[17] He came to Collingwood from Western Australia as a centre half-forward in 1954 too late to be listed;[18][19] and, so, he continued to play football with Parkside Amateurs, a team that was coached by ex-Preston (VFA) rover Les Ross,[20] in the Victorian Amateur Football Association, for the remainder of the 1954: a season in which Parkside were C-Grade premiers, unbeaten throughout the entire season.
[27] When working as a fitter and turner in Melbourne, he lost the top of his middle finger in an industrial accident in 1955 before he had played his first game for Collingwood.
[37] Gabelich's first post-injury appearance was for Collingwood's Second XVIII, playing against North Melbourne on 17 August 1957, where "until his condition gave out, [he] did well and was not troubled by his leg".
[38][39] He was selected in the First XVIII for the important (round 18) last match of the season against St Kilda on 24 August 1957,[40] and was one of Collingwood's best players in a losing team.
[44] He was runner-up in the 1959 Brownlow to St Kilda's Verdun Howell and South Melbourne's Bob Skilton (who had tied for first),[45] and he won the Copeland Trophy as Collingwood's best and fairest in 1960.
He played as a back-pocket resting ruckman for the combined VFL and VFA team against the VAFA in the demonstration match of Australian rules football, during the Melbourne Olympic Games, on 7 December 1956.
[46] At the end of the 1959 season, Gabelich, unemployed, and surviving only on his (at the time meagre) football payments from Collingwood, sought a clearance to West Perth—where, in addition to his football payments, he had been promised "a full directorship of an estate agency which would guarantee him a minimum income of £4,000 a year" (A$124,016 in 2020 terms)[47][48]—and had been told, by Collingwood, that no decision could be made until a new, 1960, committee had been elected.
A frustrated Gabelich flew to Darwin on Friday, 8 January 1960, played with the Waratah Football Club on the Saturday, and on the following Monday commenced work as a storeman in a hardware store to the bewilderment of West Perth officials.
[49] On the following Saturday (16 January) morning, Gabelich contacted the Collingwood secretary (Gordon Carlyon) and, having received an assurance from Carlyon that Collingwood would support his request to the VFL to be allowed to play for the Waratah Football Club in the Victorian off-season, he agreed to not play on that Saturday, in the hope that would not further prejudice his request.
[50] After a discussion that concluded that "follower Ray Gabelich has not broken any A.N.F.C.regulation, or incurred automatic disqualification by playing in Darwin", Collingwood decided to refer the matter to the VFL for guidance, before making a final decision.
[54][55][56] In 1961 he returned to Western Australia where spent the entire season playing with West Perth, during which time he also represented Western Australia at the 1961 Brisbane Australian National Football Council Carnival, playing at centre-half back (and, in the process, he completely nullified South Melbourne's champion centre half-forward Jim Taylor) in the West Australian team that not only (unexpectedly) defeated the Victorian representative team 15.14 (104) to 14.11 (95) in "a fiercely fought match", but also, through that victory, won the ANFC Carnival title.
Given that fact, and from the evidence presented from the field umpire (Jim Brewer), it was obvious that regardless of whatever it was had preceded the incident, Gabelich had, indeed, struck Harvey.