Editing Richmond Football Club (section)

===''Save Our Skins'' and a return to the finals (1987–1995)===
[[File:Matthew Richardson media.jpg|thumb|upright|Debuting for Richmond in 1993, Matthew Richardson went on to become one of the league's leading goal kickers.]]
Although the new president, ex-captain [[Neville Crowe]], had stabilised the club and scored a coup by persuading club legend [[Kevin Bartlett (Aussie Rules footballer)|Kevin Bartlett]] to coach, the club managed to stay solvent by cutting expenses to the bone and paying only two-thirds of the allowable salary cap. But there was no money for recruiting to improve an impoverished playing list. The club struggled to come to terms with the draft after its inception in 1986, and made a number of poor choices—notably, the number one pick in 1987 was used on a player who had only four games with Richmond.

Finally, with the economy in serious recession and interest rates touching seventeen per cent, Richmond's creditors came knocking. At one point, an attempt was made to seize the club's 1973 and 1974 premiership trophies as securities for unpaid debts, an embarrassing situation. For a number of years, the exact amount that the club owed was not publicly known. After Bartlett came Allan Jeans, who then passed the job to ex-Richmond premiership player [[John Northey]] for 1993. Northey returned the team to the simple long-kicking style of the halcyon days under the legendary Tom Hafey. Along with some draft concessions granted by the AFL, Northey's efforts gradually improved Richmond. The team fumbled an opportunity to make the 1994 finals, then opened [[1995 AFL season|1995]] with its best start to a season in 75 years and eventually made it to the preliminary final. With a talented playing list and a strong administration led by Leon Daphne (Richmond's first president from the corporate world, the Alan Bond farce aside), Richmond looked set to become regular finalists again.