Chapter
4
The
opposition and some big matches
Introduction
In this chapter I
discuss some of the opposition supporters and cheer squads of the mid-1980s
Golden Era in the WAFL. I also discuss some of the big games involving the
respective opposition teams with a special focus on the 1985 first semi-final,
West Perth’s only finals game during the cheer squad era of 1984-86. This
chapter begins with a discussion of the cheer squad’s chants and its
after-match ritual.
The West Perth Cheer
Squad’s chants
I refer to the cheer
squad’s chants at various points in this book. Unlike many soccer supporters
groups (such as Perth Glory’s young Glory Fans United) our chanting was not
continuous throughout the match. As the cheer squad always had around 15 to 20
people, and only on one particular day at Subiaco Oval was there more than 50
(refer to Chapter 1), the cheer squad lacked what Marsh terms “critical
density”[1].
According to Marsh a critical density is needed for a group to begin to take on
its own special dynamic where chants are naturally synchronized and people can
feel that their own identity is submerged into that of the crowd. Marsh argues
that usually around 100 people are need before this very subjective special
group dynamic of “very marked unity”[2]
begins.
The “West
Perth clap clap clap” chant was uniformly used by the cheer squad in response
to West Perth goals. This or other chants also occurred at various moments when
the team was on an energy or creative rush or, by contrast, when it needed some
encouragement. Chants usually ended after only a few repetitions although the
“West Perth clap clap clap” chant after goals went on longer than the others.
To some extent the volume, length, and number of chants depended on both
people’s moods and the state of the game. It should be mentioned that the cheer
squad’s other favourite chants included “Phil Bradmore clap clap clap” and
“John Duckworth clap clap clap” and for Peter Menaglio “Saint Peter clap clap
clap” which was somehow very appropriate given Menaglio’s Italian background.
Group members appreciated and respected that West Perth was a multicultural
club, we revelled in it, and there was no obvious racism among the group.
Group
members would also sing “Johnnie Duckworth walks on water / tralalalala
lalalala” with group members’ favourite West Perth players’ names being put
into the chant. The reverse (uncomplimentary) version of this chant was “Ronnie
Boucher walks on water / everybody knows that bullshit floats”. It should also
be pointed out that the two “walks on water” chants (the complimentary one and
its reverse) were actually sung rather than chanted. People may have been
familiar with some of the chants and songs from the days of Fat Pam’s cheer
squad. No chants or songs were actually “written” in the sense of people
sitting down and consciously writing them. The cheer squad’s song about the
inhabitants of the R.A. McDonald Stand at Bassendean Oval, to be referred to
later, was more complex than the other songs / chants and it was an excellent
and provocative one. It may have been inherited from Fat Pam’s cheer squad. If
not, I would like to know the origins of this particular song and whether other
clubs’ supporters sang it too.
The
Grandstand Falcons used to sing “This Time (We’ll Get It Right)”, the original
version of which was sung by the English national soccer team before the 1982
World Cup Finals.[3] It
was suitable for West Perth because, like England, it had been many years since
our last success and the club had been a regular source of disappointment for
the longsuffering fans. We generally only sang the song when in the presence of
the Grandstand Falcons because it was “their” song.
The cheer squad’s
after-match ritual
In
regards the after-match ritual, if the game was at Leederville Oval, the cheer
squad members would run on to the field at the final siren, with flags waving
in the air if it was a victory. Group members would also return the floggers
promptly to the storerooms at the club. On some occasions group members might try
to get into the dressing rooms if it had been a particularly impressive
victory. Then we would celebrate the victory with the players and the other
hardcore supporters. I can recall that on a few occasions the rooms were open
to all supporters. My personal 1984 season notes, compiled during 1984, state
that cheer squad members went into the dressing rooms after the Round 12 West
Perth versus Claremont game played at Subiaco Oval won by West Perth 21.20
(136) to Claremont 9.14 (68). This was also the first game when the group was
joined by P.A. and D.S. Brian Atkinson[4]
mentions that the coach of West Perth in 2011, the ex-Subiaco player Bill
Monaghan, introduced a policy of opening up the change rooms after games
regardless of the result.
Usually cheer squad members would kick
their footballs kick-to-kick on the oval until it got dark. The group would
remain largely intact during this time. The empirical fact that the cheer squad
would remain intact during kick-to-kick and never formally join in with people
from outside the cheer squad does support the proposition that the cheer squad
was a “group-for-itself” rather than simply a “group-in-itself”. Eight-year-old
Michael (“Half”) was always there on the oval with the group. His parents
understood that this was a part of the group’s routine and group members
realized that his welfare remained the group’s responsibility to a certain
extent.
After it got dark cheer squad members
would all leave the ground in a group of around 8 to 15 people and head for the
train station (or the various bus stops if it was a home game). If it was an
away game most of the complete group (excluding those six or seven people who
came by cars such as Rohan, Courtney, Half, Ben, Rob, Tony, and Mario) would
all get the train or bus back to the city-centre, still carrying the rolled-up
flags. If it was an away game, a large group would head back by the train to
the city-centre. The group would take over the back half of the bus or half a
carriage on trains. The adrenaline and sweat from the kick-to-kick session
would still be with the group members and the laughing and joking would fill
the train carriage.
If it was a home game, only Mike B. and
I and perhaps also Mike C. and Pete C. would take the Number 15 bus on Oxford
Street back to Perth city-centre. The members of the “Balga group” (ranging
from two to five people including P.A., D.S., Thommo, Thommo Junior, and
Robbie) would walk eastward along Vincent Street by themselves to take their
own bus back to the northern suburbs. (If it was an away game, the remaining
people would say their goodbyes at the dark and cold Wellington Street bus
terminal or at the Perth central train station.) Only Mike B. and I would then
head south through the city-centre four blocks to St George’s Terrace to catch
the Number 105 bus back to Booragoon. Occasionally Mike B. and I might have
stopped at Hungry Jack’s or McDonald’s but, if I recall correctly, the bus
timing was tight and we had to walk rapidly through the city-centre. As with
the Victorian cheer squads at Flinders Street Station in the 1970s and 1980s,
Mike B. and I would sometimes encounter the Claremont or Perth cheer squads in
the city-centre and we were on good terms with both of those groups. Both of
those cheer squads understood the Victorian cheer-squad culture of camaraderie
and mutual support outside the grounds. My 1984 season notes state that, after
West Perth defeated Perth 17.19 (121) to 10.13 (73) at Leederville Oval on 14
July (Round 15), the West Perth cheer squad was involved in “raucous singing”
in the city-centre! This was probably just Mike B. and me although Mike and
Pete C. could have been there.
