CHAPTER THREE: Formation and key characters in the cheer squad (all pictures dated 6 and 14 July 2011).

WPFC cheer squad founders, Mike Blewett and Kieran James, Kalgoorlie, 14 July 2011.

Chapter 3

Formation and the key characters in the cheer squad

Introduction

This chapter take readers directly on to the formation of the West Perth Cheer Squad in the first half of the 1984 WAFL home-and-away season. Following this, this chapter introduces each one of the core cheer squad members individually and discusses the norms of social relationships within the group. A comparison is made at key places with the findings of the worldwide soccer hooligan literature as presented in Chapter 2.

West Perth versus Subiaco, Leederville Oval, Round 11 (19 June) 1976

I began attending West Perth games as a seven-year-old in June 1976. My father Laurie first took me to watch the West Perth home game against Subiaco in June 1976 at Leederville Oval. Atkinson’s statistical section confirms that the date was 19 June 1976 and the final score was: West Perth 14.17 (110) defeated Subiaco 4.6 (30).[1] My father and I sat directly behind the fence in front of the tin shed in the north-western corner of Leederville Oval, only around 20 or 25 metres from where the cheer squad would congregate for home matches some eight years later. Neither West Perth nor Subiaco was performing brilliantly in 1976 although West Perth had won the 1975 premiership and Subiaco had been premiers in 1973 and finalists in 1974. West Perth was “won 3 lost 7” prior to the match.[2] It was a day of shocking weather, blinding rain, and grey sky. Because of this the official attendance was only 5,346, right at the bottom level of WAFL home-and-away match attendances in the pre-West Coast Eagles era. The crowd was sufficiently small that people could arrive late and sit directly behind the fence. I assume that the covered seats under the tin shed itself had all been taken. Although the ground has been re-developed, and West Perth is no longer based at the ground, the tin shed and the seating beneath it remains the same today as it was then. Because of the rain, my father and I left the ground at half-time but the rain had certainly not dampened my enthusiasm. I remember that I loved the atmosphere and sense of occasion of league football. The cheerfulness and brightness of West Perth’s red-and-blue colours appealed to me as the playing jerseys must have stood out strongly against the grey sky that day.

I am not completely certain why I chose to support West Perth in 1976. It may have been due to the media coverage and hype surrounding the club as a result of the rags-to-riches fairy tale in 1975 when West Perth, guided by first season Victorian coach and ex-Fitzroy player Graham Campbell, improved from last placing in 1974 to premiers in 1975 without, as Atkinson points out, any new “big name” recruits other than the inspirational coach.[3] I can certainly remember my father and grandfather talking about West Perth’s surprise successes during the 1975 season over our regular Sunday night roast dinners.

Family support for the WAFL in the 1950s and 1960s

My father (Laurie James) had been a casual East Perth supporter from an East Perth family. His uncle-in-law had been a friend of 1955 Perth Football Club premiership player, Hubert “Bert” Wansbrough, who played 127 games for the club between 1952 and 1958.[4] Because of this association, his family would alternate between attending East Perth’s home games at Perth Oval and attending Perth’s home games at the WACA Ground.[5] Laurie would irritate his own family of “one-eyed East Perth supporters” by simply “appreciating good football” from something similar to “an umpire’s perspective”.[6]

My maternal grandfather, Herbert Arthur Acott (1906-99), remained a dedicated and devoted Swan Districts supporter right up until his death on 4 July 1999 (aged 93), even though he had moved to Beckenham in the Perth Football Club district as early as 1954. My grandfather used to attend Swans’ games weekly, with his best mate Ernie Henderson. They would sit in the R.A. McDonald Stand at Bassendean Oval and in the visiting fans’ sections of the grandstands at away games. Their practice was to obtain maximum value for money by being at the grounds for the Colts’ games which started around 9.15am or 9.30am. They could then watch three games for the price of one. My grandfather would bring along stacks of sandwiches made by my grandmother Margaret (1910-2003) and value for money was probably the main motivation here as well. Mr. Acott continued to attend games up until around the mid-1980s. My mother[7] (Eunice James) can remember that when my grandfather was not attending games he would wash his car on the front lawn of the home at 2 Sexton Road, Inglewood whilst listening to the live Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts of the WAFL games. This was 1951-53 and the famous players of the era were Barry Cable, Marcel “Nugget” Hilsz, Bernie Naylor, and Jack Sheedy.  

Primary school daze

I suppose that I did not want to support Swans (Swan Districts) because I wanted to chart my own course in life. Also West Perth was based reasonably close to my Booragoon home, itself at the eastern end of East Fremantle territory, whereas Swan Districts was based a long way away in the north-eastern outer suburbs close to Guildford and Midland. At my primary school, Mount Pleasant, during my years there 1974-80, around 80% of football followers supported East Fremantle; 10% or 15% supported East Fremantle’s arch-rivals South Fremantle; and 5% to 10% supported one of the other six clubs. There were always some Perth supporters as Perth’s local zone bordered East Fremantle’s at East Fremantle’s zone’s eastern extremity the Canning River at South Perth. I can remember being one of only two West Perth supporters at my primary school. The only other West Perth supporter in my year was Nigel B. Nigel was not a hardcore supporter by any means but, as was common in the era, he did own the long-sleeved replica playing jersey and he wore it to school. However, as I was well aware, the lack of support for West Perth was due to where I went to school rather than the size of the club’s overall supporter base. West Perth still today shares in the second highest WAFL grand-final attendance of 52,322 set in 1975[8] and the record of 26,760 for a home-and-away game set at a West Perth versus East Perth match at Perth Oval on 31 May 1969.[9] I can say with some assurance that neither of these two figures will ever be beaten now that the WAFL is a second-tier league.

Supporting West Perth built up my resilience and determination during primary school days. I refused to follow trends or to abandon my team. It was always lonely in a district that was hardcore East Fremantle in those days and if you didn’t support the club you had to at least make certain that you respected it. However, I found out that Old Easts was fully worthy of my respect due to its marvellously successful history and its very strong contemporary record against West Perth. I played little-league for East Fremantle versus Subiaco at East Fremantle Oval in 1979 and attended coaching clinics at East Fremantle Oval. For my handball skills I once won a Yellow T-shirt with Selsun Blue on the front (as the shampoo brand was the official sponsor) which resulted in endless primary-school teasing!

I was introduced to the harshness of the real-world in mid-season 1979 when that world invaded the safe, community atmosphere of my primary school in the form of coach Percy Johnson being sacked mid-season by the WPFC to make way for the return of the prodigal son Graham Campbell who was unable to achieve much success at the club the second time around. At the age of eight I perceived then that it was harsh and unfair for the club leadership to have blamed Johnson for the team’s poor performances and of course the club had forgotten that Johnson had led the club to a finals appearance only the previous season.

West Perth versus East Perth, Leederville Oval, Round 21 (26 August), 1978

My father; an East Perth supporting school friend Tim B.; and I were there for the final home-and-away game of the 1978 season held at Leederville Oval on 26 August 1978. This match attracted a still record Leederville Oval crowd of 24,567 people.[10] I can remember little of this game except Tim suggesting to me that we stage a mock two-person fight on the footpath on the way from the car to the ground (a stupid idea, as I have always valued authenticity); huge crowds on the large scoreboard bank; and the long time it took waiting in line for ice creams and other food. I also remember that it was a fine warm day more consistent with the coming spring season than of the winter just ending.

West Perth was second before the game whilst East Perth was fifth.[11] A surprise win to East Perth that day, possibly on the back of the vocal support of that club’s large army of “fair-weather fans” on the huge scoreboard bank, saw East Perth reach the final-four and West Perth relegated to the first semi-final. The final score was: East Perth 11.19 (85) defeated West Perth 11.10 (76).[12] On the same day, Claremont was defeated by the minor premiers Perth, 15.17 (107) to 15.6 (96), which saw Claremont drop out of the final four to be replaced by East Perth.[13] This was somewhat ironic for Perth supporters as East Perth then went on to defeat Perth in the grand-final although a young Peter “The Buzz” Bosustow did manage to score a brilliant seven goals for the losers. In the end East Perth was extremely fortunate to defeat Perth by two points on an atrociously wet grand-final day at Subiaco Oval. As Perth’s history book From Redlegs to Demons makes clear, Perth played the 1978 grand final without two of its key players, full-forward Murray Couper and defender John Quartermaine.[14] If these two players had played and / or the day had been fine and / or Barry Cable and Ian Miller had rejoined Perth rather than joined East Perth at the start of the season then surely Perth would have won three premierships in a row to repeat its remarkable feat of the late-1960s.

Fast Times at Applecross High

By 1982 or 1983, when I was in Year 9 and 10 of government high-school, I gradually stopped going to games with my father who had faithfully taken me to watch West Perth nearly every week of the football season since the Subiaco game in 1976. In Year 10 (1983) I can remember going with classmate and Perth supporter Gaveyn W. to watch Perth versus West Perth at Lathlain Park. We arrived very early at the game and bought fish-and-chips and a large bottle of Coke from a fish-and-chip shop just outside the city-end of the ground; we consumed these delights seated behind the fence very close to or perhaps directly behind the city-end goals.

In Year 11, the first year of non-compulsory schooling in Western Australia for students turning 16 during the year, I was in a small-sized form class and struck up a friendship with new student, Mike Blewett (hereafter Mike B.), son of a Westpac bank manager, who had spent his life journeying from one city to another including periods living in Brisbane and New Zealand. Mike B. was and is a very interesting character: temperamental, extremely loyal, honest, courageous, cheerful, risk-loving, and full of important and useful insights on life possibly honed during his travels. As at July 2011 Mike was an area supervisor for a building company in Kalgoorlie, effectively operating as principal contractor for jobs in the town. His younger brother, Paul B., also a good friend, is very different personality-wise. He was and is calm, cautious, analytical, and polite. He completed an accounting degree in Queensland and he started work for the Attorney General’s Office in Brisbane in 2010.

