Paddy Guinane

Patrick 'Paddy' Guinane is a former Australian rules football player who played in the VFL between 1958 and 1968 for the Richmond Football Club.

Football career

Paddy Guinane was a powerfully built key position player who mainly played as a forward. He was vice-captain of Richmond’s 1967 premiership team and was the Club’s leading goalkicker in 1966 and 1968.

From 1969 he spent two seasons with VFA 1st division side Dandenong. Invited by his former teammate Tony Jewell in 1971 to join him at Caulfield , Guinane was at centre half forward as the Bears defeated Brunswick in the 1973 VFA's 2nd division grand final.

On retirement as a player he coached the Richmond under-19s in 1978-79 and then the reserves in 1980-81, before serving as a Club Board member from 1985–87, and again in 1989.^[1]

Dimattina incident

In the round 15 match against Collingwood, at the M.C.G. on Saturday, 6 August 1966, Frank Dimattina was chasing the ball somewhere between the forward-flank and centre-half forward, bent over, with his head down, concentrating on the ball, and his hands nearly at ground level, when his teammate Paddy Guinane, running at full tilt from full-forward, bounced off Mick Erwin, and smashed into Frank's head with one of his massive thighs at full force. It was obvious that, for some inexplicable reason, Guinane had not seen Frank; and because Guinane was having one of his intermittent bad days, it is most likely he was running to get to centre-half forward, and was looking up the ground into the distance.^[2]

Guinane nearly killed him; Dimattina was very, very badly concussed, and had a broken nose. He was replaced by the 19th man, Kevin Bartlett.^[3]

Family

Paddy's father Danny Guinane, played 103 senior games with Richmond from 1934–39 and 1942-43.

Later life

During the 1970s, Guinane was a science teacher at Richmond Technical College.

References

• Hogan P: The Tigers Of Old, Richmond FC, Melbourne 1996