Claremont
Football Club
I now move
on to discuss key opponents and big matches involving those teams. First we
should mention Claremont. Traditionally Claremont has been regarded as the club
of and for the “college boys”[5]
and the club has long been associated with an amateur approach to the game.
Although only 1,000 people attended the match, the difference in culture and
attitudes of the Claremont versus Port Adelaide Magpies supporters at the
Subiaco Oval Foxtel Cup clash on 16 July 2011 was quite apparent. To cite the
Full Points Footy website about Claremont supporters:
“For much of its history, if Dave Warner is to be believed,
‘Claremont’s supporters would arrive at the outer of other clubs, erect their
deckchairs and then complain when other fans stood in front’. Prior to the
1980s Claremont were cream-puff, card-carrying nancy [sic] boys, but that has all changed and nowadays Claremont are
rarely seen down the puce [sic] end
of town”.[6]
To be fair, Full
Points Footy does point out that: “Premiership pennants in elite Australian
football competitions ... quite simply do not end up in the possession of
ineffectual weaklings, and Claremont produced a number of flag-winning
combinations well before the 1980s”.[7]
However, despite this, Claremont fans generally were not feared. No-one went to
Claremont Oval the least bit apprehensive about the home-team supporters.
By the
late-1970s and early-1980s, the club had shaken off its college boy image and
pieced together, under the coaching of first Mal Brown and then Essendon
Brownlow Medallist Graham Moss, a formidable collection of talented
footballers, many of whom would go on to play VFL/AFL football. These talented
footballers included Mike “Doc” Aitken (Carlton); John Annear (Collingwood,
Richmond, and West Coast); Wayne Blackwell (Carlton); Allen “Shorty” Daniels
(Footscray); Ken Hunter (Carlton); Jim and Phil Krakouer (North Melbourne, St
Kilda, and Footscray); and Warren Ralph (Carlton). As the Full Points Footy
website comments: “Moss coached Claremont for ten seasons, during which time
the club fielded some of the most star-studded line ups in Western Australian
football history”.[8] In
the 1981 grand final, Claremont was formidable, using the powerful combination
of Graham Moss (ruck), Jim Krakouer (rover), and Warren Ralph (full-forward),
to defeat a very strong South Fremantle team. Curtin University’s Sean Gorman,
in his book on Jim and Phil Krakouer, provides a detailed description of this
violent match.[9] In
the late-1980s, the Claremont club would go on to produce the outstanding West
Coast players Chris Lewis and Guy McKenna.
Unfortunately,
for the brilliant Claremont, the club was not the only WAFL powerhouse of the
early-1980s. In terms of not only individual playing talent but also
well-drilled, well-disciplined, and well-coached teams, the WAFL of the early-
to mid-1980s was remarkable. In most eras Moss’s Claremont would have won more
than the one premiership but it simply could not defeat the brilliant, emergent
Swan Districts with Swans defeating Claremont in both the 1982 and 1983 grand
finals. The Claremont club historian Kevin Casey writes that many long-term
Claremont supporters believe that the Tigers should have won three premierships
during the coaching reign of Graham Moss (1977-86).[10]
Similarly, John Todd made the comparison with the West Perth team of the
early-1950s which was excellent but always just one step below the South
Fremantle team of that era.[11]
Dawson writes that: “The greater versatility of the Swans sides, plus an edge
in mental toughness, were important factors in denying Claremont premiership
success in 1982 and ’83, according to John [Todd], who felt the Tigers probably
had an edge in talent”.[12]
I can
clearly remember trying to place a bet with the Claremont supporter and
mathematics teacher at Applecross Senior High School, Mrs. Machin, on the 1982
or 1983 grand final result, only to be told (and this is definitely an exact
quote): “I don’t bet with students”! She was quite wise since, regardless of
the year, my money would have been on Swans and I would have won. By 1984 and
1985 the Claremont star had begun to fade as the player drain to the VFL/AFL
had taken most of the talent out of the team. By 1984-85, Ron Alexander’s East
Fremantle and Haydn Bunton Junior’s Subiaco were the emerging power teams as
Swan Districts and Claremont had been five years earlier. Both these clubs,
East Fremantle and Subiaco, contested the last two grand finals of the pre-West
Coast era, with East Fremantle winning narrowly in 1985 and Subiaco winning
convincingly in 1986.[13]
The Claremont Cheer
Squad
The West Perth Cheer
Squad had a good relationship with Claremont’s cheer squad which congregated
behind the northern-end goals at Claremont Oval. Their leader was a friendly,
tall, brown-haired guy who had a Victorian style duffel coat with “Claremont
Peter 15 Jamieson” on the back. I either can’t recall or never knew his name.
Our cheer squad took a large group to Claremont Oval once or twice in 1984 and
1985. I can only remember single trips to Bassendean Oval, Claremont Oval,
Lathlain Park, Subiaco Oval, and Perth Oval, but the records suggest more than
one game at those venues from May 1984 to August 1985. Therefore, either the
cheer squad only attended once or my memory has conflated two visits into one
for some or all of those venues.
Claremont’s
cheer squad was enthusiastic and dedicated and the West Perth Cheer Squad
certainly respected it. At Claremont Oval, the West Perth Cheer Squad occupied
the seats behind the southern-end goals while the Claremont Cheer Squad sat
behind the northern-end goals. They had to pass by the West Perth Cheer Squad
to get to their seats since they mostly arrived from Claremont train station at
the oval’s southern-end; whenever we met our two groups exchanged friendly
greetings. Claremont had probably the second-largest and best-organized cheer
squad behind Perth FC in 1984 and 1985. I believe that both groups were
probably led by expatriate Victorians who operated the cheer squads in line
with Victorian cheer squad culture and ethics. At Claremont Oval the West Perth
cheer squad matched the Claremont cheer squad in terms of the total number of
flags and banners although the West Perth group as usual (for away games) did
not bring its floggers. The West Perth cheer squad members were especially
proud of the group’s 1.2 metre x 1.2 metre “Cop That” banner referred to in an
earlier chapter.
