Growing up in Kyabram during the 1950s there was one thing most of the sports-loving boys of the town had in common — they all wanted to wear the Big V of Victoria and the Baggy Green of Australia.
Ross Dillon was no different, he just happened to be gifted with the attributes which made both attainable goals.
And while he did not play test cricket, he did rub shoulders with the best the Victorian Football League had to offer for almost a decade.
And it all started on Monday, April 25 — yes, Anzac Day — in 1966 when he played the first of 85 games for Melbourne, against St Kilda (who five months later would win their one and only premiership) at the MCG in front of 60,000 adoring supporters.
He was just 18 years old and, apart from constant knee problems, during his 1966-72 career became one of the league’s most renowned key forwards.
St Kilda, in its only premiership season, won that game by 76 points as Melbourne managed just four goals.
Stan Alves and Hassa Mann were Melbourne’s best players, while Darrel Baldock, Carl Ditterich, Ross Smith and Ian Stewart starred for St Kilda.
Later in the year St Kilda won the grand final by one point against Collingwood when Barry Breen kicked the winning point in front of 101,655 people.
He had 10 disposals, took five marks and kicked two behinds. He first goal came two weeks later against Richmond, finishing the season with 3.6.
Ross played only a handful of games in that first season before injuring his knee.
He cannot remember exactly when he started dreaming of sporting glory, but did admit he remembered regularly sharing his dreams with his sports-loving mates at Haslem St Primary School.
Kicking the footy in the front yard of his Julia St home and retrieving the cricket ball from the neighbours after he had whacked one of his brothers deliveries over the fence was common place.
Growing up in Kyabram in the 1950s revolved around sport and the devotee of the Kyabram Bombers used to idolise the likes of Bob Vick, Geoff Cooper and — the star Kyabram footballers of the era.
Ross has lived in Adelaide since he moved from Melbourne to Norwood in 1973, but has always called Kyabram home and had a message for the 21st century versions of that 10-year-old devotee of sport from the 1950s.
“It doesn’t matter whether you come from Kyabram, Girgarre, Lancaster, Stanhope, Tongala or wherever. Follow your dreams, they can come true,” he said
Ross will turn 76 in December and, after 37 years, made the life-changing decision with his wife wife Sue to sell his Norwood Bookshop — keeping it in the family by signing The Parade business over to his two youngest sons.
He married his Katamatite-born wife in 1972, his last year in the VFL, and they had four children — Alexandra, Hamish, Angus and Alistair.
“Angus and Alistair have taken over the book shop. Alex is in Melbourne, married with three children, while Hamish lives in Adelaide and has his own business,” he said.
Sue is no relation of the Barretts of Stanhope, Cooma and Kyabram sporting fame, although Ross did have former star sportsman Roy Barrett, as a mentor in his junior days.
The Dillons opened their first business, Norwood Newsgency, in 1978 (Ross’ final year of direct involvement with Norwood Football Club, when he was assistant coach of the club’s premiership team) and, in the ensuing years, started 16 different retail businesses.
“Progressively we sold them all, keeping the best (Dillons Book Store) until last before selling it to our sons a month ago,” he said.
Ross was fresh off a hectic week in the Croweater state, having watched half of the Gold Coast match at Norwood oval during Gather Round.
He scoffed at the AFL’s claim of a sell-out for the ground, which reportedly had 9800 people at the Friday night fixture.
“I know what a packed Norwood oval looks like, I played there in 1975 and they had 21,000 at the final. Admittedly, there were no health and safety rules back then,” he said.
Ross remains a member of Norwood and was in the stands when the club won the 2022 SANFL premiership against North Adelaide.
It was a prosperous couple of years for the former VFL goalkicker, who a year earlier had seen his beloved Demons break a 57-year premiership drought.
Ross relived his most painful memory during our hour-long chat, when he had a kick for goal from near the point post in the dying minutes of the Goulburn Valley league’s 1965 senior grand final.
It was his only senior season for Kyabram, playing as a 17-year-old against a Tom Hafey-coached Shepparton team.
Dillon kicked two goals in that grand final, but still has nightmares about the seven-point Kyabram loss.
He said the story of him missing that kick for goal had two very different endings, depending on who was telling the story.
“I still remember watching the ball spin and hit the top of the goalpost,’’ he said, describing it as his most depressing football memory.
“I hated it, being my last game for Kyabram. We were down by two points when I had the shot for goal.
“I missed and they took it down and kicked a goal. That was the last score.”
Ross said he still joked with long-time Free Press sports guru Gus Underwood, who was on the bench that day, about how Ross had taken his place in the starting line-up.
Ross was one of four children, Graeme was the eldest, with Meredith and Douglas the third and fourth children for Arthur and Madge Dillon.
