royallucky: yep agree, in addition to all that, from memory, cl also went the knuckle during the game, which was very revealling in itself at the time.
We actually had 4 AFL listed players that day with one of them being the highly touted Jeff White who had his colours lowered by a little known ex amateur player Greg Egan where as in 2000 our unheralded rookie listed colts player by the name of Dean Cox took the game by the scruff of the neck and won a Simpson medal which showed he was a future champion in the making,where as Jeff White finished up at Melbourne playing 280 AFL games but never rose to those levels
My grandfather played in the 30s, including a reserves premiership side, and the teams were full of pretty hard characters, warfies etc, and it was the depression era so times were very tough, the players had to pay their own train fares to the game and match payments were undreamt of.
Baz my dear old uncle played in a couple of ressies flags at Subi in the 20’s and said even at that level it was brutal, he was a tough as nails little rover and said he always managed to evened things up, then they’d go off and have a beer after the game. Collingwood offered him 2 quid a game and a job to come over and play, but he decided to stay home in the family butchering business, something he always regretted.
Yep it was definatley brutal at all levels, he reckons the derbies were take no prisoners, funny thing was they worked together in many cases at the warf or woolstores.
Thats right, they’d beat the living suitcase out of each other then enjoy a beer afterwards.
There was a book published recently by author Chris Carmody which looked at footy in Fremantle and it was mentioned that everyone got along quite well in the port city at work on the wharfs and in factories - except when the 2 sides played each other and then it was war.
Remember back to the late 1970’s .When Wa footy started playing run on hanpass football. It opened the game up and also sped the game up.Some sides in that era scored cricket scores.The VFL was still big mark+torpedo punt.
Still think the Wafl golden era was the 1960’s.With home and away games pulling 20,000+ crowds.With a Perth population around 600,000.Amazing era for East Perth losing in 1960,61,66,67,68,69,71.Jack Sheedy must of hated GF day.1978 must of felt good for the Royals.
Incredible to play in 6 GFs in a decade and lose them all - 3 in a row to the same opponent. East and West Perth rivalry is famous - how are things between Perth FC and East Perth ?
GTR I did a quick peruse of www.waflfootyfacts.net to see what each of the traditional WAFL clubs biggest (record) home crowds were and in which year (not including finals & the neutral h&a games played at Subiaco Oval) plus what year their 2nd biggest home crowd was in below-
Club Ground Crowd Year (Next Best Crowd & Year)
SD Bassendean Oval- 22,350 b[/b] - 19,237 b[/b]
CL Claremont Oval- 18,268 b[/b] - 18,106 b[/b]
EF East Fremantle Oval- 21,317 b[/b] - 20,287 b[/b]
SF Fremantle Oval- 22,399 b[/b] - 19,279 b[/b]
PE Lathlain Park- 19,541 b[/b] - 16,948 b[/b]
WP Leederville Oval- 24,567 b[/b] - 21,446 b[/b]
SU Subiaco Oval- 21,088 b[/b] - 16,709 b[/b]
EP Perth Oval- 26,760 b[/b] - 21,005 b[/b]
Interesting to note all Record Crowds & Most 2nd Biggest Crowds for each WAFL club at their home venue were in the period 1978-1986 bar Perth & EP (both in the 1960s).
gtr; good post
tm: i would say that ep were/are the collingwood of the wafl, having nearly lost in 72 and 78 as well. In fairness to them, in the 60s they had to play against Cable; had he played for them the results would have been reversed. Cable kicked over half of the pfc’s goal tally in 1966. In the finals against WP, they also had to play against, an albeit. ageing Farmer, whom was their own player.
Yes something of the carringbush and those infamous wobbles about the royals of the 1960’s. The other Easts were a bit like that in the 1960s too - losing 3 in a row before a 9 goal burst in the last quarter of the 1965 GF laid it to rest.
tm: yep, the one against cl in 1964 was a game that really got away from the club, i think; most of the state was happy though because the tigers had won bugger all since the 1930s.
In the 130 odd year history of the WAFL has there been a more unlucky player than Derek Chadwick?.Apparently he played in the 7 consecutive losing Grand Finals[thank god i was too young to witness it!]and early in the 1972 season he was cleaned up by Brian Peake which apparently ended his career and forced him to miss the drought breaking 1972 premiership.
royallucky: it was a very unlucky man, chadwick; the other thing that went against ep, which i forget to mention, was that they also had to play against Attwell himself. I am pretty sure he kicked six goals in one of the grand finals.
Incredible to play in 6 GFs in a decade and lose them all - 3 in a row to the same opponent. East and West Perth rivalry is famous - how are things between Perth FC and East Perth ?
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Apart from 1969 they where all close fought games also.
Yes Ark the Royals have had a bit of history with our own stock defecting to other clubs which have cost us premierships with Atwell and Farmer as playing coaches.and in 1979 there was a school of thought that the winner of the the semi between the Royals and Old Easts would go on to win the flag and we went down by a couple of points and E.F. went on to win the flag.Royals legend Brad Smith was E.freos rookie coach and he plucked ex Royal Ian Thompson from the sunday league and he bagged 7 in the first semi where e.Freo reversed a 100 point drubbing we gave them on their home ground a couple of weeks before the '79 finals,and more recently Mark hutchings won a simpson medal for our arch rivals in 2013.
rl: according to ep legend, was there also a slightly dodgy goal given to ef? by that, i mean that a goal was recorded to old easts even though the ball travelled through for a point.
How about this West Australia population in the late 1960’s was around 900,000.Perth was around 640,000 a lot more people lived in the country areas then.
Grand Finals between 1966-69 has the lowest attendance of 46,750 in 1966.In 1969- 51,750 saw the Perth rivals playoff East V West.There amazing figures for the population at the time.The Wafl was really in good shape back then.
GTR I did a quick peruse of www.waflfootyfacts.net to see what each of the traditional WAFL clubs biggest (record) home crowds were and in which year (not including finals & the neutral h&a games played at Subiaco Oval) plus what year their 2nd biggest home crowd was in below-
Club Ground Crowd Year (Next Best Crowd & Year)
SD Bassendean Oval- 22,350 b[/b] - 19,237 b[/b]
CL Claremont Oval- 18,268 b[/b] - 18,106 b[/b]
EF East Fremantle Oval- 21,317 b[/b] - 20,287 b[/b]
SF Fremantle Oval- 22,399 b[/b] - 19,279 b[/b]
PE Lathlain Park- 19,541 b[/b] - 16,948 b[/b]
WP Leederville Oval- 24,567 b[/b] - 21,446 b[/b]
SU Subiaco Oval- 21,088 b[/b] - 16,709 b[/b]
EP Perth Oval- 26,760 b[/b] - 21,005 b[/b]
Interesting to note all Record Crowds & Most 2nd Biggest Crowds for each WAFL club at their home venue were in the period 1978-1986 bar Perth & EP (both in the 1960s).
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It still remains the most incredible era of WA footy mate and the attendance records seemed to get threatened with a new one every weekend - the re-emergence of several clubs definitely helped that along