Wednesday 26 June 2013

RESEARCH ARTICLE: "Working-class youth supporters of a decimated football league", by Kieran James (2014)

Working-class Youth Supporters of a Decimated Football League, by Kieran James (University of Fiji) 

ABSTRACT: This article is based on my personal memories of the West Perth Football Club unofficial cheer squad (hardcore support) which operated in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL) competition from 1984-86. The article details ‘traditional’, ‘hot’ support for West Perth Football Club among teenaged supporters from working-class and middle-class backgrounds. My findings largely conform to Armstrong and Hughson’s idea of fluid post-modern ‘neo-tribes’ where affiliations are very loose and people can easily adjust their degree of commitment to a group and/or leave the group when their personal priorities change. However, once people joined our group they did not generally adjust their degree of commitment downwards prior to the group’s break-up.

KEYWORDS: Australian Rules Football, Marxism, Soccer Hooliganism, Sports History, West Perth Football Club, Western Australian Football, Western Australian History

A revised version of this article was published in journal article form as follows: James, K., Working-class youth supporters of a decimated football league: The West Perth unofficial cheer squad, 1984-86, Sporting Traditions, Vol. 31, No. 2, (November) 2014, pp. 51-67.
The 198-page book-length version of this article Goodbye Leederville Oval: History of West Perth Cheer Squad 1984-86 was published in August 2017 and can be bought at the following links:

“Although Australian Rules is often referred to as ‘the people’s game’, on account of its broad popularity and appeal, most writings on the history of football pay insufficient attention to individual people, and the stories they tell often lack a human face” (Lionel Frost, Immortals, 2005, p. x).

Introduction
This article is based on my personal memories of the West Perth Football Club unofficial cheer squad (hardcore support) which operated in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL) competition from 1984-86.[1] West Perth (WPFC) is one of the current nine clubs in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL).[2] This was the primary football league in the state of Western Australia until 1987 when newly-created super-club the West Coast Eagles joined the new national league.[3] This new national league was known as the ‘expanded Victorian Football League’ (VFL) from 1987-89 and the ‘Australian Football League’ (AFL) from 1990.[4] The formation of the West Coast Eagles forever relegated the WAFL to a second-tier league[5] with the average WAFL match attendance declining from 8,000-10,000 per game in 1984-86 to 4,000 per game in 1987-94 and then further still to 2,000 per game in 1995 and following years. Nineteen ninety-five was the year in which Fremantle Dockers became Western Australia’s second AFL club. The former East Perth and Richmond (VFL/AFL) player and South Fremantle coach Mal Brown made the following comments about the sad decline of the WAFL in the post-West Coast Eagles era:
Sadly, from Perth’s [Football Club] point of view the West Coast Eagles were hovering overhead, and came into being the next season [1987] – and that was the end of an era. The West Australian domestic competition took a nosedive from which it can never recover lost status or spectator appeal.[6]

This article documents the fifteen-person unofficial grouping of teenagers aged from eight years to eighteen years which sat at the northern or Technical School end of the ground at West Perth’s home venue, Leederville Oval, from 1984-86. It is an important part of Western Australian social and sporting history; the cheer squad members were all part of the final generation to grow up in the pre-West Coast Eagles era in Western Australia when the WAFL was experiencing its glory days.[7]
Early academic writers in soccer hooligan studies used a Marxist approach (Ian Taylor) or a largely functionalist figurational approach based on hooligan firms as an ‘uncivilized rump’ in an otherwise civilized society (Eric Dunning and the Leicester University group of scholars).[8] The academic soccer hooligan literature has been strongly influenced recently by the ‘anthropological approach’ which has challenged the position occupied by the Leicester School. Leading works using the anthropological approach are Gary Armstrong’s ethnographic study of Sheffield United’s Blades hooligan firm and an Australian study by John Hughson on the Croatian-Australian Bad Blue Boys (BBB) which used to follow Sydney United in Australia’s defunct NSL (National Soccer League, 1977-2004).[9] The Croatian community’s ex-NSL clubs, Melbourne Knights and Sydney United, have ultra-style supporters operating, to a large extent, in the traditions and ethos of the Croatian and Italian ultras whilst also being influenced by English hooligans.[10] Southern and Eastern European ultras groups, historically, have been more organized, more carefully political, more likely to be accepted as a stakeholder group by the club, and more focused on the visual than the typical English hooligan firm.
Although our West Perth cheer squad never used physical violence, and only once was seriously threatened by it (at Bassendean Oval, the home of Swan Districts Football Club), Peter Marsh, a scholar of ‘aggro’ within and among youth sub-cultural groups, has emphasized the importance of an ‘illusion of violence’ even when actual violence is not present.[11]  Furthermore, the extant soccer hooligan literature has discussed the hooligan ‘firm’, a ‘class-for-itself’ to use the term sometimes imputed (incorrectly) to Karl Marx, in terms of a weekly ritual performance of heterosexual masculinity whereby a group of hardcore fans defends its physical turf and the honour of the city and its supporters.[12] This ‘weekly ritual performance of heterosexual masculinity’ need not always involve actual violent acts. Australian Rules’ cheer squads in the 1980s clearly were involved in this ‘macho posturing’ that Marsh and Hughson both term an ‘illusion of violence’. This meant physically controlling and protecting the area behind the goals at home games unofficially reserved for hardcore elements of the home team’s support and symbolically ‘invading’ the away team’s suburb and ground. However, of course, legally speaking, general admission area seats at a football ground are ‘public space’ and no-one has the right to prevent anyone from sitting there. A non-cheer squad member could have chosen to sit right in the midst of our cheer squad although non-verbal cultural cues and our early arrival at games reduced the probability of this happening.
As mentioned, ‘invading’ the away team’s suburb and its ground were symbolic actions. However, the cheer squads usually exhibited humility when going to an opposing team’s ground by sitting at the end closest to the train station (often the end not utilized by the home team’s cheer squad) and by having a friendly chat with the opposition cheer squad, if paths happened to cross, at the ground, the railway station or the city-centre streets. There were cordial and fraternal relationships between our cheer squad 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 1980s, there was a place called Classic Cafe in Melbourne city-centre where the cheer squad members from different clubs would congregate and mingle on Saturday nights after the regular Saturday afternoon home-and-away games.[13]
When West Perth played Swan Districts in 1985 (see the last section of the paper) our West Perth cheer squad displayed a more boisterous and aggressive attitude because: (a) there had been a heated rivalry between the two clubs dating back ten years; (b) West Perth was a strong team in 1985 and a genuine on-field threat to Swan Districts (which had won triple premierships in 1982-84); and (c) the long train trip together from the city-centre to Swan Districts’ ground had magnified group self-confidence by the reinforcement of the ‘gang mentality’ mixed with the ‘holiday or carnival atmosphere’. When we visited other clubs’ grounds these three factors were not all present together in the same way during our cheer squad’s era.    