I met Mike and Paul for the first time in 25 years in September 2009 for an enjoyable afternoon at an Irish pub at Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast. Neither had changed much. Mike spent the lunch ensconced behind his dark sunglasses and he preferred to mostly stand rather than sit. Typical of his generosity he willingly and spontaneously shouted me lunch and several pints of Kilkenny. Paul was wearing a Fremantle Dockers AFL polo shirt, something that is rarely seen in Queensland. A picture on the WAFL Golden Era website, and on the front cover of some versions of this book, shows Mike B. (left) and me at the Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia on 14 July 2011.

During 1984, my friendship with Mike B. grew and he was also part of a friendship group centred on Len Shearer Reserve in Booragoon. During 1984 and 1985, I came to belong to three informal friendship groups: a school one, a neighbourhood one, and our West Perth cheer squad. These three groups had no common elements in terms of people involved other than the fact that Mike B. and I were part of all three groups. The neighbourhood group had an average age two or three years younger than the school group although it included two friends one or two years older than me, namely Peter “Pete” Lansbury (a hardcore East Perth supporter) and Leon D’A. These three friendship groups, my football supporting, my indoor cricket teams, the Trivial Pursuit board-game, and my heavy-metal music were vital parts of my last two years in high-school 1984 and 1985. I can still recall lying on my stomach on my carpeted bedroom floor studying at night in my last term of Year 12 whilst listening to the cassette version of KISS’ Australian-only Greatest Hits album KISS Killers as well as that band’s much-derided but actually quite good “disco” Dynasty album of 1979.

Dynasty is the last KISS album to feature the great original foursome (Gene, Paul, Ace, and Peter) doing at least one song each on vocals. In their charming boy-next-door New York City proletarian vocal styles, guitarist Ace Frehley sang the autobiographical “Hard Times” while drummer Peter Criss contributed the also autobiographical “Dirty Livin’”. KISS was special in that the four masked personas allowed full expression to each of the four personality types behind the masks: Space Ace, Demon, Star Child, and Catman. The songs sung by each individual were also authentic expressions of their personalities. It gave fans the impression that each personality type was worthy of expression and affirmation. KISS was wonderful for the self-confidence of the generation of western (and Japanese and South American) youth that turned ten-years-old sometime in the late-1970s.

My other favourite bands in 1984 and 1985 were AC/DC, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Rainbow, Saxon, and Scorpions. I loved the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” (NWOBHM) movement, which I now understand to have been an exciting synthesis of punk and traditional heavy-metal. I can recall listening to a heavy-metal Monday night weekly radio program, probably in 1985 but perhaps 1986, and hearing Metallica’s “Fight Fire with Fire”, “Hit the Lights”, “Motorbreath”, “Creeping Death”, and “Whiplash”, all songs from the band’s first two albums Kill Em All (1983) and Ride the Lightning (1984). I can remember being completely stunned as I had never heard music played that fast. One memory I have is of catching the Number 105 bus after school to go to visit the heavy-metal shop Twilight Records in Perth city-centre and talking to Mitchell D. on the bus journey. He had been a year behind me at my primary-school. I did not know him well at all, but we began talking and I soon discovered that he was a heavy-metal fan who also loved Judas Priest. I also remember sitting on the Mount Pleasant Primary School Oval on New Year’s Eve 1985 with Glen S. aka “Swifty” (from the new section of Booragoon) and singing “Two Minutes to Midnight” by Iron Maiden whilst drinking beer. Only I was singing as Swifty was not a heavy-metal fan! He was impressionable and about three years younger than me which explains why he was laughing at the gruesome song lyrics.

Sooner or later, during the first half of 1984, Mike B. declared his hand as a West Perth supporter, and I was and am tremendously happy about this. Without Mike B. it is very doubtful whether the cheer squad could ever have happened or been successful. At that time I did not know whether Mike had simply decided to follow my team or whether he had had an earlier attachment to West Perth. In 2011 Mike told me that he had followed his father to support West Perth when he still lived in Perth city in the period up to his turning five-years-old. [15]

Fat Pam’s West Perth cheer squad (disbanded 1983)

I had become aware, early in the 1984 season, that the earlier famed West Perth Football Club cheer squad, which had congregated behind the northern-end goals at Leederville for many years, had quit completely at the end of 1983. This cheer squad was interesting as, unlike most cheer squads in Australian Rules’ history in Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia, it was dominated by middle-aged females and young children. The legendary leader of this group was a woman known by the woefully politically incorrect moniker of “Fat Pam” (real name: Pam Hynsen).[16] The leading women used to stand upright on the last row of wooden benches behind the northern goals thus placing considerable strain upon the said benches. Their cheer squad was large, committed, and dedicated; it had a huge collection of flags and floggers. This group had operated for a number of years and was well known and respected. I sat near the group at the northern-end of East Fremantle Oval for an East Fremantle versus West Perth match in Round 17 (8 August) 1981.[17]

East Fremantle Oval, where the aloof hostility and relentless force of the home team and home crowd are matched only by the winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean only a few kilometres away, has always been regarded as a remote and inhospitable place. It was (and is) the most difficult traditional WAFL ground to reach by public transport as it does not have a nearby train service. People were required to either take the low-profile local suburban bus services (numbers 146 and 154 in the 1980s) up Marmion Avenue from Fremantle or the high-frequency flagship 106 route along Canning Highway from either Perth or Fremantle. Taking the 106 meant walking from Canning Highway through vaguely hostile back-streets to the northern corner of the ground where one was met by barb-wire fencing and the rear of a tin shed. A trip there during the 1980s was the local WAFL equivalent of journeying to Millwall Football Club’s famous Den ground in south-east London.

Given East Fremantle’s great success, as the club with the most premierships won in the WAFL[18] (West Perth is second[19]), a trip to East Fremantle Oval usually meant a resounding defeat at the hands of the home team. East Fremantle had and has an amazing culture of success, whereby anything less than a grand-final appearance is viewed as a disappointment and a bottom-four finish is simply beyond the pale, the end of the world, and totally unacceptable. As an example, East Fremantle’s history book comments about the 1975 season as follows: “What went wrong?”[20] The author Jack Lee cites the club’s magazine Scoreboard which stated: “All sorts of excuses will be put forward for our failures in 1975, but the simple truth lies in the simple statement that we just weren’t good enough”. However, this “failure” was actually a season when the club won 10 games, lost 11, and finished fifth out of eight clubs.[21] Such a result would not have been considered a major failure at some other WAFL clubs including perhaps West Perth which often finished fifth or sixth during its premiership “drought era”. Full Points Footy’s John Devaney comments indirectly on the East Fremantle winning culture in the following passage:

“As far as on-field performances go, the twenty-first century has, to date, been far from auspicious, with the club failing to qualify for the finals every season between 2003 and 2009, and even succumbing to the rare, if not quite unique, indignity of wooden spoons in 2004 and 2006. Restoring the club to what many would argue is its rightful place at the forefront of the West Australian game is going to be far from easy, but the [East Fremantle] Sharks have faced stiffer challenges over the years, and triumphed, and it would surprise no one to see them challenging seriously for premierships again within the next two or three seasons”.[22]

However, Brian Atkinson correctly points out that:

“[T]o balance East Fremantle’s great successes in the 20^th century, perhaps reference should be made to their disastrous start to the 21^st century. In the first 11 seasons of the 21^st century from 2001 to 2011, East Fremantle have only made the finals twice, 4^th in 2002, and 3^rd in 2010. They have finished 9^th (last) twice, 8^th once, and 7^th three times”.[23]

The only other Australian Rules club in Australia with a similar long-term winning culture to East Fremantle is the club John Devaney has supported since childhood, Port Adelaide Magpies in the SANFL. How the East Fremantle winning culture gets retained and transmitted from one generation to the next, especially in these days of the WAFL as a feeder-league with a high regular turnover of players, is itself amazing. Nearly all football followers in Perth, including me, have total respect for East Fremantle, its successes, its culture, its sheer force and (long term, historical) dominance, and its complete professionalism. For Fat Pam’s West Perth cheer squad to take such a large and organized group with flags and floggers to East Fremantle Oval in August 1981 is also worthy of tremendous respect. This is especially so given that this match was between fifth (WPFC) and seventh (EFFC) on the ladder and West Perth was four premiership points outside the top-four before the game. As it was West Perth only one won more game for the season and finished in sixth position with 8 wins and 13 losses (percentage 77.3%).

However, with Fat Pam’s cheer squad disbanded, I sensed a gap and an opportunity. As far as I was aware, in May 1984, Fat Pam’s group continued to make the banners that the players ran through at the start of each game (they may still make these banners today), and our group never attempted to get involved in this activity, mostly out of respect for Fat Pam’s group which had been there long before it. Furthermore, banner making is complicated and tiresome work and I doubt whether our group in 1984 would have had the patience for it. The northern-end at Leederville Oval in 1984 was strangely quiet, empty, and barren, now devoid of West Perth flags and floggers on home match days. I felt that the team would be inspired by a vocal group of home supporters, with a colourful red-and-blue visual presence, at the northern-end of Leederville. A Melbourne Knights’ soccer supporter puts forward her view (below) that her team has been inspired and encouraged on occasion by the vociferous, noisy, and colourful support of the club’s hooligan firm Melbourne Croatia Fans or MCF:

“From what I can gather, the MCF is largely made up of young men who are passionate about their club, its heritage and its importance to the Croatian community. They are loyally devoted to their team and will often travel great distances in order to show their support. The songs, chants and banners have (according to the players) been known to lift our team in crucial moments during the match”.[24]

My personal notes from the 1984 season state that I attended two of the first five West Perth games before the formation of the cheer squad. I was inspired to set up a new unofficial cheer squad to replace Fat Pam’s group behind the northern-end goals at home matches and to travel to select away games. I expected that the demographics of my new group would be totally different to Fat Pam’s group but I hoped that our members would show the same loyalty, dedication, commitment, and spirit. The new cheer squad would have a lot to live up to.

