West Perth Football Club Fans / West Perth Cheer Squad : CHAPTER FOUR PART C: West Perth versus Perth Demons and South Fremantle Bulldogs, 1986 WAFL season.

Perth Football Club’s cheer squad

The Perth FC cheer squad, operating under the capable hands of the suave “metrosexual” Nick, was the leading cheer squad among the WAFL clubs in 1984 and 1985. My personal 1984 season notes, compiled during 1984, state: “Humbled by Perth cheer squad” at the West Perth versus Perth match at Leederville Oval on 14 July 1984. Being “humbled” here must refer to the respective size of the two groups and the respective numbers of flags, floggers, and banners both groups had on display. There was a combined Perth-Claremont cheer squad which represented WA at the 17 July State of Origin match versus Victoria so clearly these were the two leading cheer squads in 1984. It was at the Lathlain Park social club rooms that all the cheer squads met one night (probably in 1984) to discuss the making of the banner for the upcoming state game. I do not recall how the West Perth Cheer Squad contributed to the making of the banner but our members all appreciated the warm and fraternal atmosphere generated by the host club and the host club’s cheer squad. I am very sure that Nick had had some prior experience with a Victorian cheer squad as he had a clear understanding of how a cheer squad should be organized and cheer squad ethics. For Lathlain Park home games in 1984 and 1985 they always had a large and fine-looking group of people with flags, banners, and floggers congregated behind the northern- or city-end goals. Even today there is a visual reminder of this cheer squad at Lathlain Park - the wooden seats behind the city-end goals are still painted red-and-black in memory of the years in which Nick’s cheer squad occupied those benches.

Perth versus West Perth, Lathlain Park, Round 1 (29 March), 1986

I can recall only one game the West Perth cheer squad attended at Lathlain Park, the first game of the 1986 season. The game was played on the Saturday of the opening split round on 29 March 1986 and West Perth drew Perth with both sides scoring 13.15 (93).[1] Although Perth started very strongly and led for most of the match West Perth opened up a seven point lead in the last quarter until Perth hit back to secure the draw.[2] The match was played on the same day as only one other game, a replay of the 1985 grand final between East Fremantle and Subiaco (won this time by Subiaco 18.9 (117) to 12.11 (83)[3]). The official attendance at Lathlain Park for the Perth versus West Perth match is recorded as 8,121 fans.[4] Already by 1986 WAFL crowds had begun to trend slowly downwards. In the late-1970s or early-1980s, on a fine Saturday such as this one, the opening day of a split round and the opening day of the season, you would have expected the crowd to be above the 10,000 mark or even above 12,000.

I recall that the West Perth Cheer Squad had a very large group present; and we sat behind the southern-end goals with Perth’s cheer squad congregated behind the northern- or city-end goals. A picture on the WAFL Golden Era website (taken 2 July 2011) shows the area behind the southern-end goals in modern times but before the redevelopment of the ground commencing in 2016. The West Perth Cheer Squad probably didn’t meet the Perth Cheer Squad on this day in 1986 as the main entrance gates at Lathlain Park were positioned only around 30-metres to the north of the main grandstand, on the western side of the oval, and you could reach the southern-end goals by walking through the undercover passageway located underneath the grandstand. This day in 1986 was a very hot day, as you might expect from March in Perth, and people had their long-sleeved replica West Perth jerseys tied around their waists. Everyone was wearing tee-shirts but most people still wore the obligatory tight black or blue jeans rather than shorts. The cheer squad members were all classic 1980s Bogans except for Mike B, Courtney, and Rohan H., our football “casuals”. P.A., for one, was never seen in shorts, which is probably something to be thankful for. D.S. and the C. brothers also never wore shorts and the same also applied for Thommo and me.

The cheer squad members were all happy to see each other again after a long summer without contact. It was as if everyone had put in a major mental effort to keep the cheer squad alive in some part of their minds, conscious and subconscious, over the summer. The cheer squad was the kind of organization which could survive only based on collective memories and collective willpower because there was nothing else holding it together. The cheer squad had no official name or headquarters or leaders or business cards or stationery or telephone number.