Research Method
This article is not a conventional history of any or all eras of the WPFC. The official history of the club has been written by Brian Atkinson.[14] Instead, I use ‘aggro’ scholar Peter Marsh’s theory of the ‘illusion of violence’ to analyse the case facts; I also briefly discuss the West Perth cheer squad of 1984-86 in the light of certain theories which were first presented in the academic literature on British soccer hooligan supporter groups by key authors Armstrong, Giulianotti, and Hughson.
In regards data sources used this paper relies primarily upon personal memories. Other data sources include: history books; contemporaneous newspaper articles; and one recent personal interview with Mike B., the other joint-founder of the West Perth cheer squad (interview date: 14 July 2011).

Formation and the Key Characters in the Group
Figure 1: Fat Pam's cheer squad, 8/8/1981
I became aware, early in the 1984 WAFL regular season, that the earlier famed West Perth cheer squad, which had congregated behind the northern end goals at Leederville Oval for many years, had quit completely at the end of 1983. This cheer squad was interesting as, unlike the other WAFL cheer squads of the same era, it was dominated by middle-aged females and young children (rather than by male teenagers). As the football historian Rob Hess has written ‘[i]n a football world dominated by men, perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Australian code is the consistently large number of females who support the game’.[15] The legendary leader of this cheer squad was a woman known by the woefully politically incorrect moniker of ‘Fat Pam’. The leading women used to stand upright on the last row of wooden benches behind the northern end 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. Unfortunately I am not able to discuss Fat Pam’s cheer squad in any more detail here as I was only 14-years-old during the 1983 season and I knew none of Fat Pam’s group personally. As Hess has explained, ‘an understanding of crowd behaviour in any sport is usually difficult given the often transitory and scarce resources available’.[16] Figure 1 depicts Fat Pam’s cheer squad at the northern end of East Fremantle Oval for the East Fremantle versus West Perth match on 8 August 1981.[17]
However, with this cheer squad now 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. Therefore, 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. I felt that the West Perth 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 fan 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.[18]

The cheer squad was started by me (aged fifteen years) and my high-school friend Mike B. (aged sixteen years) in May 1984. I remember that our group already had two large red-and-blue homemade flags on day one (West Perth versus South Fremantle, Leederville Oval, 5 May 1984). Our group would add significantly to the two flags over the next two years ending up with around fifteen flags at one point or approximately one flag per core member. On this first day of the new cheer squad Mike B. and I both wore our long-sleeved West Perth replica playing jerseys. Although these were not the height of fashion even in the mid-1980s we were both very proud to show our club loyalties. Contemporaneous newspaper reports confirm that the match, which was day one for the cheer squad, was the thrilling draw against South Fremantle on 5 May 1984. Atkinson recounts that the slender Aboriginal half-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.[19] The final score was: West Perth 15.15 (105) drew South Fremantle 16.9 (105).[20] The official attendance was 7,790.[21] I remember a joyous mood that day commensurate with an exciting come-from-behind draw. It was the first drawn match in the WAFL since 20 April 1974. It is remarkable that the games which I classify now 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. Atkinson references our cheer squad as follows: ‘I certainly remember the support and enthusiasm coming from behind the goals, but because it was unofficial nothing was retained on the record’.[22]
Kieran James and Brian Atkinson, 8/7/2011
I am reasonably certain that two fourteen-year-olds, Courtney and his school-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’ (aged fourteen years) who may also have joined the group on that first day. In the group tiny sub-gangs[23] emerged following the same pattern, but with much smaller numbers, as Portsmouth’s 6.57 Crew or the Peruvian barras bravas of Lima.[24] The sub-gangs operated along the lines of friendships formed prior to joining the group and based on suburbs of residence.[25] The sub-gangs had between two and five people each, and each sub-gang had a particular relationship with the joint-founders, Mike B. and me, and with the group as a whole.
Laurie James @ Leederville Oval, 6/7/2011
Courtney, Rohan, and Thommo (the ‘Carine group’) was a sub-gang, as was the ‘Balga group’ of ‘P.A.’ and Dave S. (name changed). Thommo and Robbie, who joined the cheer squad only in 1985, might best be 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 a key link between the sub-gangs. People from the same districts were viewed as sub-gangs since they would habitually take the same buses or trains to and from the games together. It was soon possible to see a shaky organizational chart emerge of the core since the two blonds, Courtney and Mike B., always had a strong relationship, while I related reasonably well with the red-head Thommo. The cheer squad also included the three C. brothers (aged fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen at the group’s inception) who had spent considerable time in reform homes and were commonly perceived as having no fixed abode.
Figure 2 - Tin shed & Technical School, 6/7/2011
I now move on to mention the cheer squad’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 group members. Half was a sandy-haired eight-year-old whose parents were financial members of the club who sat in the grandstand on the western wing of Leederville Oval and who 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 didn’t leave the enclosed confines of the ground. This was an era before major community concerns about predatory paedophile offenders had risen to present-day proportions and generally primary-aged children were allowed to travel on their own to a much greater extent than is the case today. Half’s parents were never seen by the cheer squad members but we viewed them as unseen ghostly support from the more respectable section of the West Perth supporter base. Certainly, the parents gave the group a certain amount of trust and the group members did feel some obligation and responsibility regarding Half’s welfare. I certainly felt some responsibility.
Figure 3 - Mike B. (left) & Kieran J.
Mike B. reminded me recently of an incident involving Half which had not made the first draft of this article.[26] At one particular game at Leederville Oval, one of the teams was on a scoring spree and the football repeatedly sailed 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 B. recounts the story[27], 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. 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 that day. Figure 2 shows the tin shed in Leederville Oval’s north-west corner with the fence and the Technical School visible to the shed’s right in the picture. [28] Figure 3 shows Mike B. (left) and me at the Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie, 14 July 2011.