At away
games, especially, there was a carnival atmosphere among our cheer squad
because cheer squad members felt no “obligation” or “responsibility” in terms
of defending home-team territory or honour. It was like a day-out or a day at
the seaside as most people did not normally travel to other parts of the
metropolitan area, being constrained by school commitments, public transport
timetables, and personal finances. When cheer squad members saw people arrive
during the reserves game, in dribs and drabs of singles, twos, and threes, the
newcomers would each receive a warm welcome. Many people, especially in the
cheer squad’s first year, would walk towards our group hesitatingly and a warm
welcome was needed to get them to sit with our group. At away games it was
impossible to know how many people the cheer squad would get. Non-regulars
would often congregate with the cheer squad at away games as the cheer squad
was the most visible group of West
Perth support. In addition to the cheer squad there was always Grandstand
Falcons in the grandstand, a supporters’ group which had no flags or banners
but was made up of hearty singers and chanters (refer back to Chapter 1). That
group’s members were a few years older than the cheer squad members (they were
probably then in their twenties) but the cheer squad members knew them all by
sight.
West Perth Football
Club
In the
early- and mid-1980s, West Perth had a reasonable team and, even if it finished
fifth or sixth at the end of the season, on any given day you would give the
team at least a 40% chance of winning no matter whom the opposition was. As the
Full Points Footy website recounts, West Perth inherited from the Graham Farmer
years in the late-1960s and early-1970s a fast, skilful, run-on style of play
especially suited to the team’s speedy on-ballers such as Ron Davis (13 games
played, 1984-85); Les Fong; John Gastevich (61 games, 1983-88); Ross Gibbs (97
games, 1979-83); Derek Kickett (38 games, 1984-86); Dean Laidley; Peter
Menaglio (236 games, 1977-89); George Michalczyk (58 games, 1982-86); Peter Murnane (36 games, 1982,
1985-87); David Palm (91 games, 1980-82, 1990-91); and the late Chris
Stasinowsky (51 games, 1979-82). As the Full Points Footy website explains,
citing Farmer himself halfway through the quote:
“Under
Farmer, West Perth developed a fast, open, play on brand of football similar in
style to that produced by Geelong in the VFL, or Sturt in South
Australia. The club’s training regime maximised physical fitness,
endeavoured to habituate players to the sorts of psychological pressure and
physical duress they could anticipate during matches, and inculcated in them
the importance of making the best possible decision, from a range of
alternatives, whenever they gained possession of the ball. As
Farmer himself remarked, ‘My basis of football was to develop a natural habit,
where people automatically responded in the correct manner. The first
commitment is always to get the ball; it’s what you do with the ball after that
that will decide how far you take it down the field. If there were five or six
variables to make a play, they had to pick the right one....... The
basis of my training was always to give it to a footballer who was moving down
the field. We were giving them the ball as they were moving down the
field’”.[14]
Furthermore, a leading
football writer with The West Australian,
Gary Stocks described West Perth in 1986 as follows: “West Perth are widely
regarded as league football’s most skilful team”.[15]
Strong ruckmen and physical players were the team’s weaknesses. Generally the
key forward and back positions down the centre of the ground, excluding
centre-half-forward in the years when either Brian Adamson or Phil Bradmore
held down the position, were the team’s weak areas. Especially if a key player
was injured the team would often run into difficulties. Key position defenders,
Graeme Comerford (80 games, 1982-86) and 1975 premiership player Geoff
Hendriks, were effective and dependable - albeit not as charismatic as former
full-back, the earringed and mulleted Ray Holden (102 games, 1979-83, 1987-89),
who departed for Melbourne (VFL/AFL) at the end of the 1983 season.
West Perth
was fortunate in that, one year after Ben Jager (135 games, 1977-83), its
first-choice lead ruckman since the late-1970s, retired, John Duckworth
returned to the playing field. However, Duckworth mainly played
centre-half-back in 1985 with new country recruit, 24-year-old Kim Rogers from
Tammin (29 games, 1985-86), performing remarkably well in Jager’s place. In
fact Rogers’ rise was a major explanatory factor behind West Perth’s return to
final round football in 1985.[16]
The return of the former Hawthorn premiership player Peter Murnane and the
veteran rover Corry Bewick (128 games, 1977-82 and 1985-86) and the debut of
Darren Bewick (52 games, 1985-87) were also significant events for the senior
team and for the club in 1985. Murnane had given the team maturity, poise,
drive, and class in the centre of the ground and he had proved hard to replace.
He was definitely one reason why the team had excelled on-the-field in the 1982
season and then struggled in the subsequent two years. The ex-Hawthorn
premiership player’s VFL/AFL experience had made him more of a strategic
thinker and he was mentally harder and less error-prone than many WAFL
footballers.
West Perth
did have a strong backline in the early- and mid-1980s, with the reliable Perth
defender Neil Fotheringhame (64 games, 1980-83 and 66 games for Perth from
1975-79) crossing over to West Perth, while Ross Prunster (159 games, 1973-79
and 36 games for Perth in 1980-81 and 1984) and Mark Washfold (41 games,
1978-80 and 66 games for Perth from 1981-84) went the other way. Other players
involved in this lively cross-town traffic between Perth and West Perth were
Doug Simms to West Perth (32 games, 1983-85 and 93 games for Perth from
1977-83) and, in the opposite direction, John Gavranich (39 games, 1980-83 and
126 games for Perth from 1984-91), Mick Rea (21 games, 1979-81 and 121 games
for Perth from 1981-88), and the late Chris Stasinowsky (51 games, 1979-82 and
31 games for Perth from 1985-86). Atkinson writes as follows: “Chris
Stasinowsky also played 26 games for South Fremantle in 1982-1984. He kicked 11
goals against West Perth in one game”.[17]
Without wanting to cast aspersions on the fine contributions made to West Perth
by both Fotheringhame and Simms, it is far from certain, based on the
information presented in this paragraph, that West Perth got the best out of
its trades with Perth during the drought era. With so many trades between the
two clubs, with hindsight, it is easily possible to perceive the two clubs as
having been one. If a merger had to happen, a West Perth merger with Perth
would be far more palatable to me than a merger with East Perth, the traditional
enemy of both Perth and West Perth. I am sure that many Perth supporters would
agree with these sentiments.[18]
West Perth
also received good service from its South Fremantle recruits, wingman Phil
Cronan (22 games, 1983) and rover Paul Mountain (21 games, 1983), although,
unfortunately, neither remained at the club beyond the single season. It is
interesting to note that very few or no West Perth players crossed from West
Perth to East Perth during the pre-West Coast era. This perhaps reveals the
depth of negative feeling between the two clubs. One of the few players to head
in the opposite direction, in the post-Polly Farmer years, was centre-man
George Michalczyk. Although not quite as much of a sensation as Maurice “Mo”
Johnston’s 1989 move from Celtic to Rangers, where he became that club’s first
high-profile Roman Catholic player[19],
Michalczyk’s “defection” from East Perth was very well received at its
cross-town rival and he would later go on to coach West Perth.