West Perth versus South Fremantle, Leederville Oval, Round 6 (5 May), 1984

Being somewhat naive about the ways of the world, and then aged 15, I placed an advertisement in the “Public Notices” in the “Classifieds” section of our daily newspaper, The West Australian, to appear one Friday in May 1984, the second full month of the new football season. The advertisement asked any individuals interested in forming a new West Perth cheer squad to meet at the next home game and to look for the flags. Of course teenaged football supporter are unlikely to be consulting such an obscure section of the newspaper’s Classifieds every day of the week just waiting for such an ad to appear!

I recently located this ad in the microfilm copies of The West Australian held at the Battye Library in Perth. The ad appeared on p. 41 of The West Australian on Friday 4 May 1984, directly below the opening ad for the “Public Notices” section “Acrylic nails beautiful hands for just $25”. My ad read as follows: “ANYONE interested in being part of a West Perth football cheer squad pref age 11-17 meet at the ground this Saturday. Look for the flags”. There are several coded messages for insiders here with the name of the football ground for the next day’s game not being mentioned on the assumption that fans dedicated enough to join a new cheer squad would know where the game was to be played. It puts the onus on the reader to “look for the flags”, rather than specifying an exact location, perhaps because Mike B. and I had not decided beforehand where to congregate. The ad assumes that the reference to “West Perth” would be enough to communicate to insiders that it is the WAFL club being referred to and not a more minor club in another football code such as the then West Perth Macedonia (now Stirling Lions) Soccer Club. The preferred ages listed (11-17) are typical of cheer squads for the era, based on the Victorian and South Australian models, and most of the group’s members did turn out to be within this age range. Including the ad in the Friday rather than the Saturday edition was perhaps my attempt to communicate to readers that this cheer squad was to be treated as serious, “week-day” business although it would meet on Saturdays. I am surprised that I did not put the ad in the Business section!

As mentioned, Mike B. was willing and interested in the cheer squad idea so, together on the Saturday 5 May 1984, the day subsequent to the Friday of the advertisement, Mike B. and I took the Number 105 bus from Booragoon into Perth city-centre, walked two blocks from St George’s Terrace to Barrack Street (just north of Murray Street), and then caught the 1.15pm Number 15 bus to Glendalough. Mike B. and I then alighted near the ground along the Oxford Street cappuccino strip, not far from the corner with Vincent Street. I am fairly sure that Mike B. and I already had two large red-and-blue homemade flags on this day. The ad did clearly say “look for the flags”. The group would add significantly to these two flags over the next two years ending up with around 15 flags at one point or approximately one flag per core member. On this day Mike B. and I both wore long-sleeved West Perth replica playing jerseys. Although these were not the height of fashion even in the mid-1980s Mike B. and I were both very proud to show off our club loyalties.

Contemporaneous newspaper reportage confirms that this match was the thrilling home draw against South Fremantle on 5 May 1984 described by Atkinson in his book It’s a Grand Old Flag.[25] Atkinson recounts that the slender Aboriginal forward flanker Ron Davis kicked two goals out of three for West Perth in the last five minutes to draw the game with only fifteen seconds remaining.[26] The final score was: West Perth 15.15 (105) drew South Fremantle 16.9 (105)[27] and the official attendance was 7,790.[28] I certainly do remember a joyous mood that day commensurate with an exciting come-from-behind draw. It was the perfect on-field start to begin the cheer squad era! I also remember that the weather was fine but cold. It was the first drawn match in the WAFL since 20 April 1974. It is remarkable that the games I now classify as the first and last games for the cheer squad were both draws, versus South Fremantle at Leederville Oval on 5 May 1984 and versus Perth at Lathlain Park on 29 March 1986.

Mike B. and I must have exerted an aura of charm and authenticity on this day as a number of people came up to us, introduced themselves, and stayed with us for the rest of the afternoon including Courtney; Rohan H.; and Mark T. (hereafter “Thommo”). Some of these people, including the three names mentioned, would become core members of the cheer squad and stick with the group for the next two years. I think that people were aware that Fat Pam’s long-serving cheer squad had withdrawn from active service at the northern-end goals at the end of 1983, and some people may have been waiting or hoping for a new group to form (whether connected to the previous group or otherwise).

The sub-gangs (refer to Appendix A for a full listing)

 

If my memory serves me correctly, Courtney and his friend Rohan H. both joined the group on the first day. Both were to form part of the core for the next two years with Courtney arguably filling a role as deputy leader, along a second rank, with his suburban junior football friend Thommo who most probably joined the group on that first day as well. In our group there were tiny sub-gangs following the same pattern, but with smaller numbers, as Sheffield United’s Blades[29]; Portsmouth’s 6.57 Crew; or the Peruvian barras bravas of Lima.[30] The sub-gangs operated along the lines of friendships formed prior to joining the group and suburbs of residence. The sub-groups had two or three people in each, and each sub-group had a particular relationship with the joint-founders, Mike B. and me, and with the group as a whole. Appendix A lists the sub-gangs and the members belonging to each. Courtney and Rohan (the “Carine group”) was a sub-gang, as was the “Balga group” of Peter “P.A.” Brennan (family name changed) and Dave S. (name changed). Thommo and Robbie, who joined the cheer squad only in 1985, were viewed as “floaters” or non-aligned.

Because Thommo and Robbie knew each other and Thommo knew Courtney prior to anyone joining the group they were key links between the sub-gangs. People from the same district were viewed as sub-gangs since they would habitually take the same buses or trains to and from the games together. It was possible to see a very shaky organizational chart emerge of the core since the two blonds, Courtney and Mike B., had always had a strong relationship, while I related reasonably well with the red-haired Thommo. The cheer squad also included the three C. brothers (aged 14, 15, and 16 at the group’s inception) who had spent considerable time in reform homes and were commonly perceived as having no fixed abode.

The nature of fan support within the cheer squad

As with the Sheffield United Blades members, studied by Armstrong, the core cheer squad members were all dedicated West Perth supporters and the core members regarded the group as important in their lives and in their match-day experiences of fandom.[31] The core group members were all “traditional” and “hot” supporters based on Richard Giulianotti’s theory of the four types of soccer spectators in the global game, namely “supporters” (traditional, hot); “followers” (traditional, cool); “fans” (consumerist, hot); and “flậneurs” (consumerist, cool).[32] Although Mike B., Courtney, and Rohan engaged in conspicuous consumption in the area of fashionable dressing this consumption did not extend to their football support which remained “traditional” and “hot”. Group members who only occasionally attended games, such as Robert C., might be classified as followers with “traditional” yet “cool” forms of club identification.  

The nature of group relationships

The group members took advantage of people’s natural good connections and natural feelings for one another; the group founders worked on strategically building and making full use of these relationships. On the other hand, if two people did not relate very well or easily, this weak link in the chain was bypassed with these two people largely avoiding each other but each one building strong relationships with other core members. Prickly relationships were subtly monitored by the core members to make sure that they were kept manageable and within reasonable limits. It was understood that the “general will” of the cheer squad, to use the term of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract, was more important than anyone’s private agenda.[33] The cheer squad members understood, even from day one, that if key relationships were not kept harmonious then people would not be attracted to the group. Group members realized that an atmosphere of warm camaraderie and good humour, as well as a somewhat “macho” atmosphere, were necessary for the cheer squad to thrive and grow. This atmosphere was both authentic and had to be consciously worked at each match-day.

Although the group, sadly, did not grow much over its two-year life, the core 15-20 members were loyal and dedicated, and, on good days of fine weather and interesting opponents, large numbers of hangers-on and drifters of various ages would join us. This was especially so at away games where West Perth fans had no habitual place(s) to sit and were wary of the home team supporters. This is why club colours were important so, other than Mike B., Courtney, and Rohan, group members did not follow the designer dressing style of the 1980s English soccer “casuals”. West Perth fans, especially at away games, would tend to look for and congregate with groups of people wearing the club colours and looking like an authentic and believable gang of supporters. During the 2013 WAFL season, I noticed travelling Perth Football Club supporters congregating together in certain corners of the ground at both Bassendean and Claremont Ovals. Our West Perth Cheer Squad was also very fortunate that there were many fine-weather Saturday afternoons in 1984 which kept group attendances and people’s enthusiasm for the group high.

My personal 1984 season notes, compiled during 1984, state that Mike B. and I did not attend the next three games, Swan Districts versus West Perth at Bassendean Oval (12 May); West Perth versus Perth at Subiaco Oval (19 May); and Subiaco versus West Perth at Subiaco Oval (26 May), because I was on holiday in Adelaide and Melbourne (see Chapter 2). I attended the next game, West Perth versus East Perth at Leederville Oval (Monday 4 June) with school-friend Roy “The Spoon” George and the cheer squad may or may not have been in action that day. It took some weeks for the cheer squad to gel and solidify, and to grow to the structure and size that it had during the 1985 season.