Other West Perth Supporter Groups – The ‘Grandstand Falcons’
Leederville Oval grandstand, 6/7/2011
There was a third unofficial WPFC supporter group called ‘Grandstand Falcons’ which sat at the top of the grandstand and sang and chanted. They were slightly older than us but they had around the same number of members. This group’s signature song was ‘This Time’, a reference to West Perth’s then ten-year premiership drought which stretched back as far as 1975 (and was only broken in 1995). We only joined them on two or three occasions and only at ‘away’ venues. The two groups kept distinct identities. Their group had no flags, banners or floggers. When Mike B. was upset at the silliness and immaturity of our cheer squad members he would threaten to join the ‘Grandstand Falcons’ but this never happened! Having three different cheer squads in existence at West Perth from 1984-86 shows the intensity of grassroots devotion to the club and to the league in this era just prior to the transition of Perth to an AFL-city.

The 1984 State of Origin Match (Western Australia versus Victoria)
Leederville Oval, 6/7/2011
There was a combined Perth-Claremont cheer squad which unofficially represented Western Australia (WA) in the state match against Victoria at Subiaco Oval on Tuesday afternoon 17 July 1984.[29] The Perth-Claremont cheer squad invited our cheer squad to join them but I declined on behalf of our group[30] so that people in our group could attend separately with their own various gangs of school friends. 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 logical and logistic sense to attend this match with school friends 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 obligation to attend with school friends overrode the ethical obligation to attend with the cheer squad since the match took place during school hours. The school-friends group which attended that day included the following people: Mike B., Paul B., Chad S., Pete L., Roy G., Paul D., ‘Gilby’, Wayne D., and Nick S. (not the Perth FC cheer squad leader).[31] However, Mike B. and I brought the West Perth cheer squad’s famous ‘Cop That’ banner to the game. Our group stood on the concrete terraces (since demolished) at the Roberts Road side of the ground in front of the tin shed which was then located at the half-forward flank position at the city end.
WA defeated Victoria 21.16 (142) to 12.12 (84) and, according to the author’s personal 1984 season notes, the highlight was Gary Ablett Senior kicking eight goals for the losing Victorian team.[32] The ‘Cop That’ banner was captured that day on camera for an Emu Export beer commercial which ran for many years, and long after the West Perth cheer squad had dissolved. The fact that the banner was red-and-blue but WA’s playing strip was yellow-and-black did not deter the Emu Export marketing people from choosing to use the banner in their long-running TV commercial. For me the sighting of that banner on the beer commercial was one of the last tangible reminders of the then defunct West Perth cheer squad of 1984-86. Similarly, I remember reading about the graffiti tag ‘The Clash’, located on the Harrow Road in West London at the place where it passes under the Westway, which remained there, fading slowly, long after that punk rock group’s vigorous life was over.

The Break-Up of the Cheer Squad in 1986
Eastern-side of Leederville Oval, 6/7/2011
In the long run, our cheer squad members’ diverse social backgrounds probably led to the group falling apart in the first few weeks of the 1986 regular season once some of the key group members had left high-school and the social divisions became apparent. The world of government high-schools and junior football clubs produced the appearance of sameness and an egalitarian atmosphere which was genuine but also, to some extent, did hide real social and economic divisions.[33] Each of the group members attended government high-schools or (in three cases - Half, ‘Thommo Junior’, and Mario) primary schools in 1984-85. Government schools are without a doubt levelling environments. When I went to university full-time in 1986 it seemed to break the spell of sameness or maybe it just made me ‘feel different’. My priorities and interests changed. The cheer squad just seemed less important to me and I stopped attending WAFL games a few rounds into the 1986 season. The group broke up when key core members just stopped putting in the individual and collective mental effort and energy to keep it alive as a distinct group-for-itself. I made no attempt to retrieve the cheer squad’s fifteen flags after Round 1 of the 1986 season which was the only match that year where the full cheer squad existed in essentially its 1985 form. Mike B. had also finished high-school by 1986 and he may not have returned to the cheer squad at all for the 1986 season. We no longer saw each other every day at high-school in 1986 and this surely was an additional factor as to why the group broke up.  
I do regret giving up on the cheer squad so easily after Round 1 of the 1986 WAFL season but any attempt to prolong the group’s life artificially after interest had dropped off would have been disastrous and pointless. Furthermore, we must also remember that the times were changing by 1986. The WAFL Commission was fast putting together a deal to join the expanded VFL national competition above the heads of the ordinary football supporters (meaning that they were not consulted about issues such as the new club’s name, colours or jersey design) and even above the heads of two dissenting WAFL club presidents Bill Walker (Swan Districts) and Wayne Ryder (South Fremantle).[34] All of these negotiations and distractions adversely affected the mood at the grassroots level and WAFL match crowds did fall significantly in 1986 (total regular season crowds 623,000 or 7,417 per game). However, this drop-off was nowhere near as great as the 50% further drop-off in 1987 (total regular season crowds 308,000 or 3,667 per game), the first year post- West Coast Eagles.[35] As a point of comparison, WAFL regular season crowds had been as high as 810,113 in 1970 (or 9,644 per game).[36]

Analysis of the Case Data
Application of Giulianotti’s Theory of the Four Types of Soccer Spectators
Perth vs. SDFC, Lathlain Park, 2 July 2011
As with the Sheffield United Blades members studied by Armstrong, our 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.[37] 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).[38] 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’. People in the cheer squad knew the names and strengths and weaknesses of all the West Perth players and quite analytical discussions of team tactics and opposition teams would be interspersed with immature teasing and joking and the singing of the songs.[39] Similarly, the chapter of his ‘true crime’ memoirs that leading West Ham United Inter City Firm (ICF) identity Bill Gardner devoted to his favourite West Ham players over the era of the ICF demonstrates that not all soccer hooligans were stupid people nor did they all lack a genuine interest in the actual game.[40]
West Perth cheer squad group members who only occasionally attended games, such as Robert C., might be classified as followers with ‘traditional’ yet ‘cool’ forms of club identification. However, there were no or very few ‘consumerist’ WAFL fans as the league and its clubs lacked market penetration and sold few licensed merchandise items even when compared with the VFL/AFL of the same era. In the 1980s the WAFL and its clubs sold only beanies, scarfs, playing jerseys, tee-shirts, windcheaters, and a very limited range of metal badges (‘I love West Perth’, ‘I hate South Fremantle’ etc. and player picture badges) which were modelled on VFL/AFL merchandise. Occasionally there were one-off issues of bar mirrors or mugs, etc., either by individual clubs or by the league itself. The games were very popular and attendances were high but merchandising was at a very simple and basic level. There were no such things as ‘away’ or alternative jerseys so these were fashion accessories not then available to otherwise fashion-conscious supporters (such as Courtney, Rohan, and Mike B.). Furthermore, the clubs’ actual playing jersey designs in most cases had not changed for decades so nobody needed to buy new designs.
Wearing the Club Colours
Although our cheer squad, sadly, did not grow much over its two-year life, the fifteen core members (see Appendix A for list of core 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 to sit and were wary of the home team supporters. 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. This is why the club colours were so important and why, with the exceptions of Mike B. (replica playing jersey excluded), Courtney, and Rohan, the group did not follow the designer dressing style of the 1980s English soccer ‘casuals’. This finding also confirms with Hughson’s observations about the Bad Blue Boys members at Sydney United who also tended to wear club colours.[41]