Generally West Perth struggled in wet
weather and the team also struggled against very strong physical teams although
occasionally such teams would be showed up by the Cardinals for their lack of
pace and sixth sense. Especially at Leederville Oval, on beautiful fine winter
days with the home crowd in full voice, West Perth played brilliant football
during the premiership drought era (1976-86) and it was more than capable of
inflicting defeat upon any team. Statistically this is the case as Atkinson’s
history section shows that, in the pre-West Coast Eagles section of the drought
era from 1976-86, West Perth often defeated the eventual premier team twice in
a season, including Perth in 1977 (two wins); East Perth in 1978 (two wins);
Swan Districts in 1982 (two wins) and 1984 (two wins); and East Fremantle in
1985 (two wins). This remains a strong record but it is also a clear case of
potential unfulfilled. Although the club did not suffer the same exodus of
players to Victoria as other higher-profile and trendier teams, Ross Gibbs
later played 253 games (1984-94) for Glenelg in the SANFL[20],
including the two pre-Adelaide Crows era premierships of 1985-86[21],
and David Palm was a strong and consistent contributor at Richmond in the
VFL/AFL (104 games, 1983-88[22]).
Palm developed into a consistent centre-man for Richmond over a number of years
and he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the legendary Richmond
centre-men who preceded him in that position Geoff Raines and the late Maurice
Rioli.
Perhaps West
Perth’s best known football exports, in the post-Farmer era, have been Darren
Bewick, Derek Kickett, and Dean Laidley as well as the coach turned football
commentator Dennis Cometti. Generally West Perth’s best players were
undervalued and under-recognized during the drought era. Contemporaneous
newspaper reports in The West Australian
refer to both Bradmore and Menaglio as “underrated” suggesting that they should
have polled more Sandover Medal votes than they did. For example, Gary Stocks,
in his 1985 first semi-final match report, states that: “Bradmore received a
meagre total of 14 [1985 Sandover] medal votes, a classic case of where the
work done by a player during a season was undervalued”.[23]
In relation to the 1985 first semi-final, Stocks went on to say that Bradmore
was “the best man afield ... in the opinion of some”.[24]
About the inaugural Eagles squad member, John Gastev (who was originally known
as John Gastevich), Stocks comments as follows after the first West Perth game
of the 1987 season versus East Perth: “He is one of the most underrated players
in WA, with the ability to win the hard ball and pinpoint delivery”.[25]
Sandover Medal Night,
Perth Entertainment Centre, 27 August 1984
I will now discuss the
WAFL Sandover Medal Night held at the now demolished Perth Entertainment Centre
on Monday 27 August 1984. This was the first time ever that the
fairest-and-best player award presentation night had been opened to the general
public and it has never been opened to the public again. I view the move as
part of an effort to “take the game to the people”, a move towards empowerment,
at the same time as the WAFL commissioners were simultaneously disempowering
people by negotiating to be part of an expanded VFL over the heads of the
ordinary club supporters and even over two club presidents.
The Perth
Entertainment Centre (opened on 27 December 1974 and closed in August 2002)
held around 8,200 people. Tickets were sold to the Sandover Medal Count for a
reasonable fee, three dollars per person or around the cost of a match-day
concession ticket, and supporters were allocated specific areas within the
venue according to the club they supported. Our group made an effort to attend
and secure tickets for the members and for the younger people in the group such
as Half and Thommo Junior (Thommo’s younger brother aged around eight). Given
that the Medal Night was held on a weekday, winter’s evening in a city-centre
venue (in an era prior to mass gentrification of the inner-city) not
surprisingly the main group of people in attendance were the hardcore cheer
squad members carrying their big flags and banners. Perth, Claremont, Subiaco,
West Perth, and East Perth all had large vocal cheer squad groups at the venue
that night. Of course our group cheered and waved its flags when a West Perth
player received a vote just as we would have done behind the goals on any match
day. Fitting in with the carnival mood of the whole evening, there were three
tied winners of the award, Michael Mitchell and Steve Malaxos of Claremont and
Peter Spencer of East Perth.[26]
The
football historian Tony Barker[27]
is extremely unfair when he writes that: “The result was far more discordant
then the mere presence of women could have been, with up to 3,000 fans jeering
the tallying of votes for players from rival clubs”. I was there and the
general behaviour that night was very good because the crowd was made up in
large part of young and dedicated football supporters most of whom were cheer
squad members and under the supervision of cheer squad leaders. The back page
of The West Australian on the
Wednesday after the Monday night count was very critical of the event and the
booing and jeering of flag-waving supporters. Various identities were trotted
out to condemn the night. Surprisingly, it was not The West Australian’s chief sporting writer, the late Geoff
Christian (1934-98), who wrote the piece but some unknown female journalist,
Linda Byrne, perhaps drafted in from the front section of the newspaper. One
wonders even whether the reporting of the Monday night medal count was held
back until the Wednesday paper so that the count results were not reported
prior to the reporting of the public backlash.
The
sensationalist article by Byrne opens as follows: “Telephone switchboards ran
hot at West Australian Newspapers, Channel 7 and talk-back radio programmes
yesterday as people protested about the handling of this year’s Sandover Medal
presentation”.[28]
The writer goes on to explain how callers were “disgusted” because the “winners
were booed by jeering flag-waving fans” during the two-hour event which was
also telecast live by Channel 7. George Michalczyk of West Perth was
forthright, hostile, and even a tad moralistic and superior in his comments
spoken in his capacity as head of the Players’ Association: “It was a
commercial failure and a TV failure. I don’t think there are any positive
things to say for it. I think the general public reaction will say that this
will never happen again at the Entertainment Centre”.[29]
Of course the vast majority of the fans present enjoyed themselves tremendously
by behaving exactly as they would on any match day. Michalczyk need not have
worried himself too much: by 1987 most of these noisy, teenaged, flag-waving
fans would stop attending WAFL games (having shifted over to support West Coast
Eagles in the expanded VFL).