Courtney, 14-years-old, from Carine, friend of Rohan and Thommo

  

Fourteen-year-old Courtney was a designer dresser in the manner of the English “soccer casuals” of the 1980s. He was very interested in fashion. I think that he also had a long-sleeved West Perth replica jersey but, other than that somewhat unfashionable item of clothing, he always wore colourful vee-neck woollen jumpers (pullovers); bulky cargo shorts (even on the coldest days); and navy deck shoes without socks. Courtney came from a middle-class or upper middle-class family suburb in WPFC’s geographic district. It was most likely Carine which is today part of Subiaco’s recruiting zone. In my memory I had thought that Courtney’s family name was Walsh, but this seems unlikely given that “Courtney Walsh” was the name of a famous West Indian cricketer of the era. Courtney Jones is another possibility.   

Rohan H., 14-years, from Carine, Courtney’s friend

Brown-haired, 14-year-old Rohan H. was a slender, quiet lad who stuck close to Courtney. They were school-friends in the northern suburbs and both were committed to the group from the first match. I can say that I never got to know Rohan well. His manner was aloof and unapproachable, but this was not due to arrogance; more likely it was because of shyness and caution. Rohan was very much an introvert but he showed his commitment to the group by his regular attendance for two years. Courtney and Rohan were together the “middle-class” and the relatively more self-controlled sub-gang within the core but they also enjoyed the more boisterous and insulting chants and songs. If you could say that there was a second layer of leadership, “below” Mike B. and me, it would have been the trio of 14-year-olds Courtney, Rohan, and Thommo. Nobody could dare to think that there might have been a third layer but the prepubescent sub-gang (“Half”, “Thommo Junior”, and Mario) clearly ranked lower in sub-cultural prestige than all of the others in the core, but still higher than people in the periphery whom group members did not know personally. Of course the sub-gangs of Mike C.-Pete C. and P.A.-Dave S. might have viewed themselves as second- or third-tier leaders, and such claims would have been more than plausible. 

Brothers Mike C. (16-years-old) and Pete C. (14-years-old) were also key members of the core group for part of 1984 and all of 1985. These brothers were different in temperament in the same manner as the B. boys were, with the elder one being volatile and the younger one being calm and collected. They had been in and out of reform homes all their lives. If Courtney and Rohan was the “middle-class” sub-gang then the C. brothers were the “lumpenproletariat” or “dangerous classes” (to use the two terms of Karl Marx). Academic hooligan literature from England and many European countries suggests that hooligans are mostly working-class although the percentage in professional and managerial occupations was stable and increasing. The working-class dominance is not apparently the case in Italy or in some South American locations where it is more middle-class based.

The cheer squad as fluid “post-modern” “neo-tribe”

Generally speaking the West Perth Cheer Squad conforms to the idea of fluid “post-modern” “neo-tribes” where affiliations are very loose and people can easily adjust their degrees of commitment to a group and / or leave the group when their personal priorities and interests change.[34] Hughson indicates that few people remained integral parts of hooligan firms in the UK beyond their early-20s although Cass Pennant and Rob Silvester suggest that Millwall’s Bushwackers firm was probably an exception.[35] Armstrong writes that by the 1980s the “vast majority of Blades were aged between seventeen and twenty-eight”.[36] As with the UK soccer hooligans, people recognized that joining the West Perth Cheer Squad was totally voluntary, without any of the legal and economic ties that define workplace, marketplace, and institutional relationships. As such, the group was always careful not to “invade” another member’s outside life, i.e. his life outside the group at home, school or work. Group members rarely contacted each other by telephone or met during the week outside of Saturday match-days. Group members only met five times outside of match days during the whole 1984-86 period and only once outside of football season (when Pete C., Mike C., and I attended a season-opening one-day domestic cricket match at the WACA Ground).

“Group-for-itself” versus “group-in-itself”

Regardless of his background, everyone in the cheer squad was treated and valued equally, and I believe that each group member experienced and enjoyed the camaraderie of the group. Without these positive factors each individual in the core would not have stuck with the cheer squad for two years when there were no legal, economic or moral ties to bind anyone to the group.[37] People had to enjoy sitting with the group or the group would lose them. Everyone made the effort to create a warm and cheerful atmosphere; to welcome newcomers; and to encourage each other amidst the usual teasing and insults that you might expect in the male group situation. Everyone certainly was a dedicated West Perth supporter and the core members regarded the group as important in their lives and vital in their match-day experiences of fandom. No-one in the group was like those English soccer hooligans whom, allegedly, are not interested in the actual game or their club. The founders felt responsible for providing the group with a minimum of organization; making sure that teasing and insults were in a good spirit (especially when young members such as Half were on the receiving end); and resolving disagreements. It would be impossible to argue that continuing membership in the group was something not freely chosen by the core members for that two-year period.

Pave Jusup (aged 22 at date of interview), a leader and founding member of the MCF firm at Melbourne Knights, states consistent with the “loose ties” theory that the only things MCF members have in common are: (a) attending the games; (b) drugs and alcohol; and (c) Croatian heritage.[38] However, he also suggests that the MCF is more organized than the firm at fellow Melbourne-based Croatian club, St Alban’s (at date of interview it was a Victorian Premier League (VPL) club), in that the MCF is organized sufficiently to arrange bus trips interstate. In Pave’s words: “[t]he supporters of St Alban’s are not like us but they [also] do silly stuff. They are not organized like us. We are a proper group. They are just people that turn up at games and sing and drink a lot. We organize time at the pub and away trips”. Our West Perth cheer squad lacked the ethnic heritage in common that the MCF has and drugs and alcohol were not part of the cheer squad’s routine. However, at least after the first four or five weeks, the cheer squad was definitely, in Pave’s words, a “proper group” just like the MCF is today. The group was a “group-for-itself” not just a “group-in-itself”. The theoretical distinction between “group-for-itself” and “group-in-itself” appears to characterize the difference between the MCF and the St Alban’s support.

Mark T. aka “Thommo”, 14-years-old, “floater” / non-aligned, Courtney’s junior football friend

The next character I will introduce to readers is the senior “Thommo”, always known to the group members by the nickname of “Thommo” which he brought into the group from his home-suburb and high-school. Group members did coin some nicknames within the group. “Half” was the best and most famous of these. However, most of the nicknames people naturally brought into the group from outside and it were more authentic and simpler to use these pre-existing names than to invent new ones. Those nicknames brought in from outside the group and from outside West Perth football included “P.A.” and “Thommo”.

The senior Thommo’s character was complex. He was, like many of the others, a working-class rebel and a very loyal and tough person. He could chat calmly and intelligently with people, but, if he felt that he was being disrespected, then he would change in an instant, and give that person a swift rebuke and stinging defence of himself and of his arguments. In that way people learned to respect him and be slightly wary of his reactions although you could also praise and respect him for his mild-mannered nature, self-control, and good humour. He was great for joking and laughter and he also enjoyed getting analytical at times about West Perth’s players and performances.

Another point to note is that Thommo knew Courtney through junior football although they were not from the same high-school. Thommo then became an important natural link between the various sub-gangs in the group. His background, dressing, and style were more proletarian than those of the “Carine group”, Courtney and Rohan. However, the link between Thommo and “the Carine group” was important and a part of the glue that reinforced trust and goodwill especially in those early weeks in 1984 when group members did not know each other well.

Cheer squad members all used to stay behind after games until well after darkness on the playing surface of Leederville Oval and the away venues to kick footballs amongst themselves. Thommo, in these encounters, was a fast, courageous, and skilful footballer. He would contest marks against the immobile rock that was P.A. who was six-feet-two and a veritable 18-year-old man mountain. P.A. would stand in one place to mark and kick whilst Thommo and the others would use their speed and skill to steal the marks from P.A., either in front or to the side of him, or else they would pick up the loose balls that P.A. spilled.

I can remember Thommo’s habitual long-sleeved checked flannel shirts, later made famous in the grunge music era of the early-1990s, and how he would always have a cigarette packet in his chest pocket which would often fall to the ground whilst he was running at or with the football. He would then quickly run back to recover his cigarette packet from the ground in order to beat any potential “thieves”. Group members stuck with their own group in these football games, and would never formally join in with strangers. This is perhaps further evidence for the proposition that the West Perth cheer squad was a “group-for-itself”. It was an important relaxation and bonding time for the group members. It is unfortunate that AFL games do not allow the after-match kick on the field of play and this is another reason why attending WAFL or SANFL or the current VFL (formerly Victorian Football Association or VFA) games, at that second-tier level, can be a much more rewarding and enjoyable experience than attending AFL matches. Hunt and Bond write that: “Progress [in the AFL] has come at a cost, however, and one of the sacrifices the game has made is the kick-to-kick sessions on the ground after a match that we grew up with. And that’s a shame”.[39]

“P.A.” and Dave S., 18-years-old and 16-years-old, the Balga sub-gang

My personal 1984 WAFL season notes, compiled during the 1984 season, state that Peter “P.A.” Brennan (family name changed) (hereafter “P.A.”) and Dave S. (name changed) first joined the group for the Round 12 (23 June) 1984 match when West Perth defeated Claremont 21.10 (136) to 9.14 (68) at Subiaco Oval.[40] Although at that time P.A. and D.S. were regarded by group members as being the “Balga group” D.S. was actually from Tuart Hill as he confirmed via a since self-deleted comment he posted on the WAFL Golden Era website (waflgoldenera.blogspot.com) on 14 June 2013. P.A. and D.S. together made an interesting spectacle, and I do remember that it was with great interest and some anxiety that group members watched the pair walk towards them on the first day. P.A. was six-feet-two, stocky, and built like a country league football ruckman (or like ruckman Ron Boucher of the Swan Districts Football Club) whereas D.S. was much shorter and quite slim. Together they could look quite comical.