Post-modern Neo-tribes
Generally speaking the West Perth cheer squad conforms to the idea of fluid ‘post-modern’ ‘neo-tribes’ where affiliations are loose and people can easily adjust their degrees of commitment to a group and/or leave the group when their personal priorities change.[42] 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.[43] Armstrong writes that by the 1980s the ‘vast majority of [Sheffield United] Blades were aged between seventeen and twenty-eight’.[44] As with the UK soccer hooligans, people recognized that joining our 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). This was also the pre-mobile phone and pre-internet era when all phone calls had to be to the parental home land-line and hence the caller had to pass the ‘gatekeepers’ of respectability (an appropriate term to apply to those households where that concept was venerated). This was a mental barrier to phone contact which no longer exists today.
However, although it is true that we did not want to disturb others’ lives outside of match-days, match-day commitment was reasonably high during the period May 1984 to March 1986 as the fifteen core members attended all or nearly all the home-and-away games. This supports the proposition that the vast majority of the people listed in Appendix A (all but numbers 10 and 12 on the list) were traditional hot supporters. We had a policy of letting core members take home one flag each as long as he brought it back to the next match which encouraged commitment and a sense of belonging to the group.[45] By contrast, we kept the messy paper-mache floggers in a store-room at Leederville Oval and used them only at home games. The floggers were found by one of our members in a Leederville Oval store-room and we presumed that they had been used by Fat Pam’s group.

Social Class
In terms of the social class of the West Perth cheer squad, how does it compare to Eric Dunning’s ‘rougher sections of the working-class’[46], Gary Armstrong et al.’s ‘working-class in general’[47] and/or John Hughson’s ‘upper-level or respectable part of the working-class in comfortable homes’[48]? 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 sub-gang of two (Courtney and Rohan) and a Booragoon sub-gang of two (Mike B. and me) which can both be categorized as ‘middle-class’ or ‘professional middle-class’. My father was a barrister and solicitor while Mike’s father was a bank manager. The group had a Balga sub-gang of two (P.A. and Dave S. although Dave S. was actually from nearby Tuart Hill[49]) and there were two ‘floaters’ connected to that suburb (Thommo and Robbie). The Balga suburb has traditionally been perceived as semi-criminal government housing. However, clearly Balga’s residents in 1984-86 would have included, using the Marxist terms[50], fully-employed working-class people and unemployed or underemployed ‘lumpenproletariat’.[51]