Somewhat
more tactfully than most commentators and not wanting to upset either the
moralizers or the fans, the then WAFL president Vince Yovich simply said that
the event “lacked atmosphere”[30]
which it may have done, from the TV perspective, because of the cavernous and
generic nature of the venue. To his credit, East Fremantle’s coach Ron
Alexander simply gave full marks to Channel 7 for attempting something
different. A Channel 7 spokesperson, station manager Mr. Alan Richards, was
misquoted by Linda Byrne, perhaps deliberately. At the start of the back page
article Richards is proclaimed as having been surprised by the hostile reaction
and Byrne takes this to mean the hostile reactions of the supporters on the
night. In fact his full quote appears later in the same article and it is very
clear that he is expressing surprise at the “hostile reactions” of the people
who contacted TV and radio stations and the newspaper to complain about the
count on the day after the event. Richards correctly and sensibly pointed out
that the fan reaction on that night was the same as you would hear on the
terraces on any match-day. In Richards’ words: “As a television person watching
the event last night I thought it was the right approach and was somewhat
surprised by the reaction”.[31]
Clearly the reaction Richards is referring to here is that of the bourgeois,
public policers of decency and decorum on the Tuesday rather than the reaction
of the fans at the count on the Monday night. You cannot invite the public to a
venue known for loud rock concerts by bands such as AC/DC and KISS and charge a
very cheap admission price and then realistically expect black-tie, gala-dinner
behaviour.
The
moralistic public uproar resulted in the 1985 medal count night being shifted
back to its traditional venue, The Golden Ballroom of the Sheraton Perth Hotel,
and the ordinary supporters were again excluded. Nowadays the Brownlow (AFL)
and Sandover Medal (WAFL) nights are corporate events at luxury hotel
ballrooms, and players and WAGS (wives and girlfriends) dress up in their showy
fineries. The counts have become fashion shows and places to be seen. Carlton
AFL player Brendan Fevola’s behaviour at the 2009 Brownlow Medal Count included
vomiting, swearing, spilling beer, simulated sex acts, and molestation of
women.[32]
No teenage cheer squad member behaved in such ways at the Perth Entertainment
Centre in August 1984 although some of us might have accidentally spilled our
soft-drinks! Nonetheless, the ruling-class of football decided that it most
definitely did not want the lumpenproletariat supporters to be in such close
proximity at future counts. There was even an early sneaky attempt to erase the
1984 Sandover Medal Count Night from football history with the 1985 edition of
Christian et al.’s The Footballers
book mentioning neither the count night nor the three winners’ names (but
including the three winners in the list of medal winners on p. 183).[33]
East Perth Football
Club
East Perth was and
still remains today West Perth’s arch-rivals. East Perth was a strong club
throughout the 1960s and up to 1978. However, the Perth Oval-based club
generally failed to match it in the 1980s with the new powerhouses South
Fremantle, Claremont, and Swan Districts (in the early-1980s) and East
Fremantle and Subiaco (in the mid-1980s). The East Perth club had possibly
begun to suffer the after-effects of a declining junior base in its inner-city
areas, a factor that may also partially explain Perth FC’s poor years from 1980
onwards. The declining junior base was the primary factor behind West Perth’s
1994 move to a more lucrative junior zone in the Joondalup area in Perth’s
outer northern suburbs.[34]
In hindsight, perhaps, the 1978 grand-final between East Perth and Perth
represented the end of an era, the last hurrah of the traditional inner-city
clubs.
My belief then was that East Perth
supporters were an overly serious and macho bunch that believed that their team
was the toughest and most ruthless. They generally did not respect other clubs
at all and especially West Perth. It was mostly East Perth fans who used the
racist “Garlic Muncher” tag for West Perth supporters because, like South
Fremantle, West Perth had always been (or at least since the 1950s) a multicultural
club both in terms of its playing squads and its supporter base. The club
welcomed these supporters and players and gained a reputation as a
multicultural club. Both West Perth and South Fremantle represent districts
with large Croatian / Yugoslav and Italian populations. Most of the ethnic
soccer clubs, associated with the Croatian, Greek, and Italian communities, are
based in the West Perth and South Fremantle catchment areas. Despite this,
South Fremantle has never been burdened by a tag such as “Garlic Munchers”
possibly because East Fremantle fans have always been far too gentlemanly and
self-assured of their own worth to resort to such insulting labelling of a
rival club. The other six WAFL clubs tended to be more strictly Anglo in the 1970s
and 1980s, although East Perth and Swan Districts have had significant numbers
of Aboriginal players and supporters.
The official “Royals” nickname for the
East Perth club was an enigma. On the one hand, I felt that some East Perth
supporters were somewhat embarrassed by it because it did not gel neatly with
their working-class (Aussie not British) tough-guy image. This interpretation
is based on the “Australia as a rugged colony” tradition which played a major
role in Ashes Test cricket matches in the 1970s. On the other hand, the Royals’
nickname for East Perth and the club’s crown symbol could have been viewed in
white-supremacist / British nationalist terms. If this meaning wasn’t overt
during the 1980s (it clearly wasn’t) it was arguably at least there in the
background playing with people’s collective subconscious, and especially those
of West Perth supporters when they were hit with the “Garlic Munchers” tag. It
is unfortunate that political correctness arrived too late and Royals’ fans
were not castigated for their insulting use of the racist “Garlic Munchers”
label for West Perth fans during the WAFL’s Golden Era. In the 1980s East Perth
and East Fremantle fans were probably those least likely to wear club colours
at their games although this is admittedly a subjective memory.
Our West Perth Cheer Squad believed that
East Perth players and fans took themselves too seriously and lacked charm and
humour. The cheer squad members also felt that, although both clubs were
mid-table in 1984-85, West Perth had a faster running and more skilful side.
West Perth fans thought that West Perth’s 1982 recruitment of East Perth
centreman George Michalczyk
(whose nephew is the West Coast Eagles player Dean Cox) was a
master-stroke as he fitted the team’s game plan well and he was also more of a
physical player than many at West Perth. The team’s token tough-guy in the
late-1970s and 1980s was the Vietnam War veteran John Duckworth but with Duckie
there was a humorous side to him (like Carlton’s Peter “Percy” Jones and North
Melbourne’s Peter “Crackers” Keenan[35])
and he tended to be primarily a ball-player and not one for king-hits off the
ball.