“Dad was a refrigeration engineer at the cannery and his brother Brian was also worked there,” Ross said.
“There were eight in that family. Dad took that cannery job over from his dad, Les, in the early 1950s.”
Arthur Dillon was killed at just 40 years of age in an electrical accident in a home on Christmas Day, 1963. Ross was 15.
The family lived at 1 Julia St for his entire 17 years in Kyabram. Madge Dillon moved to Adelaide to be near her son, where she lived until her death.
Graeme and Douglas are now deceased, while Meredith lives in Bunbury, West Australia.
Ross was emphatic about maintaining his Kyabram connections.
“I’ve been away from there since early 1965, but I can still remember our house being built and playing football on the Haslem St oval,” he said.
“I vividly remember the importance of sport to the town.”
His football heroes were the Vick brothers, particularly Bob, along with coach Tony Bull and the mercurial Geoff Cooper.
“I remember him (Cooper) kicking nine of the team’s 11 goals from a wing against Shepparton,” he said.
Ross’ Haslem St education was followed by time at Kyabram High School and a year at Melbourne High, when he was recruited to the VFL, to finish Year 12.
Ten of the 12 VFL clubs wanted Ross’ signature, Richmond and Geelong making famous trips to town to woo the teenager.
He confirmed a famous story of the “Geelong Flyer’’, Bob Davis, pulling up alongside him in a car while he was on a bike with golf clubs over his shoulder.
Davis, only two years earlier, had coached Geelong to the VFL premiership.
“He offeed me a ticket to go on an end-of-season trip to Hawaii, but I really wanted to play with Melbourne and turned down the trip,” he said.
Richmond legend Jack Dyer visited Ross’ mum on the golf course, but the Tigers did not leave Kyabram empty handed as they recruited Dick Clay (who would go onto play in four Tiger premierships).
Clay was two years older than Ross, who played in the ruck at Under-17 level for Kyabram in a team that was coached by Peter Kelliher.
Ross recalled Clay playing in a Gus Underwood-captained Under-17 1960 premiership team that included his brother, Graeme.
“We trained on the showgrounds, using old army huts with no showers, no windows and they cut the showgrounds twice a year — for the rodeo and for the show,” Ross said.
“We used upturned bikes for goals and would loose the footballs in the grass.”
Ross said his best mate for 50 years, the late Ray Presnell, was among the boys who were part of his formative years.
“There was also Chris Salter, Trevor Stone, Geoff Cox, Greg Caldwell, Geoff Cruise, David Bates and Peter Rafter, who was my next door neighbour,” he said.
Ross speaks on a regular basis with well-known Kyabram identity, Marie Dillon — the wife of the late Brian, Dillon.
“They had eight children and quite a few of those live in Kyabram. I talk to Marie every few weeks,” he said.
Ross has been a regular at Deakin Reserve, not having missed a Kyabram grand final win.
He and Sue are also regular visitors to the border golf courses of Yarrawonga, Swan Hill and Tocumwal.
He said he would never lose that connection to Kyabram, where his dreams of playing football for Victoria and Cricket for Australia were born.
He paid tribute to Free Press icons Gus Underwood and Ian Purdey for helping to fuel the fire of those dreams.
“They were always encouraging me,” he said.
Another Kyabram legend, Clive Fairburn, was instrumental in Ross’ decision to choose Melbourne as his VFL home.
“I went to Melbourne footy and cricket club equally. I wanted to play for Norm Smith and advance my cricket,” he said.
Ross played two years of district cricket firsts for Melbourne and later with Kensington at the top level in South Australia.
He said his cricket prowess revolved around taking the bowlers on and he rarely understood the method of building an innings.
In his last game for Kyabram he hit a century on the recreation reserve and then folowed that up four days later with another ton in a representative game against the Seymour association.
“Not long after that I remember Gus wrote I was potentially going to be Kyabam’s first test cricketer,” Ross said.
As a 17-year-old in 1965 Ross won the equivalent of what was later to become the Kyabram sportstar of the year.
He was listed as number eight of the list of Kyabram’s top 10 sportspeople of the century. That list included number one draft pick Brett Delidio, his former teammate Clay and modern-day stars Paul Newman and Kyle Mueller.
The Kyabram connection continued through his work while playing at Melbourne, when he worked for a firm called Ensign Holdings, a dry cleaning and laundry business owned by former Kyabramite Charlie Badhams.
“I transferred with the company to South Austraia, but it wasn’t super fulfilling and I ended up working in finance before deciding to work for myself in 1979,” he said.
Ross said he wished he had applied the work ethic that allowed him to build a successful business career to his kicking at goal, which he said was a little like his batting in cricket — impatient and occasionally reckless.
“It wasn’t totally a two-hand drop, but that was my biggest fault in football,” he said.