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 has 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 competition over the heads of the ordinary club supporters and even over two dissenting club presidents. Other empowerment initiatives of the era included Channel 7 hosting Sunday ‘World of Football’ panel shows at WAFL clubs’ social rooms on a rotating basis. On these days non-members and opposing fans were made welcome free-of-charge for the duration of the panel show. Twice our group attended such shows – once at Leederville Oval and once at Bassendean Oval.
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. The cheer squad members 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. Most other people preferred to watch the live Channel 7 telecast from the comfort of their warm living rooms out in the suburbs. 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 flags whenever a West Perth player received a vote just like on any match day. Fitting in with the carnival mood of the evening, there were three tied winners of the award, Michael Mitchell and Steve Malaxos of Claremont and Peter Spencer of East Perth.[52]
Can bar, P v SD, Lathlain Park, 2/7/2011
The football historian A.J. (Tony) Barker 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’.[53] 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 highly talented and respected chief football writer, the late Geoff Christian (born 13 October 1934 – died 7 November 1998), who was assigned to write the piece. Instead it was a journalist named Linda Byrne, who was not well-known at all in footballing circles and may well have been 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. Some evidence in support of this proposition is that the articles reporting the 1985 and 1986 Sandover Medal count results both appeared in Tuesday editions of the newspaper.[54]
The sensationalist article by Byrne opened 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’.[55] 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. 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’.[56] 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 had stopped attending WAFL games (having shifted over to support West Coast Eagles).
The moralistic public uproar, a clear case of ‘moral panic’, 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.[57] The counts have become fashion shows and places to be seen. Carlton VFL/AFL player Brendan Fevola’s behaviour at the 2009 Brownlow Medal Count included vomiting, swearing, spilling beer, simulated sex acts, and molestation of women.[58] No teenage cheer squad member behaved in such ways at the Perth Entertainment Centre in August 1984 although some of them might have accidentally spilled their soft drinks!
Swan Districts versus West Perth, Bassendean Oval, 1985
Bassendean Oval, 12/7/2011
A trip to Bassendean Oval to play Swan Districts requires a long train journey from the Perth city-centre on the ancient Midland train line (opened 1 March 1881). Swan Districts is the most remote from the city-centre of the eight traditional WAFL clubs. By WAFL standards it is a fairly compact ground with the outer grassy banks being less deep and less high than those at East Fremantle Oval, Leederville Oval (prior to its recent renovations) or Lathlain Park. Like a soccer ground, all spectators are relatively close to the play. Even the famous old stands hug the playing arena closely and cast much of it in shadow in the late afternoons. Since the formation of West Coast Eagles in 1987, ‘Swans’ has had a reputation, fiercely and jealously guarded, of being the epitome of a traditional WAFL club.[59] Bill Walker of Swan Districts was one of only two WAFL club presidents to vote against the entry of West Coast Eagles into the expanded VFL (now AFL). Even the once vibrant Midland and Guildford districts, at the centre of Swan Districts’ geographic heartland, retain a large proportion of historic buildings and they seem to have remained somewhat shielded from the economic, social, and demographic change that the rest of Perth has experienced.
Figure 4: R.A. McDonald Stand, 12/7/2011
Although there was and is a members’ stand, the R.A. McDonald Stand, in the ground’s south-western corner, has always contained vocal and hardcore Swan Districts’ supporters of all ages.[60] The stand still contains such supporters today, although nowadays there are empty seats during the main game. In the WAFL’s golden era patrons had to arrive long before the start of the main game to be assured a seat in the McDonald Stand (usually pronounced in rapid-fire manner as if there was an extra ‘s’ as in ‘McDonald’s Stand’). My late maternal grandfather Herbert Arthur Acott (born 17 March 1906 – died 4 July 1999) and his best friend Ernie Henderson always sat there, towards the top, in the 1970s and into the first half of the 1980s.[61]
The McDonald Stand is only 20 or 30 metres from the southern end goals. The northern end goals are furthest from the train station so, logically, they are not the place for the visiting cheer squad. The logic of the era was that the visiting cheer squad would stay near the entrance that was closest to the train station so that meant the southern end at Claremont Oval and the eastern end at Perth Oval.
Figure 5: McD. Stand from southern-end goals
I can recall our cheer squad this day entering what were then the most popular gates of the oval, in the south-west corner closest to Success Hill train station, with the giant flags. We took the path of least resistance and set ourselves up behind the southern end goals, 20 to 30 metres from the McDonald Stand at a 45-degree angle. The group’s red-and-blue flags and banners were right there in front of the line of sight of the McDonald Stand’s inhabitants (see Figure 6). Swans’ colours are black-and-white and so the cheer squad’s red-and-blue flags stood out that day like the first year of colour television. The heritage-registered ground remains largely unchanged today. The McDonald Stand is pictured in Figure 4. Figure 5 shows the McDonald Stand as viewed from the southern end goals while Figure 6 shows the opposite view (the southern end goals as viewed from the McDonald Stand).[62]
Figure 6: Southern-end goals from McD. Stand
Our cheer squad chanted its usual chants that day but with perhaps unusual venom. There had been animosity between West Perth supporters and Swan Districts’ coach John Todd since Todd left West Perth’s Brian Adamson out of a Western Australian combined state team in 1975.[63] This animosity had then followed Todd across from East Fremantle to Swan Districts.[64] Dawson writes as follows about the relationship between Swans and West Perth during the 1980s: ‘The feud was always publicly denied, but continued into the 1980s and all Swans-West Perth games were well-attended with many fiery incidents, off and on the field’.[65] Swans’ record home ground attendance remains today the 22,350 people who watched Swans play West Perth on 10 May 1980 (Round 6).[66]
Bassendean Oval
One of our cheer squad’s chants in games against Swans was ‘Ronnie Boucher walks on water / everybody knows that bullshit floats’.[67] Swan Districts had no recognized or organized cheer squad then but generally cheer squads accept each other’s chants as just part of the job description and not to be taken seriously. Much more dangerous than the opposing cheer squads are the disorganized fans. The cheer squad also had its famous song, sung to the tune of the classic children’s song ‘Old McDonald had a Farm’: ‘Old McDonald had a stand / eyie eyie oh / and in that stand was full of pigs / eyie eyie oh’. Of course our group members all thought this song was very funny and we sang it repeatedly and at maximum volume. The distant origins of the real Mr R.A. McDonald (see previous footnote #60) meant that by 1985 our group clearly intended to insult a revered ancient folklore deity instead of an actual known person. The song was in effect an attack against local gods.
Around three-quarter time during the main game (Australian Rules’ matches have four equal length quarters), the cheer squad members saw that a group of around eight Aboriginal youths, around the cheer squad members’ ages or slightly older, had very quietly surrounded us and taken up strategic seating positions just outside our group on all three sides. This Aboriginal group began to make intimidating comments including that they would beat up our group members after the game. The Aboriginal group members were shirtless and wore no club colours but they were clearly Swans’ supporters. I could tell that our group members were apprehensive. Aboriginal youth culture and the culture of the suburbs around Bassendean Oval were not well known to any of our group members. None of us had any reputation in the area that he could call upon.
Ron Boucher (SDFC) in recent years
All of our cheer squad members began to watch the game much more diligently; we adopted a much lower profile. We became just normal fans rather than a cheer squad as such. Even the noisiest members became very quiet which was remarkable. People paid detailed attention to the match, looked straight ahead, and quietly conversed in their twos and threes. This was partly a strategic act and partly a sub-conscious switch to the self-preservation mode. The chanting mostly stopped although I am sure that we still waved the flags after West Perth goals. It was almost as if we mentally decided to instantaneously disassemble the cheer squad. However, we were still ‘ready for service’ in that nobody left the physical position he was in prior to the chilly confrontation beginning. It was a mental battle of hearts and wills. We refused to physically disassemble but we toned our activities down. Of course disassembling would have had its own risks as we could have been picked off one by one.
When the game ended, or possibly five or ten minutes prior to that, we looked around us and saw that the Aboriginal group had disappeared. I do not think that anyone even saw or heard them leave. Perhaps our group had passed some kind of existential test. Possibly the Swan Districts’ group had decided that we were ‘good guys at heart’ or possibly they had just lost interest in confrontation or had somewhere to go straight after the match. Swans’ on-field victory that day might possibly have been seen by the Aboriginal group as being vindication enough for them as Mike B. today claims[68]. The match was either Swans’ defeat of West Perth 19.14 (128) to 15.12 (102) on 8 April 1985 (attendance 10,500) or its defeat of West Perth 22.12 (144) to 21.16 (142) on 20 July 1985 (attendance 9,462).[69] One interesting fact is that West Perth defeated Swans five times out of nine during Swans’ triple premiership years of 1982-84.[70] By contrast, in 1985, when Swans was not among the top two teams but West Perth made the finals series, Swans defeated West Perth three times out of three in the regular season and one more time in the first semi-final (when third plays fourth).[71] Such are the vagaries of football.
It must be pointed out that our cheer squad members never viewed this encounter as any sort of ‘racial war’ – the cheer squad was multicultural and had a multicultural ethos. For example, Dave S. from Tuart Hill was an ethnic Chinese and the brothers Tony and Mario were of Italian ethnicity. In fact West Perth supporters have for many years been referred to by the racist tag of ‘Garlic Munchers’ (especially by East Perth fans). This tag emerged because of the large Italian support base which was attracted to the club in the post-World War II period.
North Adelaide Cheer Squad (SANFL)
On reflection, our group had probably become a little elitist and self-assured. For me I had attended games in the VFL/AFL at Princes Park and Windy Hill and in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) where I had stood in the pouring rain amidst the Port Adelaide Magpies’ cheer squad at Alberton Oval (the hardcore of the hardcore). By importing cheer squad culture into Western Australia, along with leaders of the Perth and Claremont cheer squads, I had thought I was sophisticated, well-travelled, and well-informed (and perhaps even ‘Victorian’). When at a Carlton versus Essendon match at Windy Hill in 1984 I had lied about my name to two Carlton supporters and had tried to convey a (false) impression that I lived permanently in Melbourne. Back in my home state I wore a duffel coat with West Perth player name and number (Rod Alderton) on the back to signal my credibility as few football supporters in Perth who had not travelled to Victoria were aware that such match-day attire existed. Our cheer squad went to Bassendean Oval thinking that because there was no organized Swan Districts’ cheer squad we could pretty much do as we liked. I probably did not ‘rate’ the Aboriginal group when I first saw it as it was not a Victorian-style cheer squad and their guys were shirtless and did not wear club colours. Why was this day memorable aside from just the physical threat? Perhaps because different concepts of fandom, match-day behaviours, and dress codes were operating and these concepts clashed. I almost certainly had an elitist attitude. I respected and tried to keep cordial relationships with the Perth and Claremont cheer squads but I did not perceive any necessity to have a similar fraternal and respectful attitude with respect to any or all Swan Districts’ fans. I may well have perceived the Swans’ Aboriginal group as ‘backward’ or ‘unsophisticated’.

