In Jim Main's Swans Song series, this week he speaks to former Swans half back Reg Gleeson about the small world that is football...
REG GLEESON
Born: May 1, 1950
Played: 1970-76
Games: 128
Goals:11
It’s a small football world - ask former star Swans half-back Reg Gleeson.
Although most archives list Gleeson as having been recruited from Lockhart, he actually spent just one season with the southern NSW club before moving to the Lake Oval.
He previously had played with Osborne, the same club from which the Swans had recruited 2005 premiership player Adam Schneider. Also, Schneider’s father bought the Gleeson family farm about six years.
Yet the connections do not end there as Gleeson is now employed in Melbourne in the Rick Quade trucking business.
Gleeson always knew as a boy that if he was to progress in football he would have to play with the Swans, as southern NSW had been zoned to the red and white.
It did not particularly worry the tough, go-ahead Gleeson even though he barracked alternatively for Richmond or Carlton, for unusual reasons.
He explained: “Richmond and Carlton were the top two teams when I was growing up and I went for one or the other, usually based on which one had won the previous premiership.
“But I knew that if I was good enough I would have to go to South Melbourne and, in 1969, the Swans invited a bunch of us to the Lake Oval for a week’s training.
“I took it from there, living in Melbourne during the winter and then heading back to the country at the end of each season.”
Gleeson could not have picked to join the Swans at a better team as they has a standout season in 1970 and made the finals for the first time for 25 years.
Gleeson admitted: “I didn’t appreciate what we were achieving at the time because I thought we would make the finals almost every year under the legendary Norm Smith.
“But I played that one semi-final (against St Kilda) and never got another chance, just like Bob Skilton never got another chance. A triple Brownlow Medal winner and a club legend deserves better than that.”
Gleeson, after making his full debut against Hawthorn at the Glenferrie Oval early in 1970 (pitted against the late Des Meagher), never looked back from there and, although he played his early football on a wing, developed into one of the meanest and toughest half-back flankers of his era and a regular in the Swans line-up.
However, his career hit a road-block after one of his best seasons. Gleeson had finished fourth in the Swans’ 1975 best and fairest - behind Peter Bedford, Norm Goss and Brian “the Whale” Roberts, but then he struggled to get a game under new coach Ian Stewart.
“Bluntly, he told me he didn’t think I was good enough, so I took myself north again and spent two seasons with North Albury and then another two with South Bendigo before retiring,” Gleeson said.
And, all the while, Gleeson remained employed in the transport industry. Married to Kate with grown-up children Troy (33) and Lani (28), he now lives in a superbly renovated property in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Brighton and is the grandfather of Troy’s near two-year-old daughter Chiara.
Gleeson gets to see as many Swans’ games as possible in Melbourne, but admits he would like to see more.
“I suppose we should be grateful we have a club at all after the split and move to Sydney in 1982,” he said. “But while there’s a red and white, the Swans will always have my support.”
Gleeson also attends as many past player functions as possible, and even organises some of them so that he can catch up with former teammates. They all are Swans for ever.