No-one very much minded that this game was a draw. Although Perth had not been a powerhouse, up until that point in the 1980s, Mal Brown was now in his second year at the helm as coach of Perth[5] and people naturally expected that he would continue to inject discipline, purpose, and soul into the team as he had done previously at South Fremantle. The cheer squad members hoped that West Perth could continue on in 1986 in the same style as in 1985 and secure at least a final-four position. However, we were drought era West Perth youth and I do not think that anyone really expected a premiership! East Fremantle and Subiaco were both expected to be strong teams again in 1986. However, to balance this, it did appear to be the end of a great era at Bassendean Oval as most of Swans’ premiership era stars had moved on or had retired. John Todd was effectively back where he had started at Swans ten years previously although people’s continued confidence in his ability to work miracles with a depleted squad had never been higher.

I can remember the cheer squad members staying out on the playing field at Lathlain Park until dark or near-dark kicking footballs around among the cheer squad group. All or nearly all of the core members of the group were there this day at Lathlain Park in March 1986 with the possible exception of Mike B., who may not have rejoined the group at all that year. By 1986 I was no longer meeting Mike daily at high-school. After the cheer squad members had exhausted all the possibilities of kick-to-kick, we walked together as a gang back to the Victoria Park train station. On this March day in 1986 everyone had to travel north-west on the Armadale train line back to the city-centre and then most people would transfer to their various buses to take them back to the northern suburbs. The Clarkson train-line to the northern suburbs was still some years away from being built.

I can recall that it was already dark by the time the group members reached the train station. It must have been as late as 7.30pm or 8pm as 29 March is closer to summer proper than to winter proper. I then decided, on the spur of the moment, not to cross over to the western side of the track to catch the city-bound train. Instead I stayed with the much smaller group of people waiting to take the train in the south-easterly direction towards Armadale. I remember talking with some Aboriginal boys at the Victoria Park station and telling them that I lived near Applecross and knew “Raymond Davies” who was the only recognizable Aboriginal person at high-school and who was a good friend of my mate Roy George. In fact I had probably only ever talked to Raymond once meaning that I was a “namedropper” which you really had to be at high-school to survive. I had left high-school and was at university by this time. The Aboriginal boys welcomed the name, or maybe just my friendliness. There was a good atmosphere there. I waved and shouted across the track to the other West Perth Cheer Squad members on the other side before people’s respective trains took them away into the darkness.

I decided that I would visit my grandparents who lived within walking distance of the Beckenham station further down the track on the Armadale line. This was a totally spur of the moment decision. They were both very surprised to see me standing on the front porch in the semi-darkness carrying my rolled-up West Perth flag. Years later, after they had both passed away, I lived in that house for two years (October 2002 – January 2004) before moving to New South Wales for work.

I have mentioned elsewhere that this Lathlain Park match was the last time the West Perth Cheer Squad existed in recognizable form. It was like the saying that it is always darkest before the dawn. It was as if the collective mental effort involved in keeping the group together psychologically, or in other words in people’s head space, over the summer off-season (six months long in Perth) had simply been too exhausting. Once the key people stopped expending this mental effort the group just ceased to exist. It was quite remarkable or even magical.

I can only recall one subsequent 1986 game at Leederville Oval. The cheer squad may have kept the flags and floggers in action for a few more home games but I personally regard the Round 1 Lathlain Park match as being the last game for the cheer squad. In what was a remarkable outcome, the cheer squad’s first game together was a drawn match (5 May 1984) and its last game together (29 March 1986), nearly two calendar years later, was also a drawn match. No-one made a deliberate decision to end the group as far as I can recall. I had become a dedicated student after entering university and I may simply have stopped putting in maximum effort to keeping the group going. Mike B. was probably in the same position in 1986 in terms of his mind drifting elsewhere. I can’t even remember if Mike B. was at the Lathlain Park game. He may never have returned to the group in 1986. Mike B. and I no longer saw each other daily at high school in 1986 as had been the case in 1984 and 1985. Without Mike the cheer squad would have been like the Clash in 1984-85 without Mick Jones (with just Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon remaining)!