Conclusion
This article has discussed the West Perth unofficial cheer squad (hardcore support) which operated in the WAFL competition from 1984-86. I have analysed the case data and conclude that our group’s experiences are broadly consistent with the concept of fluid ‘post-modern’ ‘neo-tribes’ introduced to the literature of hardcore soccer support by Armstrong and Hughson. The concept suggests that hardcore supporter group affiliations are very loose and group members can and do adjust their degrees of personal commitment to groups and/or leave groups when they feel that group membership no longer best serves their immediate interests, goals, and preferences. However, contrary to prior findings, once people joined our group they did not generally adjust their degree of commitment downwards prior to the group’s break-up. The article has explained this in part by referring to the fact that core members were given one flag each to take home on the proviso that they brought it to the following week’s game. This arguably increased members’ sense of belonging to the group and commitment to the group. Two additional reasons are now introduced. Secondly, our cheer squad lasted only two years whereas Armstrong’s study of Sheffield United Blades covered a longer period and over a longer period we expect to observe more changes in both group membership and the commitment levels of existing members. Thirdly, we were not a ‘fighting firm’ like the Blades and much of the changes in commitment levels Armstrong observed for Blades’ members related to their relative willingness to engage in physical confrontation. With Blades’ members the commitment level changes related more to willingness to be involved in violence as opposed to actual interest in Sheffield United football matches. In this respect English soccer hooligan firms of the 1980s were different from the Australian Rules Football cheer squads of the same era.
The scenario of a ‘decimated football league’, where crowds drop four-fold over a ten-year period, could happen to minor soccer leagues in Europe in the future. For example, it could happen in Scotland if Rangers and Celtic were to join the English Premier League (EPL).[72] It could happen in Europe if the best clubs abandon their own national leagues to join a new European Super League competition involving clubs from multiple countries (whether this be an officially sanctioned competition or otherwise).[73] This article has documented the Western Australian experience of a ‘decimated football league’. If a third club from Perth is ever admitted into the VFL/AFL then the WAFL will most assuredly ‘die further’ and ‘die yet again’.
I accept that the perspective adopted here has been tinged with nostalgia in the four senses that the term ‘nostalgia’ is used by Georg Stauth and Bryan Turner.[74] There is an online community of WAFL supporters, mostly aged in their forties and above, who insert their nostalgic perspectives of the WAFL’s golden era on to various contemporary discussion forums including the ‘Lost WAFL’ Facebook group page and Jack Frost’s ‘WAFL Golden Era’ website at http://waflgoldenera.blogspot.com.[75] However, WAFL fans in Perth born after (say) 1980 have no personal memory of the league’s golden era. For them there is no personal sense of something precious having disintegrated in front of their very eyes. Increasingly, as the years pass, these will be the supporters that will form the core constituency of the league and its clubs. Future research must also consider how this younger generation experiences and enjoys WAFL fandom and what things they value the most about the WAFL and how they think it should change (if at all).


APPENDIX A
Sub-gangs, West Perth cheer squad, 1984-86 (ages as at 1984)
The Booragoon sub-gang 
1 *Kieran J.; 15 years; Applecross Senior High School student (1984-85) then university student (1986)
2 *Mike B.; 16 years; Applecross Senior High School (1984-85) then occupation unknown (1986); school friend of Kieran
The Carine sub-gang
3 Courtney; 14 years; high-school student (probably at Carine SHS); junior football friend of Thommo
4 Rohan H.; 14 years; high-school student, school friend of Courtney
Floaters / non-aligned
5 *‘Thommo’; 14 years; high-school student (1984-85); apprentice plasterer (1986); junior football friend of Courtney
6 *Robbie; 14 years; joined cheer squad 1985 aged 15 years; lived in Balga; took buses home with Balga sub-gang; knew Thommo before joining cheer squad; could be classified with Balga sub-gang
The Balga sub-gang
7 *‘P.A.’; 18 years; lived in Balga; employment situation unknown
8 *Dave S.; 16 years; lived in nearby Tuart Hill but took buses to games with P.A. and Robbie; school / employment situation unknown
The C. brothers sub-gang
9 *Mike C.; 16 years; in and out of reform homes
10 *Robert C.; 15 years; only went to games occasionally; had criminal record
11 *Pete C.; 14 years; in and out of reform homes
12 *Female niece of the C. brothers; 4 years; brought to games occasionally
The Churchlands sub-gang
13 Ben McA.; 12-13 years; high-school student (probably at Churchlands SHS)
14 Tony; 12-13 years; school friend of Ben
15 Mario; 8-9 years; younger brother of Tony
The younger members sub-gang
16 Michael aka ‘Half’; 8 years; parents were financial members of West Perth; no family relationship to other cheer squad members; lived in Bayswater or Maylands
17 *‘Thommo Junior’; 8 years; younger brother of Thommo
(* denotes took public transport to and from games)

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the following for advice, information, and assistance: Mr. Brian Atkinson, official historian of the West Perth Football Club and the author of It’s a Grand Old Flag; Mike B., joint-founder of the WPFC cheer squad 1984-86; Mr. Chris Egan, Perth Glory historian and WAFL supporter; Dr. Sean Gorman, Curtin University academic, Claremont supporter, and the author of BrotherBoys; and Mr. Patrick Mirosevich, present-day South Fremantle (WAFL) cheer squad member. This paper is dedicated to Mike B.’s late mother.