Duckie meant a huge amount for player
and fan morale; it could be argued that his return to the senior team at age 35
in 1985 was another reason behind the team’s finals’ appearance in that year
although he did not himself play in the first semi-final versus Swan Districts
which the club lost. Duckworth missed the last two qualifying games of the 1985
season due to the after-effects of swallowing a fish bone.[36]
He had not trained for three weeks as at the Monday of the lead-up week and had
lost seven kilograms.[37]
He intended to resume training on the Thursday night before the first
semi-final but ultimately he did not play.[38]
Duckworth surely must have enjoyed John Wynne’s philosophy of having minimal
pre-season training. He inspired the players and was worth much more to West
Perth than his kick, marks, and handballs tally might suggest. The extremely
charismatic and popular centre-half-forward Phil “Spock” Bradmore fits into the
same category. Atkinson reports that Peter Menaglio won the Breckler Medal for
club fairest-and-best player in 1984 while “Spock” Bradmore won the medal in
the following year.[39]
East Perth
back then had a large number of fair-weather fans (as of course did West Perth)
who would turn out in force for the big games and sit on the grassed scoreboard
banks. Most of these have gone on to support one of Perth’s AFL clubs. With
East Perth there were certainly dumb-thug elements among the fair-weather army.
As an example, when I went with Tim B., an East Perth supporter, to the big
West Perth versus East Perth game at Leederville Oval on 26 August 1978, my
father lagged behind us as he had to lock up all the car doors manually. As
this was happening, Tim staged a mock fight with me on the footpath. Just as in
a cliché-ridden movie, an old panel van, the vehicle of choice for mentally
challenged thugs back in the day, drove past Tim B. and me at that moment, and
shouted out some brain-dead encouragement to the one wearing the East Perth
colours. East Perth’s travelling supporters would sit on the huge Leederville
Oval scoreboard bank at West Perth home games and, as mentioned, usually they
did not wear the club colours. This grass bank has largely disappeared today,
in the interests of the gentrification of the ground and the takeover of the
top part of the grass bank by the Town of Vincent, but it can be seen in its
full glory in the picture on page 219 of Atkinson’s book.[40]
On very big match days, most of the scoreboard bank crowd would end up standing
rather than sitting (at least at the top and on the sides and edges).
East Perth had an organized cheer squad
in the mid-1980s. David Lockhart posted on the Lost WAFL Facebook community page on 4 December 2013 to explain
that he had been “the leader of this rabble” from around 1982 to around 1988.[41]
He writes that the cheer squad was funded by the East Perth club and had 40
members at one point. He says his group knew the other cheer squads well and
participated in the combined State of Origin cheer squad a few times. Our West
Perth group did not know any of the members of David Lockhart’s cheer squad
although Lockhart’s group knew Fat Pam’s group which continued making the
banners for the West Perth players to run through into the 1984 season.
The East Perth fair-weather fans back in
the day all expanded significant effort trying to look macho and serious.
Ironically, Leederville Oval has now become East Perth’s home ground since the
club was forced to leave Perth Oval for the Perth Glory Soccer Club. It is
indeed ironic that the East Perth club, which prided itself on its macho,
Aussie, tough-guy image over the years, would have to leave its home ground for
soccer, the so-called sport of, to use the title of the late Johnny Warren’s
autobiography, “fairies, wogs, and poofters” (yes, Garlic Munchers).[42]
One might even want to refer to the concept of “karma” here, a concept that
many of the middle-aged, and upper-middle-class “Buddhists” living in the now
gentrified East Perth suburb can probably relate to. As the Full Points Footy
website comments: “East Perth actually played its home matches at Leederville
[Oval] during season 2000 owing to Perth Oval being consigned to the heretics,
i.e. it was needed for the ineptly named ‘Perth Glory’s’ soccer fixtures”.[43]
I can remember attending the second last
West Perth versus East Perth game ever played at Perth Oval on Monday 1 June
1998. I sat under the tin shed in the south-western corner, just to the right
of the main grandstand if you were looking across from the scoreboard bank.
There was an official crowd of 4,853 people, a very high crowd for the
post-Fremantle Dockers era. East Perth actually won that day, 16.8 (104) to
8.10 (58), although West Perth made the grand final in that year only to lose
it to East Fremantle.[44]
This 1 June 1998 match was the last WAFL game ever to be played at Perth Oval
in front of a crowd exceeding three thousand people.
Despite East Perth vacating Perth Oval,
West Perth supporters did not have the last laugh because East Perth then joined
Subiaco as the new co-tenants of Leederville Oval! The ground has now become a
yuppie, boutique style ground with most of the scoreboard wing gone (it can be
viewed on Google Earth) as well as the around-the-ground seating including the
cheer squad’s seats behind the northern-end goal. In the general public parts
of the ground only the seats in front of the tin shed in the north-west corner
remain. Subiaco has built a tasteful new social club / grandstand in between
the main grandstand and the tin shed which, if my memory serves me correctly,
was home to a stepped section of gravel or concreted terracing (or an upwards
sloping gravelled or concreted section) topped with a bar and / or a hot food
caravan back in the 1980s (similar to the still-existing can bar terrace at
Lathlain Perk). Despite all the changes, I still feel very much at home in the
famous old ground. The old gates in the south-western corner have gone replaced
by new Phil Matson Gates. It was somewhat cute and very politically correct to name
these gates after Phil Matson who was a successful player and coach at both East Perth and Subiaco in the first
half of the twentieth century. He can’t have had many challengers. I can’t
imagine that the Alex Hamilton Gates or the Kevan Sparks Gates would have been
deemed suitable names, these being the only two players I can think of from
more recent years who played for both clubs. Oh, wait...The Peter Spencer
Gates? I would like to see that!
The fact
that Leederville Oval has become East Perth’s home ground does not sit well
with me, but, as Brian Atkinson pointed out in personal e-mail correspondence,
once West Perth moved out any other club had the right to move in. Clearly
Subiaco, after being forced out of its Subiaco Oval headquarters by the new
power-brokers of football the Western Australian Football Commission (WAFC),
perceived that a move effectively just down the street to Leederville Oval
would pose the least threat to its identity as a name change would not be
needed. Ironically and sadly, the only visible signs of red-and-blue I observed
when I visited Leederville Oval on the peaceful and sunny winter morning of
Wednesday 6 July 2011 was the colouring of the brand name of Medibank Private,
the current sponsors of the ground, at the back of the old main grandstand. The
ground is presently a mish-mash of colours, a genuine post-modern collage, as
you can see the blue-and-black of East Perth only 20-metres away from the
maroon-and-gold of Subiaco. However, despite this, I still love the dear old
ground (as I also love Dorrien Gardens).