Like Thommo, P.A. would aggressively defend himself (verbally) against anyone showing him disrespect. He would not use violence but instead he used scattered insults, teasing, and self-defensive analysis. He enjoyed the more extreme and crude banter and especially the cheer squad’s insulting chants directed at the umpires and opposition players. He came from the working-class, government-housing estate of Balga, like the young West Perth player of that era and future North Melbourne AFL champion and coach, Dean Laidley (who played 70 games for West Perth, 1984-89 and 1991-92[41]).

P.A. was totally loyal to the cheer squad and group members did their best to understand his strengths and weaknesses and to “accommodate” him. At times P.A. could surprise by his deeply analytical and calm discussions of football tactics and strategies; usually he would direct these statements to me as he presumed that I was either the group leader and / or the resident intellectual. At other times P.A. could be very childish. Mike B. was often annoyed by this childishness and he would threaten to leave the cheer squad and join the Grandstand Falcons but this never happened. Therefore, P.A. had his childish side and he also had his analytical side and people accepted these two sides of him.

P.A. had a subconscious tactic where, if he was being teased excessively, he would sometimes respond by quasi-analytical comments addressed to me (if I was not the main person doing the teasing). He would also get red in the face and break out in a silly grin when being teased which made him very vulnerable on the teasing front. He would bend down lower in his seated position as if to make a smaller target which was ridiculous given his height and bulky frame. P.A. was the oldest member of the group. I think his friend D.S. was two years younger than him or 16-years-old when the cheer squad first formed in 1984.

D.S., the cheer squad’s only Asian member, was an ethnic Chinese who also, from day one, wore the Bogan “uniform” of long-sleeved West Perth replica playing jersey and plain blue or black jeans (the most popular dressing style in the cheer squad). He was first seen with P.A. before they joined the group, and he also was associated with the “Balga group” although he came from Tuart Hill. He was also a very strange character and he had a love-hate relationship with P.A. that involved frequent insults directed at P.A.’s alleged stupidity and gullibility. It could be said that D.S. had a love-hate relationship with every group member. He spoke very good English, with a somewhat upper-class accent. D.S. was sarcastic and prickly, and he was extremely quick to defend himself. Group members felt that he must have encountered some severe racism which had led to the formation of his present personality. D.S. was on occasion verbally aggressive, sarcastic, insulting, and not highly liked. However, he was also loyal to the cheer squad for two years and I think that the people in the core group respected that fact. D.S. also enjoyed the intellectual discussions group members had about football tactics although he did not usually respect P.A.’s contributions. Early on he explained to the group that Peter B.’s nickname of “P.A.” could be understood to mean either “Public Address System”, because his voice was deep and loud, or be his initials as in “Peter Something”. This second explanation made little sense as P.A.’s real name was allegedly Peter Brennan (family name changed) and his initials were P.B. However, group members accepted the explanations at face value because the nickname was clearly authentic and stranger things have happened out on the housing estates.

D.S. and P.A. often sat together and P.A. was usually in the group members’ front row of seats directly behind the fence. I remember that he was often in the group’s front row of people and so he (P.A.) would sometimes literally have to turn around to give me his analytical insights into the game in progress. An interesting coincidence was that West Perth’s then league-team captain and one of the club’s greatest ever players was Les Fong, a Chinese-Australian who was nicknamed “Chopsticks”, “Choppy” or “Chopper”, and then the cheer squad had its own Chinese member in D.S. Perhaps Les Fong’s presence at West Perth made it easier for the cheer squad members to accept D.S. Their actual names in fact rhymed and had only two different letters out of seven. Group members regarded it as interesting, symmetrical, and appropriate that the cheer squad had its own Chinese member. It meant that the West Perth senior team squad had its mirror image, in terms of ethnic mix, on the other side of the playing fence.

I cannot remember D.S. facing any racism that was hostile from any of the cheer squad’s core members but of course he may have experienced some teasing and put-downs. As with Thommo, D.S. had a very well-developed self-defence mechanism so people knew where they could stray verbally and where they could not. D.S. must have enjoyed cheer squad membership or he would not have stayed with us for two years. He was also a very faithful member even though he could never have been described as warm or even as friendly much of the time. He could also vary significantly in temperament and mood from week to week so on some weeks he might greet you warmly while on other weeks he might ignore a greeting. People had to work hard to earn his respect although he probably respected all or most of the cheer squad members, to some certain basic extent, if his continued attendance at games with the cheer squad was any indication. Of course people learned to expect D.S’s mood changes and to live with them. I seem to recall that D.S. got on better with Courtney than with either Mike C. or Pete C. who were perhaps too “lumpenproletarian” for him.

One of D.S.’s strong points, other than his loyalty to the cheer squad, was that he would often laugh at the humour being shared around, and his face would sometimes light up in a wide and magnificent smile. If D.S. wanted to discuss something serious, he would come up very close to you, remove his black sunglasses, and quietly and carefully make his points. The removal of the “sunnies” was the sign of his respect and the seriousness of his point. D.S. loved the actual sport of Australian Rules more than most fans; watched each game pan out with eagle eyes (or perhaps we should say “with falcon eyes”); and he would rebuke people who made what he considered to be unnecessary noise. Sometimes the joking would set off among five or six group members. P.A. would double up, bend down lower, and emit loud laughs. D.S. would rarely laugh but he would have this wide smile while his eyes remained intently focused on the game! These were some of the better moments of the cheer squad. Despite this, I tended to keep D.S. at a distance, as did most people. However, D.S. clearly had a strong bond with P.A. that appeared to pre-date the day on which P.A and D.S. joined the cheer squad. The way the cheer squad worked was to honour and respect, and to some extent even to trust, these pre-existing bonds that people brought into the group from their home-suburbs and high-schools.

Mike C. and Pete C., 16-years-old and 14-years-old, no fixed abode

As mentioned, Mike C. and Pete C. were an integral part of the cheer squad from very early on. Cheer squad members knew that both had a background of reform homes, but no-one ever thought that either would steal anything from the group members or anything similar. Mike C. could find it hard to control his emotions, whether anger or excitement, so group members assumed his troubles with the police had related in some way to this. No-one ever asked him what his troubles had been. Pete C. once said that Mike “hated pigs” and no-one found this especially hard to believe. Cheer squad members adopted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Mike C. was a scary sight to people that didn’t know him and even to some of those who did. When he got excited by the football he would walk straight up to someone in the group, stand right in front of him, and totally invade his personal space, without seemingly being aware of it. He would also do this when greeting someone for the first time each match-day. His big green eyes got fiery when excited and, in his muscle tee-shirts of the 1980s and his long, thick, black, wavy hair, he cut a scary figure, and he was a vital part of the group’s tough-guy image. Under his replica West Perth playing jersey, Mike C. would wear short-sleeved muscle tee-shirts, in bright colours, made famous by Australian rock stars of the era such as Cold Chisel’s Jimmy Barnes and AC/DC’s Bon Scott and Malcolm Young (6 January 1953 - 18 November 2017)  Mike C. was at his most boisterous on West Perth’s good days when he would loudly and gleefully start and continue chants and songs. Mike C. was completely unafraid of opposing supporters, enjoyed loudly and conspicuously “invading” opposing team’s grounds, especially at Bassendean Oval, and he could become oblivious to place and context. Only the eight-year-old “Half” was as openly boisterous as Mike C. When excited, both individuals would cover large amounts of space in and near the cheer squad’s chosen area, standing on and leaping over seats and waving flags and chanting.

Pete C. was a complete contrast to Mike C.: short, quiet, softly spoken, polite, thoughtful, gentle, analytical yet equally loyal – to his brother, to the cheer squad, and to the WPFC. He was one of the people whom I most enjoyed talking to. As with his brother Mike C., his standard match-day Bogan attire was long-sleeved West Perth replica jersey, tight blue or black jeans, and cheap sneakers. Both the brothers were fiercely loyal to each other and, of course, this fact and the underlying attitude behind it were very helpful to the cheer squad. Group members all valued the brothers’ loyalty, warmth, and dedication to each other, to the group, and to West Perth. The C. brothers, along with Thommo and Robbie, gave the group much of its “illusion of violence” and the hooligan look and attitude. Group members knew that the C. brothers had no fixed abode and lived hand-to-mouth, and the group members thrived on this knowledge; it gave the cheer squad a working-class tough-guy persona that it might otherwise have lacked.

Michael aka “Half”, 8-years-old, from Bayswater

I now move on to mention the group’s most important and famous younger member, Michael, or “Half” as the group members christened him because he was one-half the height of the other people in the group. Half was a sandy-haired eight-year-old whose parents were financial members of the West Perth Football Club. They sat in the grandstand at home games and attended all away games. They allowed Half to set his own agenda, go his own way, and make his own friends during the games as long as he did not leave the enclosed confines of the grounds. That was an era where people generally let their children roam free and people were less conscious of the threat of paedophiles. His parents were never seen by the group members but I suppose that group members viewed them as spectral support from the more respectable section of the West Perth supporter base. They attended all games home and away. Certainly they gave the group a certain amount of trust and group members did feel some obligation and responsibility regarding Half’s welfare. Half was a very passionate West Perth supporter although I believe he lived in the East Perth FC geographic district in either Bayswater or Maylands.