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily the same as those of Brian Atkinson; the West Perth Football Club (WPFC); the West Perth Football Club cheer squad 1984-86 or any of its members; the Swan Districts Football Club (SDFC); the Australian Football League (AFL); the Western Australian Football Commission (WAFC); or the Western Australian Football League (WAFL).





[1] A cheer squad is a semi-organized group of hardcore supporters (typically teenagers) which sits in the same strategic place at home games and which supports the team through chants, songs, flags, and banners. Cheryl Critchley documents that the first Australian Rules’ cheer squad was formed at VFL/AFL club Richmond in 1959. Cheryl Critchley, Our Footy: Real Fans vs Big Bucks, Wilkinson Publishing; Melbourne, 2010, p. 17.
[2] Since the entry of Swan Districts into the WAFL in 1934 the only new club to enter the league has been Peel Thunder in 1997, which increased the total number of WAFL clubs from eight to nine.
[3] Lionel Frost, Immortals: Football People and the Evolution of Australian Rules, John Wiley & Sons; Melbourne, 2005, p. 277.
[4] The AFL operates as an American-style ‘cartelized’ system, meaning that there is no promotion and relegation between the AFL and either the WAFL or other second-tier leagues. Richard Giulianotti and Roland Robertson, Globalization & Football, SAGE Publications; London, 2009, p. 114.
[5] Frost, Immortals, p. 234.
[6] Mal Brown and Brian Hansen, Mal Brown & Mongrels I’ve Met, Brian Edward Hansen; Mt Waverley, 1994, pp. 179, 188.
[7] Regarding Perth Glory soccer supporters, as opposed to Australian Rules’ supporters in Perth, see Tara Brabazon, ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory? Perth Glory and the Imagining of Englishness’, Sporting Traditions, vol. 14, no. 2 (1998), pp. 53-66.
[8] John Hughson, ‘Australian Soccer’s “Ethnic Tribes”: a New Case for the Carnivalesque’, in Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, Ivan Waddington and Antonios Astrinakis (eds), Fighting Fans: Football Hooliganism as a World Phenomenon, University College Press; Dublin, 2002, p. 41, emphasis original.
[9] Gary Armstrong, Football Hooligans: Knowing the Score, Berg; Oxford, 1998; John Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism: Diversity and Difference in Multicultural Australia’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 33, no. 2 (1997a), pp. 167-186; John Hughson, ‘The Bad Blue Boys and the “Magical Recovery” of John Clarke’, in Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti (eds), Entering the Field: New Perspectives on World Football, Berg; London and New York, 1997b, Chapter 12, pp. 239-259; John Hughson, ‘A Tale of Two Tribes: Expressive Fandom in Australian Soccer’s A-League’, Sport in Society, vol. 2, no. 3 (1999), pp. 10-30; John Hughson, ‘The Boys are Back in Town: Soccer Support and the Social Reproduction of Masculinity’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, vol. 24, no. 1 (2000), pp. 8-23; Hughson, ‘Australian Soccer’s “Ethnic Tribes”, pp. 37-48.
[10] Author’s group interview with Pave Jusup, Kova, and Sime of MCF hooligan firm at Melbourne Knights, Sunshine North, 11 January 2011; Patrick Mignon, ‘Another Side to French Exceptionalism: Football without Hooligans?’ in Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, Ivan Waddington and Antonios Astrinakis (eds), Fighting Fans: Football Hooliganism as a World Phenomenon, University College Press; Dublin, 2002, pp. 62-74; Antonio Roversi and C. Balestri, ‘Italian Ultras Today: Change or Decline?’ in Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, Ivan Waddington and Antonios Astrinakis (eds), Fighting Fans: Football Hooliganism as a World Phenomenon, University College Press; Dublin, 2002, pp. 131-142.
[11] Peter Marsh, Aggro: the Illusion of Violence, J M Dent & Sons; London, 1978; Hughson, ‘Australian Soccer’s “Ethnic Tribes”, p. 40.
[12] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 148; Cass Pennant, Cass, paperback edition, John Blake Publishing; London, 2008, p. 15.
[13] Adam Muyt, Maroon and Blue: Recollections and Tales of the Fitzroy Football Club, The Vulgar Press; Carlton North, 2006, p. 139.
[14] Brian Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag: a History and Comprehensive Statistical Analysis of the West Perth Football Club, West Perth Football Club; Joondalup, 2008.
[15] Rob Hess, ‘“Ladies are specially invited”: Women in the Culture of Australian Rules Football’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 17, nos. 2-3 (2000), pp. 113-114.
[16] Ibid., p. 116.
[17] Fat Pam’s cheer squad can also 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). The link is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmZMzTr7CA&feature=related [accessed 7 August 2011].
[18] Personal e-mail communication with the author, dated 23 August 2010.
[19] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 201. Ron (Ronald Brian) Davis (DOB 11/8/1963) played 13 games for West Perth in 1984-85 and kicked 22 goals. Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, p. 354.
[20] Ibid., p. 334; The West Australian, Monday, 7 May, 1984, p. 81.
[21] The attendance is taken from the WAFL’s official website at the following link (then select the year 1984 by the pull-down menu): http://www.wafl.com.au/games [accessed 21 July 2011].
[22] Personal e-mail communication with the author, dated 9 December 2010.
[23] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, pp. 323-332.
[24] Aldo Panfichi and Jorge Thieroldt, ‘Barras Bravas: Representation and Crowd Violence in Peruvian Football’, in Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, Ivan Waddington and Antonios Astrinakis (eds), Fighting Fans: Football Hooliganism as a World Phenomenon, University College Press; Dublin, 2002, pp. 143-157.
[25] See Appendix A for a list of sub-gangs with the group members belonging to each.
[26] Personal interview with the author, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, 14 July 2011.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Figure 2 was taken by the author on 6 July 2011.
[29] Source: My personal notes compiled during the 1984 season.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] For an insight into the world of junior football clubs readers are referred to the retelling by Carlton AFL player Brendan Fevola, Fev: in my Own Words, with Adam McNicol, hardcover edition, Hardie Grant Books; Richmond, 2012, pp. 17-33 of his junior days at suburban Narre Warren.
[34] For more details, as told by Bill Walker, see Alan East, 75 Years of...Black & White, the Swan Districts Football Club, Swan Districts Football Club; Perth, 2009, p. 153.
