Someone should get Ricky Stuart on the phone and ask him to re-hire massage therapist Bob Griffin because the Raiders have never won a grand final without him. The 87-year-old, who massaged the Raiders for 23 years, still massages on game day at his local Queanbeyan Tigers Club.
He has come out of retirement once before, when the Raiders asked him back, so anything’s possible. The funny thing is, Bob has never watched an entire game of football.
“I get real nervous,” he says. “I’ve seen bits of games but I usually go to the dressing room before the end. I’ve never seen them get beaten.”
When we caught up with Bob, he was surrounded by walls of old photos of footy legends and autographed footy boots and footballs.
For a bus driver, Bob made a brilliant masseur. Bob was originally a Murrays bus driver transporting the Raiders around, until the Raiders needed a club massage therapist.
“They were short one day, I’ve played about 350 games of football so I could always massage, so I thought, ‘bugger it, I may as well give it a go’,” Bob says.
Bob has played a lot of footy – the only person in Queanbeyan to play 150 first grade games of Aussie Rules (Queanbeyan Tigers) and 120 first grade games of Rugby League (Queanbeyan Blues.)
His massages, however, are next level. He’s massaged football legends from the Australian super league to the NSW State of Origin team and even the King of Tonga. He has the Midas touch.
He’s travelled the world with football stars – despite his dislike of flying – and he’s even been invited to The Lodge to meet Prime Minister Bob Hawke after the Raiders’ 1989 grand final win.
His son, Mat, tagged along with him on tour, as ball boy and, later, a timekeeper.
“When the Raiders were on a roll, us ball boys would throw the ball straight at their chest so they could keep on playing, but for the opposition, you’d just put it on the sideline,” Mat says with a laugh.
When Bob left the Raiders (for the second time), he was given stadium seats for life.
“They thought I was only ging to live a year,” Bob jokes, 20 years on and still holding prime seats on the half-way mark in the Mal Meninga grandstand (plus a VIP parking pass).
So maybe the Raiders should seriously consider bringing Bob (Griffo) back, he’s virtually family as he used to play footy against Ricky Stuart’s dad and he’s been to the weddings of Ricky, Laurie Daley, and Ruben Wiki.
He still has a massage table set up in his garage and he still knows the trade: “We massage quick and light because we want the muscles loose so they can’t pull a muscle”.
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