Bill Pearson, a character lost

They don’t make people like Bill Pearson any more. And now there is one less of them after Pearson, aged 88, died on Monday.

Pearson came from a larrikin era affected by the adversity of depression and war, and the subsequent good times that saw him play in a VFL premiership team for Essendon in 1946 and become a pioneer of the greyhound industry.

He was a scallywag who loved a good story and a joke. His infectious, lisp-affected laugh was his signature. Like most men of his era, he loved his beer and his mates. Each afternoon, he could be found in the same pub, in his favourite corner drinking his favourite beer with the same mates – telling the same stories.

He once claimed to be a man unique to the world. “I am the only person to see Phar Lap, play football with Dick Reynolds … and pat Zoom Top.”

Pearson saw Phar Lap win the 1930 Melbourne Cup when, aged eight, he was shining shoes on the Flemington hill for a penny a time. In his years at Essendon, cut short by a serious knee injury, he was regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, a man that could hold his own in any era – fast and skilful.

His reference to Zoom Top, regarded as Australia’s greatest greyhound, came from his love of the sport that he made a life business.

Pearson was not a man to rile; he was as tough as teak and spoke his mind without fear or favour. Despite playing with Essendon legend Dick Reynolds, Pearson didn’t hold the football icon in high esteem, and he made it known. “He cost us a premiership one year and when we won it in 1946, we all got a four-pound sling, while he got a new car,” he bemoaned.

Pearson’s greyhound form guide – the Gold Guide – became the bible for greyhound punters. In the halcyon days, Pearson’s detailed form and tips filled a full page of The Age newspaper twice a week. Pearson was recently inducted into the Australian greyhound industry Hall of Fame.

I can’t remember when I first met him, but it was when I was in secondary college, at St Bernard’s, in Essendon, because I shared a classroom with his second eldest of four sons, Mark, a scallywag in the mould of his father.

Mark was a lot like the old man – a fun-loving larrikin. He was as thin as a pull through for a rifle, but possessed a talent for anything but schoolwork. A few years later I played with Mark in the same amateur football teams as oldest son Peter (‘Snake’) and Paul. The “baby” of the family John, also became a top amateur footballer.

In the mid-1970s, one of my first jobs in journalism was to work for the new weekly form guide newspaper, Tabform, a racing, trots and dogs publication founded by Pearson and Southdown Press. Pearson became a close friend.

Three of the four brothers – Peter, Mark and John – remained in the family business, producing a highly successful weekly greyhound newspaper, the National Greyhound Form, as well as online form products. The old Gold Guide still exists.

Pearson’s mind started to wander a few years ago, but the boys kept his desk in the office and the patriarch didn’t miss a day. The only trouble was that his forgetfulness was causing some issues, because Pearson would get out his phone contact book and start ringing everybody and anybody, sometimes three and four times a day, forgetting that he’d made an earlier call.

I was on the call list, so was local Moonee Ponds identity, crime matriarch Judy Moran, who fielded daily inquiries from Pearson, oblivious to recent events about the family. Eventually, the sons had to hide the contact book.

Pearson’s mind may have failed him in later years, but his infectious character and love of life and his family didn’t. Today there’s an empty stool in a corner in a bar somewhere with his name on it.