[35] Crowd figures cited in Tony (A.J.) Barker, Behind the Play...a History of Football in Western Australia from 1868, West Australian Football Commission; Perth, 2004, p. 241.
[36] See the Full Points Footy website at: http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/subiaco_(2).htm#Top [accessed 7 January 2011].
[37] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 266.
[38] Richard Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs: a Taxonomy of Spectator Identities in World Football’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, vol. 26, no. 1 (2002), pp. 25-46, cited in Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization & Football, pp. 142-143.
[39] We often debated the merits of 1984 coach Dennis Cometti’s (the present-day AFL commentator) strategy of playing key players out of position at the start of games (including centre-half-forward Phil Bradmore and ruckman Craig Nelson).
[40] Bill Gardner, Good Afternoon Gentlemen, the Name’s Bill Gardner, with Cass Pennant, Paperback edition, John Blake Publishing; London, 2006.
[41] Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’, pp. 167-186; Hughson, ‘The Bad Blue Boys’, pp. 239-259; 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.
[42] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 306; Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’, pp. 167-186; Hughson, ‘The Bad Blue Boys’, pp. 239-259; 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.
[43] Cass Pennant, Congratulations, you have just met the I.C.F. (West Ham United), John Blake Publishing; London, 2003; Cass Pennant and Rob Silvester, Rolling with the 6.57 Crew: the True Story of Pompey’s Legendary Football Fans, Paperback edition, John Blake Publishing; London, 2004.
[44] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 267.
[45] My mother and I made all the flags and banners so I had legal ownership over them rather than the club.
[46] Eric Dunning cited in Astrinakis, ‘Subcultures of Hard-core Fans’, p. 91.
[47] Gary Armstrong and Rosemary Harris, ‘Football Hooliganism: Theory and Evidence’, Sociological Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (1991), pp. 427-458; Dick Hobbs and David Robins, ‘The Boy Done Good: Football Violence, Changes and Continuities’, Sociological Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (1991), pp. 551-559.
[48] Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’, pp. 167-186; Hughson, ‘The Bad Blue Boys’, pp. 239-259; 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.
[49] Personal online communication to the author, dated 14 June 2013.
[50] See Frederick Engels, ‘Preface to the Peasant War in Germany’, in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works, International Publishers; New York, 1968, p. 243; Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteen Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works, International Publishers, New York, 1968, pp. 138, 145, 168, 176, 178 and 243; Karl Marx, Capital: a Critique of Political Economy Volume 1, Ben Fowkes, translator, Penguin Classics; London, 1976, p. 767 [originally published 1867]; Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in Karl Marx & Frederick Engels Selected Works, International Publishers; New York, 1968, p. 44.
[51] Armstrong, Knowing the Score, p. 149. The former North Melbourne coach Dean Laidley is one of Balga’s most famous ex-residents. He began his league career at West Perth in 1984. See: http://www.deanlaidley.com.au/profile/ [accessed 7 October 2013].
[52] Kevin Casey, The Tigers’ Tale: the Origins and History of the Claremont Football Club, Kevin Casey; Perth, n/d but probably 1996, p. 156.
[53] Barker, Behind the Play, p. 194.
[54] Geoff Christian, ‘A Birthday Sandover for Wrensted’, The West Australian, Tuesday, 27 August (1985), p. 96; Geoff Christian, ‘Bairstow’s Sandover in a Count Thriller’, The West Australian, Tuesday, 16 September (1986), pp. 87-88.
[55] Linda Byrne, ‘Protests hit Sandover “Muddle”’, The West Australian, Wednesday, 29 August (1984), p. 128.
[56] George Michalczyk cited in ibid., p. 128.
[57] Stephen Alomes, ‘One Day in September: Grass Roots Enthusiasm, Invented Traditions and Con Temporary Commercial Spectacle and the Australian Football League Finals’, Sporting Traditions, vol. 17, no. 1 (2000), pp. 82-83.
[58] Fevola, Fev: in my Own Words, pp. 252-257; Roger Franklin, Fev Unauthorised: the Biography of Brendan Fevola, Football’s Flawed Genius, Paperback edition, Slattery Media Group; Richmond, 2012, Chapter 8, pp. 114-137; Suellen Hinde and Vaughan Mayberry, ‘New Year’s Leave: Fev’s Career on Knife’s Edge after Latest Drama’, The Sunday Mail [Brisbane], 2 January (2011), p. 3.
[59] East, 75 Years.
[60] The R.A. McDonald Stand was opened on 23 July 1938. East, 75 Years, pp. 21 and 87. R.A. (Dick) McDonald was President in the early years of the Swans club and played an important role in the then second-division club gaining WAFL admission in 1934 when he was acting in his capacity of member of the Bassendean Road Board. East, 75 Years, pp. 12-16, 20 and 191. Unusually, he served as President in three one-year stints - 1934, 1937, and 1950. East, 75 Years, p. 20.
[61] Eunice James, personal interview with the author, 16 July 2011.
[62] Figures 4-6 were taken by the author on 12 July 2011.
[63] Brian Dawson, John Todd: Six Decades of Footy, Cambridge Publishing; West Leederville, 2004, pp. 148 and 150.
[64] Ibid., p. 179.
[65] Ibid.
[66] East, 75 Years, pp. 23 and 212.
[67] Ronnie Boucher was Swan Districts’ aggressive and flamboyant ruckman of the era. He played 193 games for Swans and kicked 87 goals during the years 1971-76 and 1978-84. East, 75 Years, p. 223.
[68] Personal interview, 14 July 2011.
[69] Atkinson, It’s a Grand Old Flag, pp. 334 and 335.
[70] Ibid., pp. 201, 333 and 334.
[71] Ibid., pp. 334 and 335.
[72] Giulanotti and Robertson, Globalization & Football, p. 113.
[73] Ibid., pp. 29, 113 and 119.
[74] Georg Stauth and Bryan S. Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance: Resentment, Reciprocity, and Resistance in Social Life, Blackwell; Oxford, 1988, p. 47.  
[75] The clubs themselves often tap into the golden era for contemporary marketing purposes. For example, on 15 August 2013, East Perth posted a picture of its 1978 premiership team on its official Facebook page and asked the club’s Facebook ‘friends’ to identify the pictured players. The post had received 82 comments and 155 ‘likes’ by 19 August 2013.
All pictures at foot of this article were taken at: Perth versus Swan Districts, Lathlain Park, 2nd July 2011.

1 comment:

OPINION: On the Prison Bars: From Destiny by Dr Norman Ashton (2018), p. 153.

From Destiny by Dr Norman Ashton (2018), p. 153: Given who the opponent was to be in 1997, a letter of 1 September 1995 from Collingwood Pre...