In early 1968, it looked like Doug Searl’s fortunes were finally taking a turn for the better.

He’d missed three of the first four rounds but then returned with three goals against Hawthorn in Round 5, and a career-high bag of four against Essendon the following week. Both games were played at Victoria Park, and it looked like the promise he had shown in the previous two seasons as a key forward was starting to come to fruition.

Six weeks later he was back at Victoria Park again. But this time he was making his debut for Fitzroy!

Such was the nature of football in those years, with a mid-season window available to players wanting to change clubs. It’s not known who instigated the swap, but both club and player would have known that competition for key forward spots was fierce, with Peter McKenna, ‘Twiggy’ Dunne, Ian Graham and Rob Farmer all on the senior list.

But whatever the reason it was a move that would come to look like a mistake from the Pies, as Searl enjoyed a fine second stage of his career with the Lions both in attack and defence.

It had all started so differently back in 1964, when Doug joined Collingwood’s Under-19s team from East Melbourne YCW. He finished second in the team’s best-and-fairest that year, then won the reserves best-and-fairest the following year.

It seemed only a matter of time before he would make his senior debut, and that moment came in Round 9 of the 1966 season when he was named at centre half-forward against South Melbourne. He kicked two goals that day, but was still dropped back to the reserves.

He returned late in the season and immediately looked at home, scoring in each of the five consecutive games he played. Unfortunately the sixth was the 1966 Grand Final, where he went goalless, with one horror miss from near the goalsquare – and we all know what happened that day.

He was in and out of the team over the next 18 months, sometimes through injury and sometimes through selectors’ choices. The talent was obviously there: he was an excellent mark and a fine kick, and was also very mobile for a big man. But he could never quite nail down a regular starting place.

Which is why that burst of seven goals in back-to-back games in 1968, coming on the back of good pre-season showings where he’d kicked 11 goals in two games, looked like a corner-turning moment. Instead he went goalless against Carlton the next week and then was dropped again. In June the Club surprisingly dropped him and two other players, Gary Wallis and Max Pitt, off the list on the same night. Doug asked to go to the Lions, and the Pies eventually entered into a swap deal with them for a young rover who ended up playing only a handful of U19 games.

Searl’s impact for the Roys was immediate. As noted, he made his Fitzroy debut in Round 13 against the Pies at Victoria Park, notching just a single goal. But after that he hit his straps, kicking 31 goals in his eight games, including bags of four, five, six and a nine-goal haul in the last game of the year. It was enough for him to win the club’s goalkicking despite playing less than half a season.

He repeated the dose in 1968, nailing 68 goals for the year and again topping the goalkicking.

After recovering from a broken ankle in 1970 he was tried at centre half-back. The move worked and he became a star in defence for the Lions. He later became a highly-distinguished junior coach, leading the Fitzroy Under-19s to several Grand Finals and a Premiership in the late 1970s/early ‘80s, then adding two more flags with Richmond Under-19s in the 1980s. He also had a short stint coaching VFA club Port Melbourne, the team his father Sid had played for. And he was an outstanding cricketer with Collingwood at District level and Ivanhoe.

There’s no doubt that Doug Searl could have stayed longer at Collingwood. He was certainly good enough, though it seems the selectors didn’t quite agree. But the Magpies’ loss was Fitzroy’s gain, and in the end it was the Roy Boys who were able to bring out the best in a player who not only enjoyed a fine career but also went on to have a sizeable impact on the game itself. 

- Michael Roberts