAN PACK BAGS FOR NZ.

He was expected to be a member of the Australia “B” tour to New Zealand under the captaincy of Bob Cowper and, instead, was left to concentrate on his football career with South Melbourne.

It came as a savage blow to Bedford, who always had declared that cricket was his first love. However, he went on to win the 1970 Brownlow Medal and, along the way, helped South reach the finals for the first time since 1945.

The first semi-final against St Kilda was his - and club champion Bob Skilton’s - one and only finals appearance and Bedford now is in awe of the Swans’ fantastic run of success over the past decade. “They have done incredibly well, haven’t they?” he mused.

The Swans recruited Bedford from VFA (now VFL) club Port Melbourne and he made his debut in 1968 without a clearance from the club known as the Borough.
Bedford had been born and bred in the South area and recalled that he was so cricket mad that he did not follow South’s fortunes with as much interest as many of his mates.

He said: “Football in that era was tribal, but when I was about 10 years of age I went into a clothing store to buy a red and white jacket and, when told there were none left, bought a black and white one instead.

“I met my mother at a bus stop after she finished work and she shrieked ‘what’s that?’ She made me take it back and told me to buy a red and blue one (Port’s colours) instead.”

Bedford explained that he played cricket three times a week as a boy, with Garden City under age teams, Port Melbourne thirds or fourths and Port CYMS. “I couldn’t get enough,” he said. “And I only played football because there was no cricket during the winter months.”

Bedford, a batsman and spin bowler, had a mentor in former Victorian wicketkeeper Harry Halfpenny while playing with Garden City, but was in awe of the elderly cricketer’s hands. “His fingers were gnarled and twisted and I realised that wicketkeepers must have done it tough in the old days.”

Bedford, who also had been invited to play Lancashire League cricket with the Bakup, eventually came to relish his football career and would have loved to have spent his entire time with the Swans under the tutelage of former Melbourne premiership coach Norm Smith.

“He was an absolute marvel,” Bedford declared. “He could get the best out of any player willing to do the work, even though he was very ill when he coached the Swans (from 1969-72). I remember that just before he gave us his pre-match address he would take a few pills.”

Bedford crossed to Carlton for eight games over the 1977-78 seasons, but the Swans’ five-time best and fairest winner’s heart beats red and white. He sees the Swans in most of their games in Melbourne and goes to see them in Sydney “once or twice” a season.

And his greatest honour in football: “Being inducted into the Swans’ Hall of Fame is right up there with my Brownlow win,” he said. “To be given that honour is very humbling, very flattering and very special.”

Bedford is still involved in cricket, playing for social team, the Crusaders, and is coach of Melbourne suburban club the Kingston Saints.

In football, he is director of coaching with amateur club South Districts (who wear South’s old white with a red vee), after coaching amateur clubs Old Paradians (he attended Christian Brothers’ Parade College) and Albert Park.

He still lives in South Melbourne and therefore has more red and white flowing through his veins than most.

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