The Barassi Incident
Dean's best remembered attribute is his "acting" ability. Whenever he sensed an opportunity to stage for a free kick, Dean was not averse to diving on the ground or melodramatically throwing his body around, as if the victim of an illegal tackle. This style of play often earned the ire of opposition supporters, but Dean was one of the most loved players among the Tiger fans.
Dean's antics led to one of the most famous incidents in the game's history. On 31 August 1963, two weeks before the finals were due to start, the Tigers played the dominant Melbourne team at Richmond's Punt Road Oval. Dean clashed with Ron Barassi in an incident noticed by the umpire, who subsequently reported Barassi for striking Dean. As the most influential player in the game, Barassi was the key to his team's chances in the finals. The consensus was that Dean staged the incident. Melbourne officials attempted to introduce to the case a videotape of the game taken by the television cameras, to demonstrate Barassi's innocence. The tribunal refused to accept the tape and suspended Barassi, a decision that may have cost Melbourne the 1963 premiership. Ironically, during the modern era, videotape is integral to the majority of cases brought before the tribunal, but was not utilised by the game's authorities until 1973.
Read more about this topic: Roger Dean (Australian Rules Footballer)
Famous quotes containing the word incident:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)