Some time before:
1. his surname was stickered on every second car sold in Geelong;
2. he became country football royalty courtesy of his exploits on ovals as distant as Rupanyup;
3. an annual award celebrating dubious fashion choices was named in his honour,
Brian Blood was the onfield general at Uni Oval.
Old timers at the Harrow-Balmoral Football Club may now claim him as their own (not surprising given his role in engineering the team’s miracle premiership in 2002) but Bloody was a fixture of the Uni Blues senior team from 1995 to 1999, captaining the club in his final two seasons.
Asked to nominate the best player that he saw during his times at Blues, Bloody reels off an impressive roll call: Justin Staritski (“played only a few games but came from the AFL and would have been our gun if only he could have avoided injury”), Richard Furphy (“a great inspirational leader”), Rich Vandenberg (“tough and uncompromising”), the 1998-99 model of Tom Wilcox (“was a bull at the gate in these years and loved to kick a goal”), Andrew “Coxy” Wilson (“would dash the length of the ground bouncing the ball with his head shining in the sun and nail goals”) and Aaron “Duxy” Davis (“sold the best dummies going around and had hands of gold”).
Bloody’s strongest football memories from his five seasons at Blues include the Grand Final of 1995 (“for the wrong reasons”), overcoming Xavier at Toorak Park for JK's 300th VAFA senior game, the production of a rasher of bacon by current president and former coach Grant “Treeo” Williams while exhorting the players "to bring home the bacon" and Mark Tyquin's parting speech upon resigning as coach mid-way through the 1997 season.
He also fondly recalls the presence of Blues supporters Brian Lennen (“at all games”) and Marg Hutchins (“at Scotch games”). Particular social highlights for Bloody included “any International Pavvy night” and the post-game celebrations during the 1995 finals series. He makes mention of the infamous “Battle of Stewarts” instigated by Richie Vandenberg in his pre-Hawthorn days and the life drawing classes that Richard Furphy and John Garnaut hosted for a time at their Fitzroy warehouse.
Bloody can now be found on a 200 acre farm west of Geelong, where he lives with wife Fiona and their 3 children (Emily, Xavier and Archie), and overseeing some of the finest car yards in the free world. With his brother Sean, he operates the Holden, Suzuki, Mazda, Hyundai and Toyota dealerships in Geelong.