Evidence of the East Perth fair-weather
fan mentality is the fact that the club’s average attendances have been among
the lowest of all WAFL clubs in the post-West Coast Eagles era. The so-called
“dedicated” East Perth supporters of the early-1980s all quickly jumped ship at
the first opportunity to support the new, artificial, corporate West Coast
franchise. The concept of “loyalty” in Western Australian football since 1987
has been strained, muted, and bastardized, with some strange individuals
following both West Coast and
Fremantle in the AFL. Imagine people supporting both Manchester United and
Manchester City or both the legendary Glasgow clubs Celtic and Rangers! Other
West Australian football followers switched teams twice, once from their WAFL
club to the West Coast Eagles in 1987 and once from the West Coast Eagles to
the Fremantle Dockers in 1995.
A famous American sports fan turned
commentator, Joe Benigno, wrote in his only partly tongue-in-cheek book Rules for New York Sports Fans that the
number one “rule” for supporting sports in New York City is that you cannot
have more than one team per sport, i.e. you cannot support both the Yankees and Mets in baseball or both the Giants and the Jets in American football or both the Knicks or Nets in basketball or
two or more of the Rangers, Islanders or Devils in ice-hockey.[45]
This rule has always been modified in Australia where you were “allowed” to
support one football team per competition
in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, you could support Geelong, East Perth, and
Port Adelaide or West Perth, Richmond, and Norwood (to name the three clubs
that David Palm played for). This was unchanged in theory but became very
confusing in practice after the West Coast Eagles joined the VFL/AFL as it was then “permitted” for you to leave
your existing VFL/AFL team to support the Eagles which most, but by no
means all, people did. Then in 1995 you were “permitted” to leave the Eagles to
support the Dockers especially if you lived anywhere near the Fremantle area or
if you had historic or family ties to either one of East or South Fremantle.
The Dockers, like baseball’s New York
Mets in relation to the Yankees and soccer’s Melbourne City in relation to
Melbourne Victory, became a team you supported if you didn’t like the Eagles as
much as a team you supported for its own sake. Philosophers Marx and Engels
might have called the Mets and Dockers the anti-theses of the dialectical
contradiction in that they only make sense in relation to the “big brother”
that they always measure themselves up against.
Many people also abandoned their WAFL
team, either in practice alone or in
theory as well, to support the Eagles or Dockers. In 1987 some formally
divorced their WAFL club while for others they simply ignored their old wife
whilst becoming infatuated with their glamorous new blue-and-gold girlfriend
(with those sexy eagles’ wings)! This created an alarming situation where fans
were not castigated for leaving their WAFL club to support an AFL club. In fact
it was even regarded positively if you did so as the West Coast Eagles was mistakenly perceived by many to be a state team
rather than just another club team which just happened to be Perth-based.
Therefore, simply because the WAFL clubs and the AFL clubs were not in the same
competition, it was acceptable to abandon your WAFL club in the post-West Coast
Eagles era, and I always thought this was very disappointing and wrong-headed.
Can you imagine supporters abandoning Manchester City, Newcastle United or West
Ham United if they slipped out of the English Premier League? In fact recently
Portsmouth still attracted home crowds of around 16,000-18,000 people whilst
playing in League Two (tier-four of the pyramid when viewed from the top).
Furthermore, most Fremantle Dockers’ supporters over the age of 30-35 used to
be West Coast Eagles supporters making the “intensity” and “rivalry” of the
early “Western Derby” played between West Coast and Fremantle ridiculous.
Tony
Barker interviewed the business and football protagonists involved in the
formation of the West Coast Eagles in 1986-87.[46]
The after-the-fact rationalizations, justifications, and profound analysis are
interesting although we do not get an apology from any of those suited businesspersons
who bled the Eagles dry in its first two years with conspicuous consumption and
bad business decisions. These poor decisions include at the very least: (a)
agreeing to pay a AUD4 million licence fee to the VFL up-front; (b) paying excessive amounts for the aging Ross
Glendinning and the injury-prone Phil Narkle; (c) showing a distinct lack of
ethics by pursuing contracted players Paul Harding and Gary Buckenara; (d)
hiring two coaches Alexander and Todd without VFL/AFL coaching experience; and
(e) inviting “corporate people” rather than “football people” on to the board.[47]
Barker
explores in depth the “personal politics” surrounding the births of West Coast
in 1987 and Fremantle in 1995 and devotes three pages to Gerard Neesham’s
SWAFL.[48]
This is one of his book’s clear strong points. Barker is rightly critical of
the firing of coaches Ron Alexander and John Todd by West Coast in 1987 and
1989 and the manner in which those devious and sneaky “business transactions”
were conducted and rationalized.[49]
However, in the main, Barker does not go beyond the assumption of nineteenth
century scientific positivism that progress is always good, or, if not good,
then at least “inevitable”. Those who might scorn Marxism for alleged historical
determinism all too quickly fall back on that word “inevitable” which aims, in
effect, to make people unaccountable for their own choices and actions. The
term suggests that the only reasonable choice available to us is to get behind
the direction in which history is marching or engage in the futile task of
trying to hold back the clock. Using this logic, then, Swan Districts’ Bill
Walker was and is a person “living in the past” whilst John Walker, Richard
Colless, and the six pro-VFL WAFL club presidents become, for historians,
virtuous (no matter what they actually did) because they were on “the side of
history”.
East Perth versus West
Perth, Perth Oval, Round 16 (21 July) 1984
My personal 1984
season notes state as follows about the East Perth versus West Perth match at
Perth Oval on 21 July 1984:
“East
Perth 19.15 d West Perth 18.17. Perth Oval. Michael [B.] lost lens at
Claisebrook Station. Huge record cheer squad – talked to [West Perth
coach Dennis] Cometti before the match. Timeclock wasn’t working – thrilling
last quarter. Great games by [John] Gastev and [Derek] Kickett”
[underlining in original].
Clearly the West Perth
cheer squad had grown to its full and mature size by 21 July 1984 and, as
mentioned previously, our group would swell at big away games as other West
Perth fans would join us. This would include those who regularly sat in other
sections of Leederville Oval (i.e. away from the cheer squad) at home games.
When the cheer squad went to Perth Oval on 21 July 1984 we sat behind the
southern-end goals just as we had previously done at Claremont Oval. There was
no territorial invasion other than the physical entering of the ground.
