We defeated Warrnambool at the Friendly Societies Park. It was a tough game, like so many grand finals. Warrnambool was one point in front at half-time. We were 15 points up at three-quarter-time and ended up winning by eight points.

It was a wet, miserable sort of day and the surface was pretty slippery because of the rain in the morning.

It was the first senior premiership for Mortlake since 1936, so as you would understand it was very special victory in 1975.

Former South Melbourne player Michael Mulligan was our coach.

Sadly, the club never won another senior flag in its own right after 1975.

Mortlake had great success in the reserves competition in that era, winning flags in 1960, 61, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73 and 1974.

Mortlake merged with Terang in 2002 after a few years in the wilderness.

Did you play in any of the reserve premiership sides in that era?

Yes, I played in the 1969 reserves premiership and also in the 1970 game.

I won the best and fairest trophy for the club in the reserves in 1970.

I suppose being such a good runner at school, running would have been a key attribute to your footy career. Is that fair?

Tim, that comment is right in some ways but wrong on a couple of occasions. I’ll never forget the former Carlton star John Goold was coaching us at Mortlake.

Gooldy introduced a new form of professionalism to the club, but sadly I don’t think many of the players were up to it. One example of that related to preseason training which used to start February, but Gooldy wanted to bring that date forward and a lot of the players were unhappy.

Talking about my speed, we were to play Warrnambool one day and Gooldy told me before the game there’s a bit of a wrap on a certain Warrnambool player, but Gooldy said for me to use my speed and I would beat the bloke. Five minutes into the game and the bloke had run me off my legs.

I knew he was a very handy young footballer.

His name was Michael Turner. He went on to play 245 games with Geelong.

A few weeks later Gooldy was telling me all about this young player from South Warrnambool and that I would outrun and beat him.

Once again, I was beaten by a very quick young player.

His name was Ricky Barham and he went on to play 150 games with Collingwood.

My footy career came to an end in 1978 when I was 28 years old. I kept on getting problems with corked thighs and I had work commitments in the car yard at Mortlake because my dad had passed away.

I ended up playing 199 senior games with Mortlake.

Barry, what caused the demise of the Mortlake Football Club as it was known?

The wool boomed for years before it hit a brick wall and with it things came to a halt in Mortlake.

My family had the Holden car dealership in the town from 1959 to 2000.

I would say in our high times in Mortlake, we would have employed about 35 people. We were operating car sales, a panel shop and a work shop. I can vividly remember apart from us having the Holden dealership, there were Toyota and Mazda dealerships in the town, plus farm machinery businesses and trucking businesses.

There used to be various stock and station agents in the town and a few of those left when the wool boom came to an end.

Young people left the town and went to the bigger centres and left the district.

The shift away of the young people had a big impact on the town. It’s great to hear that a few new businesses have opened in the town.

Where do you live now?

The family lives in Barwon Heads. We sold our house in Mortlake three years ago.

The family got involved with buses back in 1982 when we took over the buses in Terang. The head office of Christian Buslines is now located in Ocean Grove. We charter buses all around the place.

Barry, do you play much sport?

I play a bit of golf in the competition at Barwon Heads on Wednesdays. My golf handicap is not the best. I’m pretty passionate about the racehorses.

The late Mortlake trainer Stuart Carter-Smith trained Hall Light to win a race for us at the 1973 Warrnambool May Racing Carnival, and I was hooked on the sport after that victory.

I’ve been in the ownership of various horses over the years. A funny story relating to horses that I’ve raced is about Nordica. Stuart trained him at Mortlake.

The horse was a smart sprinter. He won a race at Moonee Valley and a few other races during the 1980s.

Stuart said it was time to sell Nordica, so we entered him in the old Wright Stephenson horse sales in Melbourne. He got sold.

A few weeks later, I got a phone call from Mortlake publican Wayne Webster on a Saturday night and he told me Nordica had been substituted for an old steeplechaser Foden in a race at Broken Hill.

He added there had been a massive plunge on the horse and he had won.

I thought, I’m glad I’m not involved with that. The next minute my phone rang and it was a detective and he was asking what I knew about Nordica. I told him we had sold the horse a few weeks earlier in Melbourne.

I suppose one of my highlights as an owner relates to a horse called Game Serena. She was trained by the late Ron Gravett. She won a race at Flemington and gave jockey Greg Childs his last win.