IT'S TAKEN 44 years and an ABC camera angle to confirm as much . . . but for Bob Barker, the goal umpire who called the ball “in” when Wayne Harmes completed his famous boundary line lunge and thump in the 1979 Grand Final, it’s very much a case of “I told you so”.

The footage, released by football historian Rhett Bartlett, clearly captures the legitimacy of the moment – that at least part of the ball was inside the line when Harmes thumped the loose footy 25 metres from the boundary line to the feet of Ken Sheldon, to set up the game-clinching goal from point-blank range in the shadows of the old Ponsford Stand.

At the moment Harmes’ hand made contact with what was actually his own kick, five other men were in the general vicinity - Carlton centre half-forward Mark Maclure and his direct opponent the late Bill Picken, Collingwood defenders Stan Magro and Ray Byrne, and Barker himself.

Barker, impeccably positioned between the goal and behind posts, was but 15 metres from Harmes and front-on to the player as he completed the premiership-winning lunge and thump to Sheldon - a one percenter which thrust the 19-year-old kid from Oak Park into football immortality, and a goal umpire, now 91, into controversy.

But Barker has now been vindicated. As he said this week: “I was pretty confident at the time that I got it right - and I’m very pleased the video has now borne that out".

Back in 2008, in an interview with this reporter for the book Out Of The Blue published in early 2009, Barker was just as adamant.

“I have never ever had a doubt in mind about that decision. Never ever. There was no need for me to think otherwise. If I had the decision to make 100 times again, I’d do it 101,” he said.

“It [the football] wasn’t terribly far [from the boundary line], and it was a very close decision. The ball was in mid-air above the boundary line and the rule is that the ball must be completely across the boundary line to be out of bounds. This is something that a lot of people don’t know - an inch of the ball can be on the line and it’s still in play.

On the hallway wall of Bob Barker’s home in Drysdale hung a montage of four frame-by-frame photographs of what proved to be one of the most famous match-winning plays of any Grand Final.

“Wayne Harmes actually presented me with the montage of that famous incident,” said Barker. “He signed it and added a message, the exact wording of which is ‘Bob, Good decision, Well done, all the best’.

In the decades since the remarkable happening, Harmes has happily trotted out the stock answer to the inevitable question – was the football in or out?

“I always ask them who they barrack for,” said Harmes in a previous interview. “If they say ‘Collingwood’, I tell them it was in the Jolimont rail yards, if they say ‘Carlton’, I tell them it was in, and if they’re neutral, I say ‘Does it really f…ing matter?’.

“In truth, I never saw the line … but the goal umpire [Barker] was right on it. He was positioned, he was crouched, and I could have shook hands with him. And if he thought it was out, he would have called it out.”

The Harmes incident, and the roles of both Barker and the boundary umpire Geoff Wilcox as later detailed here, perpetuate the memory of what was an otherwise heavy slog for the Carlton and Collingwood footballers on Grand Final day 1979.

Harmes’ moment of sheer individual brilliance was aided and abetted by Jim Buckley and Trevor Keogh, who crucially forced the loose ball along the MCC Members’ Stand wing – Keogh with a deft little soccer kick, Buckley with a lunge and a fist. Harmes then pounced, scooped the greasy footy off the deck, and pumped the ball towards the Carlton goal despite the best efforts of Collingwood’s Ross Brewer.

With the ball veering to the right, and likely to drift out of bounds, Harmes followed up, lunging and slamming the ball to the unguarded Sheldon in the goalsquare. Sheldon’s goal completed the play, leaving Collingwood’s Magro to query the boundary umpire as to whether the ball was actually in when Harmes hit it. But it was not the boundary umpire’s call.

Wilcox, a Collingwood supporter who saw his team capitulate to Carlton on that last Saturday in September 1970, was an experienced linesman in 196 senior matches in 10 seasons including the Grand Finals of 1973, 1975, 1979, 1980 and 1981. He was following the play from the Members’ Stand wing towards the forward pocket at the Ponsford Stand end when Harmes gathered the greasy ball in his right mitt and barrelled it forward.

“My view was okay, but the position of the ball in relation to the line wasn’t very good, Wilcox said. “If you’re running to those pockets at the MCG, it’s very difficult to see where the ball is in relation to the line. I was in that situation so while I knew it was close I honestly couldn’t tell … and you’re a brave person to blow it out when it’s not out, if you know what I mean.

“I looked at the goal umpire [Barker] and he’d run right across to the behind post. He basically looked and didn’t give me a signal, so as far as I was concerned, it was okay.”

Barker, who was paid $126 for his services on Grand Final day 1979, was only too willing to revisit the Harmes incident, particularly given the popular misconception that boundary umpire Wilcox actually made the judgment.

“I know Bill Deller was the officiating umpire, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you where Bill Deller was at the time because I was concentrating on the ball,” Barker said. “But I knew that Geoff (Wilcox) was a fair way away from the incident, and when the boundary umpire is behind play like that, it’s the goal umpire’s duty to help his fellow umpires … and I knew that I’d have to be spot-on to give the correct signal.

“A lot of people were under impression that the ball was out of bounds, but it wasn’t out of bounds. When he [Harmes] got to the ball and punched it, the ball was in mid-air, I’d say about 14 inches from the ground …

“It was an amazing bit of play by Wayne Harmes. He kicked the ball and he was quick enough to get up there and punch it to Sheldon. They were all abusing Geoff Wilcox because he was so far behind, but it was a very fast passage of play and he [Wilcox] had no hope of keeping up with it. And he was a very good boundary umpire – one of the best.”

Wilcox too was somewhat bemused that the incident is still the subject of so much interest, but he does add that the-then Collingwood coach the late Tom Hafey “was really dirty on the whole thing”.

“Nobody said a word to me about it after the game, and the first time it came to my attention was in Monday night’s Herald, with headlines about the comments of Tom Hafey made,” Barker said.

“Hafey started it all. He said the ball was about four rows back into the members, which is a lot of bullshit. When I saw that headline I rang Allan Nash, our umpires’ advisor, that very night and Allan told me not to worry about it.

“Tom never apologised, but it doesn’t really worry me because I know, in my own mind, that I was right.”

Carlton’s five-point victory over Collingwood in 1979 – 11.16 (82) to 11.11 (77) – was earned with the lowest winning Grand Final score since 1968. The 12th premiership put it in the company of both Essendon and Melbourne, with Collingwood still anchored on 13.

Harmes was adjudged the inaugural recipient of the Norm Smith Medal. Cast in honour of his late great uncle, the bauble was placed around Harmes’ neck by Norm’s widow Marj, who threw in a hearty kiss to boot. That medal is now on display in the Carlton Football Club's Museum showcase at Ikon Park.