by DOC » Sun Mar 15, 2026 3:33 pm
Graham Cornes in today’s paper.
LEGENDARY GOOD GUY
Grown men do cry. Even tough old footballers.
It’s been eight months since Barrie Robran suddenly left us. Rarely a day passes without his memory impacting. Certainly on sports shows and in football environments, as with Russell Ebert, their memory is perpetuated with stories that are retold and memories that are shared of their deeds.
Not long after Robran passed away, I received an email from Adrian Rebbeck, an old team-mate of his, but for some reason I only found it this week. Rebbeck (who we always called ‘Rebs’) had played with Barrie in both of North Adelaide’s 1971 and 1972 premiership victories.
Plus, he had kicked four goals from the half-forward flank when North beat Carlton in the 1972 Championship of Australia match – the one when Carlton great Alex Jesaulenko famously stood and applauded after Robran had performed some of his magic.
Rebs also kicked four goals in the epic grand final loss to Glenelg in 1973.
He had a memory of Barrie that he felt had to be preserved, such was the respect he had for the man.
Everyone I’ve retold the story to has teared up but this is Adrian Rebbeck’s story to tell.
He was 19 at the time. His parents were in charge of a home of 24 welfare boys at a place called Kumanka in North Adelaide. The night shift manager was a man called Mr Brown.
Mr Brown had son of about five or six with cerebral palsy. He remembers his name as Michael but couldn’t be certain of that.
Apparently young Michael loved his sport and barracked for North Adelaide. After the 1971 premiership triumph, the club held a premiership dinner and before the dinner Rebbeck’s mother gave him a card and asked him if he could get it signed by the players for young Michael, the passionate Roosters supporter.
So he took it, passed it around and most of the players were able to sign it. When Rebs asked Barrie to sign it, he mentioned young Michael’s condition.
“Nothing too specific but just said can you sign this card for a little boy who has cerebral palsy, as his father works with my dad and mum.”
Rebs gave the signed card back to his mother to pass on to Mrs Brown, then forgot about it.
Fast forward six months and it’s in the middle of cricket season – the football triumph is just a pleasant memory. Barrie Robran is playing for Prospect in A grade district cricket at Prospect Oval. He has just been selected to play his first game of Sheffield Shield cricket for South Australia.
His North Adelaide football teammate, Adrian Rebbeck, a handy left-handed batsmen, is playing in the opposing team, Adelaide, whose captain-coach, incidentally, was Ken Cunningham.
At the end of the day’s play, as was the custom, the opposing players were having drinks at the bar, when Rebs was tapped on the shoulder by Barrie, who asked if he could have a word with him downstairs in the changerooms. So he followed him down.
He went to his locker and pulled out the new state cricket hat and short-sleeve state jumper that he had just received that week as part of his cricket gear for his upcoming state debut. He then asked how young Michael was doing.
Rebs didn’t know because he had forgotten about the young fella. But Barrie Robran hadn’t. He gave the hat and jumper – the one with the magnificent state colours and that cable knit stitching – to Rebs to pass on to young Michael.
“But what about your sons?” Rebs asked. “They will have plenty over the years,” Robran replied. “Can you put them in your bag, don’t take them upstairs and make sure the boy gets them, please.”
Rebs openly admits to being overcome by the emotion of the moment. Footballers aren’t supposed to cry, but why wouldn’t you?
A couple of years later, young Michael died. Rebbeck’s mother told him that Michael’s father, Mr Brown, said Michael wore the hat to bed every night for the rest of his life. When it was cold, they would put the jumper on him.
“Here was a man who I briefly asked just to sign a card on a very busy night at our club premiership dinner when we all signed hundreds for our members. He remembered Michael and wanted to make his life a little better,” Rebs wrote 54 years later.
After 1971, Adrian Rebbeck went on to play in two more grand finals with North Adelaide – the successful one the following year, then the loss in 1973.
By the end of the 1974 season he was becoming disillusioned with the club. It had lost too many good players – Von Bertouch, Hammond, Jaworskyj, Sachse, the Burns brothers and a passionate club man Maurie Francou, to name a few. Players were commodities, he felt.
It didn’t help that he had fallen out with coach Mike Patterson. Despite kicking 16 goals in the first four matches, he was dropped after being late for training after a long Monday lunch. So he was traded to Glenelg as part of an exchange with John Sandland, another hero of the 1973 Glenelg premiership.
Unfortunately, a knee injury restricted him and it was obvious he had seen his best days at North Adelaide.
Adrian Rebbeck describes himself as a “scallywag”. It’s an apt description. Maybe he’s grown out of it but he had the look of mischief on his face. A happy, mischievous face. There were no serious transgressions but you knew he was out for a good time.
Oh, wait – there was that time when he and Peter Carey came up with a plan to accelerate the fundraising for the Glenelg players’ trip fund. There was a ‘sure thing’ running at Morphettville and if they got the right odds they could double, maybe even triple, the $1500 the players had already raised.
Strangely, the plan got consensus within the playing group. Of course, the horse lost. The players then had to face the wrath of the club president, John H Ellers, who had a point. Fundraising was so difficult without players gambling it away.
Adrian Rebbeck was a popular teammate in his short time at Glenelg but his heart was and still is with North Adelaide. He never forgot Barrie Robran’s moment of care and generosity in giving his state cap and jumper to a little kid who suffered so much in his short life.
“I was very fortunate he liked me and looked after me in many ways, but I loved him,” Rebbeck wrote.
Who didn’t love Barrie Robran?