Half joined the cheer squad for every home and away game for two years and he always joined group members on the playing surface after games for the informal kick-to-kick sessions among the group members. He was always regarded as an important part of the cheer squad and his nickname was a sign of affection. He was a carefree extrovert who liked chatting and laughing and would get very excited during significant moments of play when West Perth was doing well. At such times he would run around and climb up on to empty seats, waving his flag furiously. He would enjoy the insulting cheer squad chants and enjoy negative discussions about other teams and verbally jousting with rival fans of his own age if any of them came too close. Like every group member, he genuinely loved and admired the playing group, the team, and the club but in the innocent way you would expect of an eight-year-old. When he urinated on the oval during kick-to-kick sessions he would receive a rebuke from other members who would quickly look away!

In 2011 Mike B. reminded me of an incident involving Half which had not risen to the top of my memory and so had not made the first draft of this book.[42] At one particular game at Leederville Oval, one of the teams was on a scoring spree and the football would repeatedly sail over the wire fencing which was and is only around eight metres behind the boundary fence at the Technical School (northern) end of the ground. Half knew the quickest way from the oval into the Technical School grounds and, due to his knowledge of this route combined with his pace and alertness, he was always first through to the Technical School to recover the footballs. As Mike recounts the story[43], Half used to put the footballs under his jumper, re-enter the ground, and then give the footballs to his mother seated in the grandstand who was complicit in the thefts. One can only imagine the height and width of his perpetual cheeky grins on this particular afternoon! Mike says this occurred at many of the games but at one game in particular there was a scoring spree at the Technical School end and Half stole many footballs on this day alone. In the redevelopment of the ground over the past ten years the seats behind the goals and on the scoreboard wing have all gone but those in front of the tin shed, in the north-western corner of the ground, still remain today as they were in 1984.

Once I recall telephoning Half’s house to discuss with him tickets relating to either the Sandover Medal Night, at the now demolished Perth Entertainment Centre in 1984, or to the first semi-final of 1985. I recall Half’s father answering the phone and being very wary initially. However, when he heard that I was from “West Perth Cheer Squad”, he totally relaxed, and he handed the phone over to Half. I arranged with Half for the buying of his ticket in conjunction with his father. Half could be quite mature in discussing things such as buying tickets to events. He certainly did not want to miss out on anything. Overall Half was an extremely interesting character and almost the cute and cheeky mascot of the cheer squad.

The cheer squad’s flags and floggers

After the cheer squad membership had settled, Mike B. and I took the step as group founders to allow people to take home flags and banners after games on the proviso that the person bring the flag or banner to the game on the following Saturday. So although each flag still belonged to me, group members regarded the flags as “property in common”. People felt pride in taking these flags back home and, in the case of most of the group members, back in the train and through the city-centre. Half and 13-year-old Tony travelled to the games in cars with their parents but I believe that both of them felt honoured to take flags back home and to be entrusted with this responsibility. I am not aware of any of the flags having gone missing during the two years. When the group effectively disbanded, early in the 1986 home-and-away season, I made no effort to claim back any of the flags and, to this day, I do not know where they are. I have never seen them resurface at games.

Sometime during the 1984 season, one group member made the surprising discovery that the red and blue floggers belonging to Fat Pam’s cheer squad were still locked up in the storerooms of the club at Leederville Oval. “Floggers” are pieces, around 1.5 metres long; of coloured paper mache cut into strips around one inch or 2.5 cm wide and attached to a pole to be placed over the fence on match days and heaved up and down at significant moments. They look best in conjunction with flags which are waved higher up and behind them. Critchley[44] cites Richmond’s cheer squad leader, Gerard Egan, who says that Richmond switched over from paper mache to plastic floggers around 1985 or 1986 because the plastic floggers were not harmed in the rain. Critchley[45] even offers a formal definition of “floggers”; clearly the name had been transplanted from Victorian cheer squad culture to Western Australia by 1984. Our group had only the old-style paper mache floggers but they were spared significant damage because, as mentioned, there were many fine-weather Saturdays during the 1984 season.

The cheer squad members took all of the Fat Pam group’s floggers out, added them to the group’s inventory of common property, and used them at each home game. The group members decided to deposit them in the club storerooms at Leederville Oval after home matches and use them only at the home games. The floggers were too cumbersome and bulky to take to away games and not quite “macho” enough to be seen with on trains or in the city-centre. I do not think that any floggers were lost or damaged during those two years as their numbers always seemed to be about the same week after week.

Group members routinely broke what is now an AFL rule for cheer squads and that was already a WAFL rule in 1984-85 but not regularly enforced. Group members positioned the floggers over, rather than behind, the boundary fence while not in use thus covering up the precious advertising signs. When the rule about these signs not being covered is enforced this represents movement to a higher stage of capitalism within the football industry since it allows businesses to place their interests above those of supporters even in absentia; thus the businesses can rule over supporters on match days even from beyond the physical confines of the stadium.[46] Group members would argue with and insult any WAFL official who suggested that the group members should position the floggers inside the fence when not in use. To follow this regulation would have been silly as, firstly, the visual look from far off was important and, secondly, the floggers could be torn apart by people’s shoes if positioned behind the fence. In the end no league or club official ever seriously challenged the group’s collective moral authority with regards to the floggers’ issue. Those were more innocent times when the fully capitalist elements in football were still emerging out of a more traditional and community-based football culture and the capitalist and politically correct elements were not yet then clearly dominant (as is the case at AFL level today).

Ben, Rob, Tony, and Mario, the Perth Modern SHS sub-gang

Then, as mentioned previously, there were the two overweight Italian brothers, the elder Tony aged 13 and the younger Mario aged around 9. Tony had a friend, Ben McA., who was around 13-14-years-old and a head or so taller than Tony. Years later I became a Facebook friend of the same Ben McA. The three would always sit together and always wear the West Perth long-sleeved replica playing jerseys. Tony may have attended Perth Modern Senior High School as did his friend Rob, who was also a cheer squad member. Rob was also a friend of Ben but Ben attended the Catholic college John XXIII.[47] Cheer squad members often saw the father of Tony and Mario with his younger boys and girls, dropping the brothers off or watching the group quietly at a distance.

Ben, Rob, and Tony were very shy and quiet people. They were eager to please; they respected the group as a group-for-itself probably more than anyone else did; and they attended all or most of the home-and-away games. Tony, in particular, regarded it as an honour and a responsibility to be allowed to take flags home with him each week. Mike B. and I knew that at least he would not lose any on the train (he travelled by car) and so we entrusted him with more than one flag. Ben, Rob, and Tony were, as mentioned, shy lads who enjoyed the group but they tried much of the time to avoid upsetting people or outstaying their presumed welcome.

I recall that Tony and Mario were there, wearing as was their custom their long-sleeved West Perth replica jerseys, when the cheer squad attended Channel Seven’s “World of Football” programme shot live on a Sunday from the social club rooms at Leederville Oval. The cheer squad also attended when the programme was shot live on another Sunday from Bassendean Oval social club rooms, home of Swan Districts Football Club. Non-club members were welcome to these events, and they helped to bring the game and the media closer to the grassroots supporters, and broke down the divide between paid-up club members and ordinary supporters. With these events alienation between football supporters was broken down and a more communal spirit began to operate. These events were typical of a more innocent era, although, paradoxically, behind the scenes at this time an independent WAFL Commission had been set up to replace traditional leadership by the eight clubs.[48] Furthermore, within a year or two this Commission, led by St George’s Terrace businesspersons such as John Walker, Richard Colless, and Peter Fogarty, would pay the exorbitant fee of AUD4 million to join an expanded VFL competition through new super-team West Coast Eagles formed as part of the soon-to-fail sports and entertainment listed corporation Indian Pacific Limited (IPL). It was really true that, dialectically, everything morphs into its opposite, as Mao Zedong[49] wrote, or “it’s always darkest before the dawn”. Just as the powerbrokers of the WAFL and the media were taking the game back to the grassroots, by the “World of Football” live shoots and the open public invitation to the 1984 Sandover Medal Night, rising corporatism, of a particularly arrogant and unpleasant kind, was about to change the game irrevocably in Western Australia. When the vote of WAFL club presidents was held on 22 August 1986 to see whether the state would join the expanded VFL for 1987, only Bill Walker of Swan Districts and South Fremantle’s Wayne Ryder, to their eternal credit, voted “no”.[50]

I related well to Ben, Rob, and Tony and I think that they were closer to Mike B. and me than to any of the others. Without meaning to sound disrespectful towards them, they were the nearest the group had to anonymous “foot-soldiers” whereas all the others were brash and extroverted personalities, except perhaps for Pete C. and Rohan. Ben, Rob, and Tony respected the cheer squad as an organized group or a group-for-itself. They were old enough to know what the cheer squad was all about but young enough to regard the group from a certain objective distance because they were slightly too young to relate on equal terms with the core members.

Ben, Rob, and Tony gave the group some existential and moral legitimacy as being something more than just a group of mates. They regarded the cheer squad as a legitimate organization and Mike B. and I felt honoured because of that trust and respect. We felt some sort of an obligation to look after them and to include them in all group activities. Because they were happy to be foot-soldiers, the trio was not teased overly much and cheer squad members appreciated their presence whereas if the group had been just a group of mates the group members might have tried to shake them off. The cheer squad was a “public” group, to use today’s Facebook terminology, and open to all. Again the ethnic composition of the group mirrored that of West Perth’s playing group: West Perth’s league-team of this era had Chinese-Australian rover Les Fong and Italian-Australian ruck-rover Peter Menaglio (236 games played, 1977-89[51]), and the cheer squad also had its Chinese and Italian members. As mentioned, cheer squad members felt that there was something symmetrical and appropriate about this. 

