Lou Riley’s football story has the feel of one of those old country-to-city journeys that shaped Australian rules in the 1930s: a talented forward from Ballarat catches the eye, steps into League football, and ends up playing in front of huge crowds and goes on to be a dual Premiership player.

It sounds like a dream, but it was very much the reality for Louis Andrew Riley.

He was born at Granville in New South Wales, but Ballarat became the place most closely linked with his early football life. His family moved there when he was very young, and it was in the Ballarat football world that Riley made his name. He played with Golden Point, one of the famous old local clubs, and developed as a half-forward flanker: not especially big, but quick enough, clever around goal, and a seriously good mark for his size.

By the late 1920s, Lou was still struggling as a skinny teenager with the Golden Point thirds. He graduated to the reserves in 1928, but his elevation to the seniors in 1929 was regarded by some as a ‘dubious’ promotion. Even so, he managed to finish high up in the competition goalkicking, despite only turning 20 during the season. He also kicked nine goals in a Ballarat League team that played Melbourne.

In 1930 he finished second in the competition goalkicking, and for large parts of the 1931 season he stood on top of the table.

If League clubs weren’t already paying attention, they certainly were after he was chosen in a Ballarat League team to play Collingwood in a charity game in 1931. Lou kicked 11 out of the League’s 14 goals that day – and one more shot from the boundary line hit the post. He kicked them, according to one observer, from “all angles and distances”. (Interestingly, Gordon Coventry kicked a similarly dominant 14 of the Magpies’ 22 goals that day).

Suddenly, Lou Riley was very much in demand. But he wanted to stay in Ballarat, where his employment with the firm George Russell Pty Ltd (wholesale ironmongers and hardware merchants) was guaranteed. The next year, however, he was offered the chance of promotion with his job, and he moved to the city, where he took up with the Melbourne Football Club midway through the 1932 season. He played eight games in his first season, kicking 15 goals. For a new player arriving from Ballarat, that was an encouraging return.

But both games and goals dried up a bit after that: the demands of work meant he couldn’t get to training as often as he would have liked and that affected his play. Even so, he was disappointed with Melbourne let him go during the 1934 season.

Luckily Collingwood hadn’t forgotten the guy who’d taken them to the cleaners in 1931, and they brought him to Victoria Park to play alongside Gordon Coventry. He was a footballer who knew where the goals were, even in a side that was not winning regularly. He was not a headline superstar, but he was useful, reliable and lively — the sort of forward or half-forward who could turn a loose ball or a sharp lead into scoreboard pressure. “He is a splendid kick with both feet, is a quick thinker and mover and is able to mark while turning in the air,” wrote The Sporting Globe in 1935. “He is now one of Collingwood’s most dependable forwards.”

He made his Collingwood debut late in 1934 and the young man known as ‘Ding Dong’ quickly fitted into a forward line that was already renowned as one of the most dangerous in the competition.

But in that year’s first semi, against South Melbourne, he had the chance to win the game on the bell but missed his shot on goal. He’d already kicked two goals, and took a mark at half-forward from a kick off the ground after a scrimmage. But rather than take a set shot from a long way out, Lou kept running to get closer to goal – but then sprayed his shot on goal and missed everything, ending Collingwood’s season. It was a cruel blow.

In the opening round of 1935, however, had the chance to atone. He kicked a career-best five goals that day – including the matchwinner as the bell rang. It was redemption in all ways.

That performance set him on the path to his best ever season. He played 19 games, kicked a career-high 38 goals, and from a half-forward flank was a vital member of the team that won the VFL Premiership. The only black spot was a four-match suspension he copped for an incident in the Grand Final

Collingwood backed it up in 1936, and Riley was again a Premiership player, brought back for the finals after an interrupted campaign.

But he never again captured the magic of his first full season with the Pies. He managed only six games and four goals in 1936, in a season disrupted firstly by the suspension, then a broken nose and then as he tried to recover from ‘a chill’. Eight games and five goals came in 1937 and seven games for three goals in 1938. In total, he played 44 games for Collingwood and kicked 60 goals.

All together, Lou Riley’s VFL career amounted to 64 games and 87 goals between 1932 and 1938. His career also tells a broader story about football pathways before the national era. A strong country performance could open the door; League clubs kept watch on the bush and the regional leagues; and players like Riley could go from country star to VFL hero in a couple of weeks.

And that was the Lou Riley story. Ballarat beginnings, a Melbourne opportunity, a Collingwood revival, and two Premiership medals at the end of it all. For a half-forward flanker with a keen eye for goal, that is not a bad footballing CV.

A half forward flanker in Collingwood's successive premiership teams of 1935 and 1936, Riley was recruited from Melbourne, having originally come from Golden Point.

- Michael Roberts