The West
Perth Cheer Squad had a large contingent that day (as my personal notes from
1984 record); the sun was lovely; and no-one disturbed the cheer squad members
or insulted us. The East Perth Cheer Squad was behind the northern-end goals
and so would not have met the West Perth cheer squad which sat at the
southern-end goals after arriving from Claisebrook train station on the
south-eastern side of the ground. The usual family groups of Aboriginal people
that supported East Perth and sat under the trees near the back fence at the
southern-end (Lord Street-end) were there that day but they gave the cheer
squad not the slightest trouble nor the cheer squad them. West Perth was a
multicultural club; when your lead rover is Fong and your lead ruck-rover is
Menaglio and you have a Kickett and a Davis (two Aboriginal players) on your
team you would not want to entertain a racist thought even if you were that way
inclined. The grassed bank behind the southern-end goals can be seen in a
picture in the Claremont history book which shows action from an East Perth
versus Claremont match played at the ground in the early-1970s.[50]
As was
typical of away games, the cheer squad members were in a jovial, carnival mood
all day which persisted even after West Perth suffered a narrow loss. We all
went back to Claisebrook Station (where the lost contact lens incident referred
to in my season notes occurred) after the match in a large group in order to
journey back to Perth central train station in the city-centre. The days at
Claremont and Perth Ovals were very similar: a large cheer squad group; fine
weather; a carnival atmosphere among the group; and a large group claiming half
a carriage on the train back into the city-centre. We were possibly fortunate
not to get into trouble with opposing fans at Perth Oval. That trend would end
with the cheer squad’s first and probably only visit to that most parochial of
WAFL grounds, Bassendean Oval, home of 1980s WAFL powerhouse the Swan Districts
Football Club.
[1] Marsh, Aggro, pp. 24-5.
[2] Ibid., p. 24.
[3] The
single version (b/w “England We’ll Fly the Flag”) reached Number 2 in the UK
charts and spent 13 weeks in the Top 75.
[4] Personal Interview, 8 July 2011.
[5] Casey, K. (n/d but
probably 1996), The Tigers’ Tale: the
Origins and the History of the Claremont Football Club (Perth: Kevin
Casey), pp. 187-90; Gorman, S. (2005), BrotherBoys: the Story of Jim and Phillip Krakouer (St. Leonard’s: Allen & Unwin).
[6] Full Points Footy
website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/Claremont_Part_One.htm [accessed 5
January 2011].
[7] Ibid.
[8] Full Points Footy
website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/Claremont_Part_Two.htm [accessed 5
January 2011].
[9] Gorman, BrotherBoys.
[10] Casey, The Tigers’ Tale, p. 139.
[11] John
Todd cited in Dawson, B. (2004), John
Todd: Six Decades of Footy (West Leederville: Cambridge Publishing), p.
210.
[12] Dawson, John Todd, p. 210.
[13] See the dedicated
East Fremantle and Subiaco pages at John Devaney’s website, Full Points Footy.
[14] Full Points Footy
website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/west_perth_(3).htm [accessed 5 January
2011].
[15] Stocks, G. (1986),
“Smith gives Demons more grit”, The West
Australian, 31 March, p. 68.
[16] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 205.
[17] Brian Atkinson,
personal e-mail communication to the author dated 19 November 2011.
[18] See
the discussion between the author and Perth supporter Adrian Gibson at the following
link: http://waflglorydays.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/round-11-1976-west-perth-1417-101-d.html
[accessed 29 October 2016].
[19] McColl, G. (2008), The Official Biography of Celtic: if you know the History (London:
Headline Publishing), p. 290; O’Kane, Celtic
Soccer Crew, pp. 71-3.
[20] Source: Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Gibbs [accessed 12 April 2011].
[21] Full Points Footy
website, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/g.htm [accessed 12 April 2011].
[22] Source: Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Palm [accessed 12 April 2011].
[23] Stocks, G. (1985a),
“Disappointing end for Kim Rogers”, The
West Australian, 2 September, p. 72.
[24] Ibid., p. 72.
[25] Stocks, G. (1987), “West Perth pace key factor”, The West Australian, 28 March, p. 200.
[26] Casey, The Tigers’ Tale, p. 156.
[27] Barker, Behind the Play, p. 194.
[28] Byrne, L. (1984),
“Protests hit Sandover ‘muddle’”, The
West Australian, 29 August, p. 128.
[29] George Michalczyk cited in
ibid., p. 128.
[30] Vince Yovich cited in
ibid., p. 128.
[31] Alan Richards cited
in ibid., p. 128.
[32] Fevola, Fev, pp. 252-7; Franklin, R. (2012), Fev Unauthorised: the Biography of Brendan Fevola, Football’s Flawed
Genius, paperback edition (Richmond: Slattery Media Group), Chapter 8, pp.
114-37; Hinde, S. and V. Mayberry (2011), “New Year’s leave: Fev’s career on knife’s
edge after latest drama”, The Sunday Mail
[Brisbane], 2 January, p. 3.
[33] Christian, G., Lee,
J. and B. Messenger (1985), The
Footballers: a History of Football in Western Australia (Perth: St George
Books).
[34] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 224.
[35] Frost, Immortals, p. 236.
[36]
Christian, G. (1985b), “Injuries sour West Perth’s bid for glory”, The West Australian, 26 August, p. 88.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, Appendix 5, p.
273.
[40] Ibid., p. 219.
[41] Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-WAFL/563746750348335
[accessed 5 December 2013].
[42] Warren, J. (2003), Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters: an Incomplete
Biography of Johnny Warren and Soccer in Australia, with A. Harper and J.
Whittington (North Sydney: Random House).
[43] Full Points Footy website,
footnote 18, http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/east_perth_(2).htm [accessed 5
January 2011].
[44] The match scores are
taken from Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old
Flag, p. 342.
[45] Benigno, J. (2010), Rules for New York Sports Fans (Chicago: Triumph Books), pp. 1-4.
[46] Barker, Behind the Play.
[47] For Mal Brown’s
opinion on the bad business and footballing decisions and the conspicuous
consumption of the original Indian Pacific Limited/ West Coast Eagles’
leadership see Brown and Hansen, Mal
Brown & Mongrels I’ve Met, Chapter 17, pp. 185-95.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Yes, coaches with
VFL/AFL coaching experience should have been hired but given that Alexander and
Todd actually were hired they then should have been treated justly and
ethically.
No comments:
Post a Comment