How does one begin to explain the recent history of the Richmond Football Club? You could start with the 1980s, when president Barry Richardson oversaw a club he later described as “a den of iniquity”. You could start with another president, Alan Bond, who mispronounced the name of the club’s best player at the AGM. You could track back 30 years to the 1987 national draft, when the Tigers snapped up a young man named Richard Lounder at No1. Lounder was nudging 19 stone, partial to a dart and managed just four games. Back then, current CEO Brendan Gale recalls, it was a “third world” football club. They couldn’t afford weights. They certainly couldn’t afford players. If not for the Save Our Skins campaign, the bank would have foreclosed.

If your glass is half full, you could start with the good times, those periods when the beast would stir. 1995, in particular, was a rollicking year, culminating in a come-from-behind win over Essendon, their first finals win in 13 years. John Northey, the ultimate us-against-the-world coach, tumbled out of the coach’s box, waving his Richmond jacket like a crazy man. Gale swears the MCG shifted that day, such was the noise the Tiger Army generated.

Within weeks, for reasons that were never really explained, Northey was gone. The ensuring years were characterised by sacked coaches, false dawns and supporter backlash. Richmond, it seemed, truly was a club that ate its own.

Talking a good game

The appointment of Terry Wallace is as good a place as any to begin. At the time, he was hot property. He was given five years to work his magic. In his first draft, he had five picks inside the top 20. He eschewed a raw, cocky, Indigenous kid called Lance Franklin in favour of Richard Tambling. In his defence, most club recruiters would have done the same.

Terry certainly talked a good game. He’d preface his sentences with an upwardly inflicted ‘Yeah!’. Tanning salons were still legal in Victoria and some weeks he looked decidedly phosphorescent. He certainly started well. By winter 2005, Richmond were 7-2. Nathan Brown, who’d been in scintillating touch, snapped both his tibia and fibula, one of the most sickening injuries you’ll ever see on a footy field. A foot long rod was inserted in his leg. He was never the same player again. The Tigers won just three more games for the year.

Wallace was the sort of coach who always had an angle, always had a trick up his sleeve. He scuppered an undefeated Adelaide side in 2006. He sent Matthew Richardson to the wing. He was the only coach willing to take a punt on Ben Cousins. But there was no real support around him. The recruiting budget was laughable. In 2005, Jarrod Oakley Nicholls was selected as their first draft pick on the strength of video footage. By 2009, the supporter base was fed up. Wallace started receiving death threats. The Herald Sun ran with the headline “Death Row”. He departed mid-season and retreated to his bolt hole, barricading himself in his home theatre.

Later that year, with a locum coach and another season going up the spout, they met the lowly Melbourne. It was one of the more suspicious games of recent times. Richmond’s Jordan McMahon, the quintessential Wallace player, kicked the winning goal after the siren. It shored up a priority draft pick for Melbourne and prompted a three-year investigation into tanking. The Demons snapped up Tom Scully and Jack Trengove, while the Tigers opted for a kid from Castlemaine, Dustin Martin.

‘Young men of outstanding character’

At the time, an increasing number of draftees were coming through the private school system. They were “young men of outstanding character”. Martin was something else altogether. His dad was a bikie. Dustin had left school at the end of year 9. He refused to smile for photographers. He’d worked as a forklift driver and a storeman. “Are you dumb?” the Port Adelaide recruiters asked him. “I was born to play AFL,” he told one senior reporter.

They had a new coach, too. Damien Hardwick was a typical Kevin Sheedy protégé. At Hawthorn, he was part of a crack team of coaches that masterminded an unlikely premiership in 2008. He’d got down to the final two in the interview process for four senior coaching roles. He missed the Essendon job after his computer malfunctioned during a PowerPoint presentation. At his opening press conference, a 90-year-old supporter stood up and addressed the media throng. “I hope all you mob just leave him alone,” she said.

Bachar Houli celebrates with Damien Hardwick after the second qualifying final against Geelong earlier this month. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images

Crucially, it was senior management who left him alone, a rare luxury for Richmond coaches. He rebuilt the list, drafting solid citizens and reliable kicks. Gale stabilised the club and balanced the books. Within three or four years, they’d cultivated an attractive, freewheeling style of play. They’d regularly knock off the best teams of that era. But there was still a glassy fragility to them. Three successive finals campaigns were misbegotten disasters. In Adelaide in 2014, they ran through a banner that read “At Richmond, we don’t believe in fairy tales – we write them.” Twenty minutes later, they were seven goals down. The following day, at Mad Monday, Trent Cotchin apologised for the performance whilst dressed as Ace Frehley, the Kiss guitarist.