“In 1975, I remember I kicked 9.8 and a teammate refused to handball to me in the goalsquare in the last minute.”
Ross, who stood six feet two inches (187cm) eventually played 85 VFL games and kicked 133 goals between 1966 and 1972.
After his injury-interrupted first year in the VFL he kicked 19.18 goals (including two bags of four) from 13 games in 1967.
In 1968 he kicked 13.15, the highlight 5.1 against North Melbourne. A week earlier he kicked 4.7 against South Melbourne, taking 11 games and having 18 disposals.
His career-best season of 48.31 came in 1969, including six goals against Richmond late in the season.
While at Melbourne he played on Hawthorn Team of the Century full-back Kelvin Moore — in his first game. Moore would go on to play 300 games for Hawthorn and be the backbone of three premiership wins.
He named North Melbourme’s Peter Steward, John Goold and West Lofts for Carlton, along with youngsters David Dench and Brent Crosswell as some of his full-back opponents.
In 1970 he kicked 41.29, including six straight against South Melbourne.
That best-afield effort came just before an invitation was extended to him, Footscray Brownlow Medallist John Schultz and St Kilda captain Ross Smith to host the Queen, Prince Phillip, Prince (now King) Charles and Princess Anne at a Richmond and Fitzroy game.
Eric McCutcheon, AFL CEO, made the phone call to Ross a week before the Royal family was coming to extend the invitation.
“I sat between Princess Ann and the then Duke. We were told to address them as your highness, but it wasn’t long before I dropped that,” he said.
He said he got on “quite well’’ with the Princess, but not good enough to earn an invitation onto the royal yacht for a function later that night.
In 1971-72 he played a combined 18 games and kicked nine goals.
And while he never considered going somewhere else it was mid-season 1972 when he saw the writing on the wall, missing half the season because of an inflamed Achilles tendon.
“They offered 15 guys contracts and I wasn’t one of them,” he said, explaining the next year he moved across to Norwood.
At the end of the 1968 VFL season Norm Smith (the Demons legend who played in four premierships and coached the club to six grand final wins) tried to get Ross to South Melbourne (where he had been appointed coach) and he tried again when he became chairman of selectors when Ron Barassi went to North Melbourneat the end of 1972.
After Ross won the Norwood best and fairest, kicked 66 goals and finished third in the Magarey Medal in 1975, Melbourne came knocking for his return to the VFL — which he quickly turned down.
Ross has the rare distinction of wearing two state jumpers, representing Victoria on five occasions in 1969/70 and playing for South Australia at a 1975 carnival.
As a 21-year-old, he played in a Ron Barassi-coached Victorian side alongside captain John Nicholls, Kevin Bartlett, Royce Hart, Alex Jesaulenko, Sam Newman, Brownlow medallists Kevin Murray and Peter Bedford (1970 Brownlow) and legedary goalkicker Peter Hudson.
The South Australia national carnival team included the likes Barrie Robran, and was coached by SA legend Foss Williams
He was part of the drought-breaking 1975 Norwood premiership team (coached by Bob Hammond), the club’s first title in 25 years, the same year his finished only two votes behind the winner of the Magarey Medal.
Playing for Glenelg were Graham Cornes (father of Kane and Chad) and former North Melbourne great Kym Hodgeman.
Ross’ Nowood years netted 46 goals in 1973 and 66 in 1975, but injury impacted his later years and he finished as the captain/coach of Norwood reserves in 1978, kicking 42 goals before retiring in 1979.
Ross was famously recruited onto the board of the Adelaide Crows, by SA football legend Bob Hammond, who was hoping to groom him to replace him in the chairman’s role at the club.
“I came onto the board at the end of 1997 and was there three years,” he said.
He almost had another former Kyabramite named as Malcolm Blight’s replacement for the 1999 AFL season.
“They had won the flag in 1997 and Bob Hammond had been there for 10 years. He asked me to stand for the board and I was part of the coaching selection panel when Malcolm Blight quit,” Ross said.
“Garry Lyon had retired from playing and I went to Melbourne to talk to him about coming to Adelaide as coach.
“He was interviewed for the job, staying with us when he came over.
“In the end he said he would come, but his wife didn’t want to. If he had of taken on the job I would have stayed.”
The Crows soon after appointed Gary Ayres to the role.
Ross is a 20-year member and former Captain at Kooyonga Golf Club and current chair of their philanthropic foundation.
He was a seven handicapped, but said age had contributed to his current 12.6 rating.
Nowadays his loyalties are split between the Crows and Melbourne.
And you can be sure if the Kyabram Bombers are at Deakin Reserve this September he and Sue will be in the stands supporting the team.
“I’ll always be a Kyabram boy,” he said.