Among the highlights for the day was the auction of Dick Reynolds’ locker door with the famous number three on it. The starting price was $3000 but frenzied bidding eventually saw it go for $20,000.
John Kennedy recalled the day he was sent to the back pocket and asked to follow Reynolds around. “I jogged down and stood next to him and in no time the all was down our end,” Kennedy recalled. “A big pack flew for the mark – John Coleman was among those players. The ball spilled straight into Reynolds’ hands. I pounced on him and laid a perfect tackle but he managed to get his toe on the ball and it dribbled through for a goal. He jogged past me and said ‘nice tackle son, but you are better off having the ball”.
Kennedy said from that point on he never believed the tackle count had any real correlation with winning games of football – a lesson learned from Reynolds all those years ago. “Football is very much played in the present but you should never forget your past. Dick Reynolds is the pinnacle of that past for Essendon Football Club,” Kennedy said.
Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy attended what he described as a very important day for the club. ""It was a really great day and it's tremendous to see a lot of players who played against Dick Reynolds. Television wasn't around in those days so there isn’t much vision of him but he was quite amazing. He won three Brownlow Medals before he was 23.”