“Robbie”, 14-years-old, “floater” / non-aligned, joined 1985

I shall next mention “Robbie” who was the only full-time core member, if my memory serves me correctly, who joined the cheer squad for the 1985 season having not been a member in 1984. Robbie was a friend of Thommo’s from junior football and he also knew P.A. because of the Balga connection. Therefore, like Thommo, he was a natural link between sub-gangs and part of the glue between sub-gangs that held the broader cheer squad together. Blond-haired Robbie considered himself something of a star footballer and I recall that an actual football never left his hands. It was a big yellow one and he was always bouncing it on the ground and handballing it to himself.

Robbie was easily distracted and always talking to someone. Often he would sit on the first or second row and turn around to face the rear so that he could continually talk to people. I did not regard highly him doing this as he was not watching the game and I could probably be authoritarian at times with the looks that I gave! According to cheer squad ethics and etiquette, the reserves game, the half-time break, and after-the-game are the times reserved for socializing whereas people should watch the main game intently. If you are not watching the game how can you know when to wave the flags? Cheer squads are not like Sydney United’s Edensor Park Ultras, in New South Wales Premier League (NSWPL) soccer, who chant and bang drums throughout the match, on a continuous basis, and hence do not really have to watch the game. Unlike soccer ultras, a cheer squad does not chant and sing continually. I felt that there was plenty of time for everybody to claim their coveted seats behind the goals and to socialize before the start of the main game which, in those days, was always at 2.20pm. The after-match ritual is discussed in the next chapter.

I could not relate very well to Robbie but that probably reflected my problems and limitations as much as or more than it reflected Robbie’s. Robbie had a characteristic of not looking a person in the eyes during a conversation. I tended to avoid talking to him, but I realized that the cheer squad needed all the committed core members that it could find. I was pleased that Robbie did have a number of people that he could relate to well within the group and his connection with Thommo was very strong. Robbie was also one of those people who very much enjoyed teasing P.A. If I am not mistaken I think that Robbie also lived in Balga but I would not put Robbie unambiguously in the “Balga faction”. Instead Robbie was a “floater” who operated between sub-gangs and was closer to Thommo who also never really had a sub-gang (see Appendix A).

Robert C., 15-years-old, occasional member, brother of Mike and Pete

Lastly, I should mention the brother or step-brother of Mike C. and Pete C., Robert C. He was understood to be a more hardcore juvenile delinquent than either Mike or Pete. Cheer squad members knew of or heard about the offence he had allegedly served time for and it was quite a serious offence although I will not name it here. Robert (never “Rob” or “Robbie”) joined the cheer squad on two or three occasions and group members made him feel welcome and he enjoyed the group. In terms of Robert’s personality, he could be placed halfway between the extroverted Mike C. and the introverted Pete C. Robert was also in between the ages of Pete and Mike so around 15-years-old in 1984. Robert was fairly quiet when he was with the cheer squad but possibly that was because he did not know most of the group members well. Like all the others, he respected people and he gave no-one any trouble. Finally, Mike and Pete C. had a four-year-old girl niece (or cousin) whom they would sometimes supervise and drag around at matches. She probably came to games about as often as she did not.

Social class

In terms of the social class of the cheer squad, how does it compare to Eric Dunning’s “rougher sections of the working-class”[52], Gary Armstrong et al.’s “working-class in general”[53] and / or John Hughson’s “upper-level or respectable part of the working-class in comfortable homes”[54]? We could use two criteria: suburb where the person lived and / or more subjective factors such as personal style, manner of speaking, and dressing style. I will not go beyond the first criteria here. The group had a Carine group of two and a Booragoon group of two which can both be placed in the middle-class or professional middle-class. The group had a “Balga faction” of two and two others connected to that suburb and the group had the C. brothers who had spent considerable time in reform homes and were commonly perceived as having no fixed abode.

Balga has traditionally been perceived to be semi-criminal government housing. Wikipedia states that “[t]he name ‘Balga’ was adopted in 1954 and is the Noongar (Australian Aboriginal) word for the indigenous grass tree Xanthorrhoea preissii”. I can recall, around 1996 or 1997, my car running out of petrol on Wanneroo Road in Balga on my way back home to Merriwa. Night was coming and I had to walk with my empty petrol can through the suburb to a service station. One man joined me on my walk, as he was heading in the same direction. The man was cheerful and friendly enough but he did show me a knife kept down under the lower leg of his jeans. That incident would be consistent with many outsiders’ perceptions of a typical Balga day. Wikipedia writes further about Balga as follows:

“At the 2006 census, Balga had a population of 8,494.

Balga residents had a median age of 34, and median incomes were well below average for the Perth metropolitan area and the region — $347 per week compared with $513 per week in Perth, and $526 in the North Metropolitan statistical region. The population of Balga was more ethnically diverse than the Perth average, with 57.7% born in Australia and significant minorities from Sudan, Italy, Macedonia, Vietnam and Burma identified in the 2006 census. At the 2006 census, 4.49% of residents identified as Indigenous Australians”.[55]

The more “respectable” southern half of the suburb managed to later (1994) get a name change to Westminster which downgraded the remaining Balga section still further in some people’s eyes. The move to get the Westminster name (with its English-Establishment as opposed to Australian Aboriginal origins) shows the social stigma attached to the Balga name by certain people. However, clearly Balga’s residents in 1984 and 1985 would have included fully-employed working-class and unemployed or underemployed “lumpenproletariat” or “dangerous classes”. It would then have resembled the Whitechapel and Spitalfields of the era of the “Jack the Ripper” murders in 1888 East London where social historians indicate that respectable members of the working-class and some professional people lived on the main thoroughfares such as Commercial Road, Commercial Street, and Whitechapel High Street.[56] By contrast, the rougher and semi-criminal elements lived hand-to-mouth existences in “the evil quarter mile” which included the doss-houses of Dorset Street, Flower and Dean Street, Fashion Street, and Brick Lane.[57]

Our group members were from mixed social backgrounds: the group had middle-class and lumpenproletarians (to use the traditional Marxist term[58]) all lumped in together but the group members made it operate successfully for two years.

Fraternal cheer squad ethics

There was an egalitarian and fraternal atmosphere between the cheer squad members and the equivalent groups from other clubs consistent with the culture and the ethics of the Victorian and South Australian cheer squads of the era. As an example of Victorian cheer squad ethics in the 1970s and 1980s, members from different cheer squads used to shout the final match scores from their respective grounds across railway station platforms at Melbourne’s Flinders Street station on Saturday evenings.[59] There was also a place called Classic Cafe in Melbourne city-centre where cheer squad members from different clubs would congregate and interact on Saturday nights after the regular home-and-away games.[60] In terms of WAFL cheer squad ethics, the cheer squad leaders’ relationships with Perth and Claremont cheer squad members at grounds and in the city-centre were always cordial. Perth’s cheer squad leader, Nick, and the Claremont cheer squad leader(s) might have been expatriate Victorians since they operated their respective cheer squads in the Victorian manner.

There was a combined Perth-Claremont cheer squad which unofficially represented Western Australia in the state match against Victoria at Subiaco Oval on Tuesday afternoon 17 July 1984.[61] The Perth-Claremont group invited the West Perth Cheer Squad to join them but the West Perth group declined[62] so that people in this group could attend separately with their own various gangs of school mates. The match was held on a school day (Tuesday) afternoon and so people “wagged” (skipped) school or work to go to the game. Being on a school day it made logistic sense to attend this match with school-mates rather than with “Saturday’s heroes” because planning for the day could take place at school on the Monday. Also Mike B. and I felt that the ethical requirement to attend with school-mates overrode the ethical requirement to attend with the cheer squad since the match took place during school hours on a school day.

The break-up of the cheer squad, 1986

The familiar world of government high-schools and junior football clubs produces the appearance of sameness and an egalitarian atmosphere which is often genuine but also, to some extent, does hide real economic and social divisions as well as just diverse interests.[63] Each one of the group members of high-school age attended government high-schools (with the exception of Ben McA.) which are levelling environments. When I went to university in February 1986 it seemed to break the spell of sameness or maybe it just made me “feel different”. I no longer saw Mike B. regularly in 1986 as high-school was over and Mike may well have not returned to the group at all in 1986. With both of the founders approaching or over 18-years-old the wider world was opening up and new interests and challenges were coming to the fore.

I do regret giving up on the cheer squad so easily and casually but we also must remember that the times were changing by 1986. The WAFL Commission was fast putting together a deal to join the expanded VFL competition above the heads of ordinary football supporters.[64] This is not to imply that the majority of Western Australian football supporters did not in 1987 support the entry of West Coast Eagles into the expanded VFL but simply that ordinary football supporters were not directly consulted on the move through community consultation, public meetings, and / or some sort of voting process. Only in the year 2000 would the former East Fremantle and Swan Districts’ player and Claremont and Fremantle Dockers’ coach Gerard Neesham lead a resistance movement, Save West Australian Football Lobby or SWAFL, to try to re-claim the spirit of Western Australian football from the corporate people who had been first attracted to the game circa 1983-84.[65] All of these negotiations and distractions affected adversely the mood at the grassroots and WAFL crowds did fall off significantly in 1986 (total qualifying round crowds 623,000 or 7,417 per game) although the drop was nowhere near as great as the 50% further drop-off in 1987 (total qualifying round crowds 308,000 or 3,667 per game), the first year post-Eagles.[66] As a point of comparison, qualifying round crowds had been as high as 810,113 or 9,644 per game in 1970.[67]

West Perth also performed disappointingly on the field in 1986, dropping out of the final-four whereas in 1985, under new coach John Wynne, the league-team had finished third at the end of the home-and-away rounds[68], and then played in and lost the first semi-final to give the team an eventual fourth position. All of these factors led to the cheer squad quietly disintegrating before the members’ eyes in the first few home-and-away games of 1986. It is still hard to believe that it could just die off quietly without anyone consciously killing it. Mike B. and I had put in great efforts to organize the cheer squad for two years and to keep strong and healthy relationships alive within the group (which is not as easy as it may sound with the benefit of hindsight). When this combined effort was no longer applied, the foot was off the accelerator, and the cheer squad simply vanished. I have not seen any of the other members since 1986 (or perhaps 1987 or 1988), not even at West Perth games. Mike B. and I caught up on the Gold Coast in September 2009 and again in Kalgoorlie on 14 July 2011. A picture on the WAFL Golden Era website, and on the front cover of some versions of this book, shows Mike B. (left) and me at the historic Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia on 14 July 2011. This picture was taken by a barmaid whom, appropriately enough given the themes in this book, was a West Ham United supporter from London.