Soon, Cotchin looked utterly fed up. He played the most blue-collar of games. But he looked and spoke like an articled clerk. He was therefore an easy target. The AFL website published an article titled “Why Trent Cotchin is not a great player”. Dermott Brereton said he was too nice and charming to be an effective leader. Brooke Cotchin eventually defended her husband in an impassioned Instagram post.

Playing like kids again in 2017

By last year, the Tigers seemed bereft of flair, instinct and luck. Their star recruit was addicted to ice. Their average losing margin was seven goals. They were walloped by 20 goals in the final round. There were calls for Hardwick’s head and a shake-up of the board. The AFL drastically cut their Friday night games.

In the off-season, Hardwick conceded that he’d been too rigid, too harsh, too old school Richmond. “Just play,” he told his team. “Play like you’re kids again.” Neil Balme was brought in to calm the place down. And the language coming out of the club changed. “I feel free,” Cotchin said. “This year is all about connection,” said Alex Rance, a devout Jehovah’s Witness and one of the best key defenders of all time. Even Martin began to embrace mindfulness and meditation.

Sure, there were the usual calamities. They were torched by Adelaide. Fremantle’s David Mundy sunk them after the siren. Their away loss to GWS was a total cock up. And the unimpeachable Bachar Houli had to rely on a character reference from Waleed Aly, a former club mascot, to whittle down a striking charge.

But there’d been a noticeable shift. Their return clash with GWS was particularly instructive. On a miserable Sunday afternoon, the Giants skipped away to an early lead. In years gone by, you suspect the Tigers would have capitulated. But they dug in and ground down an opponent whose appetite for the contest was less than voracious.

The Giants’ Josh Kelly tackles Dylan Grimes of the Tigers during the round 18 at the MCG. Photograph: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

And then there was Martin. From the opening 30 seconds of the season, there was a joyous brutality to his game. Leigh Matthews reckons he’s never seen a footballer have a better season. In the week of the biggest game of his life, he sacrificed $2m to stay at the club. The federal immigration minister, meanwhile, rushed through an amendment to the Migration Act, banning his father from entering the country. That Friday against Geelong, he played with not a scintilla of doubt. The Cats, who hadn’t lost to the Tigers at the MCG this century, were spooked by the sulphurous crowd. A weight had been lifted. The lid was off. Inner city Melbourne battened down the hatches.

‘It’s Tiger time’

Every morning, I walk the dog through the one-way streets of Richmond, once known as Struggletown. It’s a hodgepodge of a suburb, with it footy pubs, converted warehouses, social housing blocks, hipster bars, workers cottages, cashed-up tradies, Vietnamese restaurants and hot yoga studios. At times, it resembles a giant construction site. It’s also the epicentre of Melbourne’s heroin trade. Dozens of addicts died within a two street radius last year.

Most mornings, we stop and chat with an old timer, one of those lifelong Richmond residents who’s sitting on a gold mine. He’s forever being harassed by besuited real estate agents. On his fence hang two signs. One, distributed by the Greens, calls for the trial of a safe injecting room. The other is the old Richmond catchcry - “Eat ‘Em Alive!” He pats the dog and we talk about the drugs and the Tigers. He tells me about the old champions who used to own the pubs and milk bars in the area. Martin, he reckons, is the best Richmond player he’s seen since Royce Hart. He points to the corner pub, opposite the housing commission flats and recently painted in yellow and black. “We’re back, I reckon,” he says. “It’s Tiger time.”

For those of a younger vintage, the Richmond experience is pockmarked with pain. But they’ve never dropped off. They barrack as fiercely as modern manners permit. On Saturday, they may well constitute the most one-sided crowd in Australian sporting history. Their team, rather like the Bulldogs last year, seem to have caught the competition on the hop. They have few injuries. Their young players are untrammelled by past disasters. They have all the momentum. They have their swagger back. They have the smell of history about them.