I do recall sitting with my good mate Thommo behind the goals one day at Leederville Oval a few weeks after the Round 1 Perth match. I do not recall whether the cheer squad actually existed at this point. I think it probably did but in a smaller and less organized form. Thommo told me that he had left school and was doing a plastering subcontract job at the Parmelia Hotel. He would have been 16 by this time while I was 17 (see Appendix A). West Perth’s declining performances in 1986 and the shadow of Western Australia’s entry into the national competition dampened people’s enthusiasm for the WAFL throughout 1986 and this affected people’s moods certainly. It could be said that 1985 was the last year of the WAFL’s Golden Era as by 1986 West Coast Eagles existed as a shadow in people’s minds although not yet as an actual club with a name, jersey, and players (not until after the 1986 season had concluded).

South Fremantle versus West Perth, Fremantle Oval, Round 19 (9 August), 1986

I once talked to Pete C. and spent the game with him on the scoreboard bank’s concrete terracing at Fremantle Oval (at around the half-forward flank position closest to the northern-end goals) for a match against South Fremantle late in the 1986 season. The flags had vanished and there was only the two of us left at this juncture in time. Pete C. and I hadn’t even arranged in advance to meet; it was a chance meeting. I would have to say that the cheer squad no longer existed at this point. However, Pete’s charming, quiet, and thoughtful manner had not changed.

After the game Pete C. and I walked through the Fremantle city streets together and I think Pete took a Number 106 bus or a train back to Perth while I took a different bus to Booragoon. We probably parted at Fremantle train station. I originally wrote this paragraph 26 years later, on 9 January 2013, and I still haven’t seen Pete again since that day at Fremantle Oval near to the close of the 1986 season. As we walked through the Fremantle city streets together, as the dark and the chill started drifting in from the ocean (minimum temperatures were 4.5 and 4.0 degrees Celsius on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th August 1986), we were both fairly subdued and disappointed as it looked like our team’s season was over (the team probably could not make the final-four) and all the hope of the past two years had come to nothing. I think that another reason for my anxious and melancholic mood was the realization, pushed to the back of my mind, that my life was changing and it would never be the same again. I was 17-years-old, in the first year of university and the adult world of responsibilities, choices, careers, and consequences was fast closing in, whilst childhood was at an end. In football terms, there was also massive change at work behind the scenes as the powerbrokers were putting together and planning for the new as yet unnamed super-team which would play in the VFL in 1987. Every genuine football person in Perth knew that the WAFL would never be the same again no matter how upbeat the newspapers were. Like my childhood, the old WAFL was slipping away. The days of 14,000 plus crowds at the match-of-the-round were never coming back.

Concluding comments

The story of the West Perth cheer squad of 1984-86 draws to a close here. I will only add that I once saw the back of Mike C.’s head in the front section of a Number 103 bus which was heading from Perth to Fremantle later in 1986 (or possibly in 1987 or 1988) but I never had the chance to go and talk with him. I had got on the bus in Perth city-centre and had to exit at Nedlands to go to a lecture class at the University of Western Australia. I sometimes wish that I had stayed on the bus and gone to talk to Mike but I was the victim of a mind switched on only to daily routine and obligation. This encounter seemed somewhat symbolic of the separation which had developed between all the former mates once the cheer squad no longer existed. That was the last contact I had with any of them until meeting Mike B. by chance at a deli in Myaree in 1990 and then, 25 years later, catching up with him purposefully on the Gold Coast in September 2009 and again in Kalgoorlie on 14 July 2011. It is appropriate to end this chapter in a rather abrupt fashion, almost in the middle of a sentence or a train of thought, as that mirrors the actual ending of the West Perth Cheer Squad in 1986.

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