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Key events for the West Perth cheer squad (source: my personal 1984 WAFL season notes compiled during 1984):

Round 6 (5 May): West Perth versus South Fremantle at Leederville Oval. The cheer squad was formed on this day.

Round 10 (Monday, 4 June): West Perth versus East Perth at Leederville Oval: I watched this match with school friend Roy George.

Round 12 (23 June): West Perth versus Claremont at Subiaco Oval: Group members went into the club rooms after the game. The group members first met P.A. and D.S.

Round 13 (30 June): West Perth versus South Fremantle at Subiaco Oval. The group members sat with the unofficial West Perth supporter group called “Grandstand Falcons”.

Round 14 (7 July): West Perth versus Swan Districts at Leederville Oval: The group introduced the “Cop That” banner to the cheer squad (see Chapter 2).

Round 15 (14 July): West Perth versus Perth at Leederville Oval. The group was “humbled by Perth cheer squad.” The group took two flags from the club shed. In the city-centre after the match there was “raucous singing” by the group.

17 July (Tuesday): Western Australia (WA) versus Victoria State of Origin match at Subiaco Oval. Mike B. and I took the “Cop That” banner. I attended with school and neighbourhood friends Mike B., Paul B., Chad S., Roy G., Paul D., Gilby, Peter L., Wayne D., and Nick. This group of friends arrived at 9.20am. Gary Ablett Senior kicked eight goals for the losers. Best players for WA were Brad Hardie, Ross Glendinning, and Steve Malaxos. Dean Warwick (West Perth) failed to make the WA team. The West Perth Cheer Squad was invited to join the combined Perth-Claremont cheer squad, which was representing WA that day, in the grandstand but we declined.

Round 16 (21 July): West Perth versus East Perth at Perth Oval. Mike B. lost his contact lens at Claisebrook Station after the match. The group had a “huge record cheer squad”. Group members talked to West Perth coach Dennis Cometti prior to the match. The official time-clock was not working. It was a “thrilling last quarter” with great games being played by West Perth players John Gastevich and Derek Kickett.

My personal WAFL season notes do not extend past Round 16 (21 July) 1984. There were only five WAFL home-and-away rounds played after this date. West Perth did not qualify for the 1984 final round series.

Kieran James and West Perth official historian Brian Atkinson, 8 July 2011.

[1] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 329.

[2] Ibid., p. 329.

[3] Ibid., p. 172.

[4] East, A., Kennedy, P., Lawrence, B. and J. Wicks (2005), From Redlegs to Demons: a History of the Perth Football Club from 1899 (Perth: Perth Football Club), p. 236.

[5] Personal conversation with Laurie James, Perth, 12 July 2011.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Personal conversation with Eunice James, Perth, 16 July 2011.

[8] Full Points Footy website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/west_perth_(1).htm [accessed 5 January 2011].

[9] The official attendance is taken from The Football Budget, 7 June 1969, p. 30, cited in Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 285.

[10] The official attendance is taken from The Football Budget, 2 September 1978, p. 45, cited in ibid., p. 285.

[11] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 186.

[12] Ibid., p. 331.

[13] The match scores are taken from East et al., From Redlegs to Demons, p. 251.

[14] Ibid., pp. 148-50.

[15] Personal interview, 14 July 2011.

[16] Fat Pam’s cheer squad can be seen on the video-clip of the 7 May 1983 West Perth versus Subiaco game recently posted to YouTube.com. The cheer squad is at far left of screen (behind the Leederville Oval northern end goals). To find this video search YouTube for “West Perth v Subiaco 1983” or simply copy-paste the following link into your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmZMzTr7CA&feature=related [accessed 7 August 2011].

[17] Two pictures of Fat Pam’s WPFC cheer squad at East Fremantle Oval on 8 August 1981 can be viewed at the following link: http://waflgoldenera.blogspot.com/2013/12/picture-gallery-fat-pams-west-perth.html [accessed 5 December 2013].

[18] As at 26 December 2016.

[19] As at 26 December 2016.

[20] Lee, J. (1976), Old Easts: 1948-1975 (East Fremantle: East Fremantle Football Club), p. 134.

[21] Ibid., pp. 135, 136.

[22] Full Points Footy website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/east_fremantle_3.htm [accessed 5 January 2011].

[23] Brian Atkinson, personal e-mail communication to the author dated 19 November 2011.

[24] Melbourne Knights’ supporter, personal e-mail communication to the author dated 23 August 2010.

[25] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 201.

[26] Ibid., p. 201. Ron (Ronald Brian) Davis (DOB 11/8/1963) played 13 senior games for West Perth in 1984-85 and kicked 22 goals. Ibid., p. 354.

[27] The match scores are taken from Ibid., p. 334; The West Australian, Monday, 7 May, 1984, p. 81.

[28] The official attendance is taken from the WAFL Online website.

[29] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, pp. 323-32.

[30] Panfichi and Thieroldt, “Barras Bravas”.

[31] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 266.

[32] Giulianotti, R. (2002), “Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs: a Taxonomy of Spectator Identities in World Football”, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 25-46, cited in Giulianotti, R. and R. Robertson (2009), Globalization & Football, paperback edition (London: SAGE Publications), pp. 142-3.

[33] Rousseau, J.-J. (1968), The Social Contract (London: Penguin Classics).

[34] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 306; Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’, pp. 167-86; Hughson, ‘The Bad Blue Boys’, pp. 239-59; Hughson, ‘A Tale of Two Tribes’, pp. 10-30; Hughson, ‘The Boys are Back in Town’, pp. 8-23; Hughson, ‘Australian Soccer’s “Ethnic Tribes”’, pp. 37-48.

[35] Pennant, Congratulations; Pennant, Cass; Pennant and Silvester, Rolling with the 6.57 Crew.

[36] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 267.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Group interview, 11 January 2011.

[39] Hunt, R. and G. Bond (2005), The Fat Lady sings: 40 Years in Footy (Southbank: News Custom Publishing), p. 98.

[40] Match scores are taken from Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 334.

[41] Ibid., p. 363.

[42] Personal interview, 14 July 2011.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Critchley, Our Footy, p. 21.

[45] Ibid., p. 36.

[46] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 134.

[47] Source: Personal Facebook communication with Ben McA., 5 October 2017.

[48] Barker, A. J. (Tony) (2004), Behind the Play...a History of Football in Western Australia from 1868 (Perth: West Australian Football Commission), Chapter 11, pp. 186-204 and see especially pp. 188-92, 195-7.

[49] Mao, “On contradiction”, p. 128.

[50] Barker, Behind the Play, p. 202.

[51] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 367.

[52] Eric Dunning cited in Astrinakis, “Subcultures of hard-core fans”, p. 91.

[53] Armstrong and Harris, “Football hooliganism”; Hobbs and Robins “The boy done good”.

[54] Hughson, “Football, folk dancing and fascism”; Hughson, “The Bad Blue Boys”; Hughson, “A tale of two tribes”; Hughson, “The boys are back in town”; Hughson, “Australian soccer’s ‘ethnic tribes’”.

[55] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balga,_Western_Australia [accessed 19 January 2011].

[56] Scott, C. (2005), Will the Real Mary Kelly ... ? (London: Christopher Scott), p. 86.

[57] Ibid., p. 86.

[58] Engels, F. (1968), “Preface to the Peasant War in Germany”, in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works (New York: International Publishers), p. 243; Marx, K. H. (1968), “The Eighteen Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works (New York: International Publishers), pp. 138, 145, 168, 176, 178, 243; Marx, Capital Volume 1, p. 797; Marx, K. H. and F. Engels (1968), “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works (New York: International Publishers), p. 44.

[59] I have searched long and hard to locate this reference but so far the search has yielded no results.

[60] Muyt, Maroon and Blue, p. 139.

[61] Source: My personal notes compiled during the 1984 season.

[62] Ibid.

[63] For an insight into the world of junior football clubs readers are referred to the retelling by Carlton AFL player Brendan Fevola of his junior days at the suburban Narre Warren club. Fevola, Fev, pp. 17-33.

[64] For more details, as told by Bill Walker, see East, A. (2009), 75 Years of...Black & White, the Swan Districts Football Club (Perth: Swan Districts Football Club), p. 153.

[65] On the SWAFL, see Barker, Behind the Play, pp. 353-6.

[66] The crowd figures are cited in Barker, Behind the Play, p. 241.

[67] See the Full Points Footy website at: http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/subiaco_(2).htm#Top [accessed 7 January 2011].

[68] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 203.