He found Baker and his teammates in the middle of a big boozy session celebrating their win, Phil nursing a longneck bottle of VB while sitting on the floor, so Ron said he’d call back the following morning and perhaps he could take Phil out for breakfast.

When Ronny arrived back the next day, Baker was sitting in exactly the same position on the floor, still holding a longneck of VB. Undeterred, Ron eventually managed to talk some sense into the young man, secured his signature and he went on to perform brilliantly in both the 1977 and 1978 VFL grand finals.

Earlier, in 1969, Joseph had flown over to Perth one Friday on an old Lockheed Electra to call on Barry Cable and see if there was any remote chance he could entice the champion rover over to Arden Street – even though the accepted wisdom of the time insisted he was never going to leave WA.

Ron visited Cable and his wife, Helen, at home and he was invited inside. They got chatting and Cable soon got out his scrapbooks and Ron ooh-ed and aah-ed over the stories and photographs cataloguing the little left-footer’s wonderful career. Ron spoke about the plans he had to lift North out of its miserable existence, and how Cable was crucial to that transformation.

Three hours later, Cable was won over: he’d come to Melbourne on a one-year deal and give North a try. In 1975, he was one of North’s best players in their breakthrough premiership victory.

By the early 1970s, however, the VFL realised it needed to clamp down on this wholesale rorting of the system, so insisted that all player salaries and contracts be signed by a Justice of the Peace.

For a dealmaker like Ron, that was no impediment. He simply walked down to the local milk bar, where the owner was a mad North supporter and would sign anything that Ron put in front of him. Joseph said he had no compunction about breaking the rules like this because he felt “every other bastard” was doing the same thing.

Two other deals that cemented Joseph’s reputation as the ultimate negotiator were Ron Barassi’s recruitment as coach at the end of 1972, and the clever exploitation of the VFL’s 10-year rule a short time later.

He, Aylett and Mantello courted Barassi over breakfast at the old Melbourne Motor Inn, feeling that they might be a chance at pulling off a coup because the master coach had been out of the game for a season and had watched that year as John Nicholls led Carlton to the flag – with much the same team that Barass had helped build before leaving the Blues in 1971.

And they were right: Barassi’s hunger to prove himself again as a coach, combined with North’s persuasive pitch, resulted in him signing a napkin at the breakfast table to close the deal.

Barassi’s success at North was helped in no small part by the club’s cunning use of what became known as the 10-year rule, introduced by the league in response to growing “restraint of trade” threats from rugby league players in Sydney.

North’s delegate to the VFL, Mantello, kept telling Joseph and others that this new rule might be introduced at the end of 1972 – and they needed to be ready when it was.

So Joseph set about compiling a list of those players who would be eligible to move clubs after 10 years of service and four names stood out: Geelong full-forward Doug Wade, Essendon skipper Barry Davis, South Melbourne defender John Rantall and St Kilda ruckman Carl Ditterich.

In the end, the first three of those players decided to make use of the free-agency initiative – their decision aided no doubt by Ron’s brown paper bags, each containing $10,000 – and move to Arden St, a huge coup for Joseph and North because the experience and class they provided were crucial to delivering the club its first premiership.

Perhaps Ron’s finest moment came two decades later, in 1992, when he was working as the Sydney chief executive. At this time, he was unhappy about plans to install Peter Hudson as the club’s new coach so flew down to Melbourne to have a chat to Barassi at his pub, the Mountain View in Bridge Rd, and see if he might convince him to have one last crack at coaching.

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Joseph pulled up a stool at the bar and, over several pots, appealed to Barassi’s sense of history – and how important it was for the national competition that Sydney be successful. You’re the man to make that happen, Ron said. He chipped away and chipped away till he could sense Barass weakening. And then Barassi’s wife, Cheryl, walked past and said: “Ron, if you want to go, I can look after the pub.”

That was the clincher: Barassi was on the hook. He immediately said to Joseph, come on, let’s go and see Ross Oakley. So at 11.30pm, they left the pub and walked to Oakley’s house in nearby Richmond. Oakley answered the door in his pyjamas and dressing gown and, after getting over the shock, invited his surprise guests inside. The three men sat down for another chat and, sometime in the early hours of the next day, Barassi agreed to coach Sydney.

Yet another Joseph deal signed, sealed and delivered.

Charles Happell is an author and former sports editor of The Age.