Robbie Muir

Robert "Robbie" Muir (born 8 October 1953) is an Indigenous former Australian rules football player for the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

He also played for West Torrens Football Club and Woodville Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).

In 1971, while playing for Ballarat against Redan, Muir was reported for kicking his opponent.

Muir claimed it was an impulsive trip rather than a kick and his opponent whom he was alleged to have kicked supported him.

However, evidence from the umpires asserted it was a "deliberate, vicious kick".

Muir was suspended by Ballarat Football League officials for two and a half years.

Ballarat Football Club took the league to the Supreme Court of Victoria but were unsuccessful in having the suspension overturned; the club alleged racial bias and collusion.

During this enforced break from organised football, Muir played football for Aboriginal representative teams including a tour to Papua New Guinea in 1973 under the guidance of Sir Doug Nicholls who was also from the Cummeragunja Mission.

Muir also started abusing alcohol and found himself in trouble with the police for various offences relating to his alcohol abuse including assault and drink-driving.

Recruited from the Ballarat Football League, he played 68 VFL games over 7 interrupted seasons between 1974 and 1984 and is regarded as a brilliant player who was notorious for angry outbursts on the field, often in response to vicious racial abuse by both opposition fans and on-field players.

At the end of his suspension in 1974, Muir returned to play for Ballarat and on the strength of seven "astonishing" games for the club, he was recruited by St Kilda mid-season.

Muir was recruited by St Kilda in the middle of the 1974 season.

He played 50 VFL senior games by early 1977 mainly under the coaching of Allan Jeans, winning St Kilda's most improved player award in 1975, but would only play another 18 games in the next four seasons.

Muir's ability as a footballer was confirmed by Ron Barassi who described him as one of the VFL's most talented players.

Len Templar said "There was no better player than Muir. ... He could have done anything".

Neil Roberts, who Muir reveres for his friendship, said "He's not a fellow, he's a happening".

St Kilda's official history says "[Muir] played football with a cyclonic power that was allied to one-touch skills".

Muir was given the nickname "Mad Dog" by team-mate Kevin Neale who thought Muir ran around the field "like a sheep dog ... mad".

The name stuck and later became associated with the numerous acts of on-field violence perpetuated by Muir.

Muir would later disavow the name saying "... the blackfella thing came into it. It was terrible" and "I don't want people to say, 'There goes Mad Dog.'" Former AFL coach John Northey, who mentored Muir in Ballarat, was very critical of the name, saying "I think Robert is more maligned than any player who's ever played the game. I think it put him in positions he shouldn't have been in".

Muir's time at St Kilda was marred by constant racial abuse from opposition players and supporters and a lack of understanding of his predicament from his own club.

Muir himself said "I just answered (racism) probably the wrong way and belt them back ... They wouldn’t say it the next game so you'd shut them down that way. [...] We didn’t have vilification rules, no lawyers, counsellors, didn’t have that. You're basically just left on your own, to your own devices."

Towards the end of his first spell at St Kilda in 1978, Muir was reported for kicking his opponent in a reserves game against South Melbourne for which he received an eight-week suspension.

In defending him at the tribunal, his advocate relied on racial stereotypes - to the disgust of Muir.

He was reported 13 times and suspended for 22 weeks, including 12 weeks after a fiery outburst against Carlton in 1984.

Such outbursts led to him being known by the nickname "Mad Dog", a name which Muir himself did not like.

Muir's family were Yorta Yorta people from the Cummeragunja mission on the Murray River near Moama although Muir grew up in Ballarat.

Muir's mother Myrtle raised and fostered over 43 children and Muir states there were never fewer than 11 people living in the family house.

Muir's father, Cyril, was a painter and at times, a violent drunk.

Cyril routinely physically abused Muir; one instance saw Cyril kicking Muir in the stomach so hard it left Muir with a twisted bowel that caused him continence problems throughout his football career.

The abuse left Muir with lasting mental health issues which saw him given electroconvulsive therapy aged seven.

Muir attended Ballarat Technical School until the age of 15.

After leaving school Muir worked as a slaughterman.

He played his junior football for Ballarat Football Club and captained their under-18 team.

A brilliant football talent, Muir was subject to continuous degrading racial taunts as a junior; so awful that an opposition fan wrote to the Ballarat Courier decrying the "filth and abuse" to which Muir was subjected.

Ballarat's senior coach at the time and former North Melbourne player, Len Templar, said Muir was "as brilliant a player off nothing as I've ever seen".

Muir first became a father aged around 16 or 17.

His daughter was adopted out against his will - Muir claims she was stolen.

While reacting angrily to news of the adoption, Muir accidentally shot himself.

Muir did not meet his daughter until she was 18.