ARTICLE: "Perth Oval: Chestnuts, plane flights and Royal rumbles fro East Perth", by John Townsend, 14/9/2017

ARTICLE: The tale of Charlie Chandler’s tree blossomed in the late 1950s but it was the chestnut’s failure to flower in 1961 that made the myth a legend.

The famous tree was a Perth Oval landmark for many decades, but the significance of its rare blooming was not recognised until Chandler, a returned World War II soldier and rabid East Perth supporter, identified several serendipitous events.

Chandler made the tree a barometer of East Perth premiership chances when he pointed out that, after many years without a flower, it had blossomed in 1956, 1958 and a year later.

They were all seasons that the Royals won the flag as a cohort of outstanding players in Graham “Polly” Farmer, Ted “Square” Kilmurray and John K. Watts combined superbly under inspirational coach Jack Sheedy.

East Perth were red-hot favourites in 1961, having beaten Swan Districts four times in the season, but the tree would not flower.

The bare tree proved a powerful omen.

Swans would go on to win the premiership, while the fact that Chandler’s tree had refused to blossom soon became a totem of the club’s rotten decade in which it made the grand final six times but lost each one of them.

The 1960s were a period of lost opportunities and a stark contrast to East Perth’s early days at Perth Oval when the ground regularly hosted the grand final and interstate matches.

Accepted into the competition in 1906 — with only West Perth voting against their inclusion to ignite a bitter rivalry that exists to this day — East Perth soon moved to the then Loton’s Park on the outskirts of the CBD where they would build a WAFL empire.

Phil Matson, a brilliant player at four WAFL clubs who would prove an even more formidable coach, was the catalyst.

He steered the club to five consecutive premierships from 1919, had a successful year in Victoria before returning to win two more flags and could have achieved anything in the game but for his death in a car crash at the age of 43.

Sheedy won three flags and returned for one season in 1969 when Perth Oval witnessed a series of remarkable events only two years after it was passed over in favour of Subiaco Oval as the site of WA football’s headquarters.

It was the year the mercurial Mal Brown won the Sandover Medal to make the first of a series of indelible marks on the game, while East Perth’s standing as the league’s most popular club was underlined when more than 20,000 fans packed the ground early in the season.

The Foundation Day match against West Perth then drew a remarkable 26,760 spectators to smash the WAFL home-and- away attendance record.

It was the biggest crowd at the ground since 1928 when it appeared most of Perth turned out to watch Bert Hinkler take off on the first solo flight from Australia to England.

Chandler’s tree did not flower when East Perth won the 1972 flag, though there was plenty of colour that night when captain-coach Brown led a player walk-out during the celebrations because the recently retired Derek Chadwick was denied access to the official function.

East Perth would remain at the ground for two more decades but the glory days were over.

After a period at the WACA Ground, the Royals shifted to Leederville.

Perth Oval would be redeveloped as a rectangular stadium that would host the Perth Glory soccer club and the Western Force rugby union club.

[By John Townsend for The West Australian. This article was first published at the following link: https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/uncanny-chestnut-predicted-the-royals-highs-and-lows-ng-b88599502z]

East Perth versus East Fremantle, 1965

Centre-man Syd Jackson and other players at training, 1964

Mal Atwell and happy schoolboys

East Perth's Phil Tierney after an incident with East Fremantle's Con Regan in May 1962.

An air-raid demonstration at the oval in 1940.

John Watts, Ralph Rogerson, Ray Rowlles, and Brian Grant, March 1962.

Perth Oval as a rectangular stadium. This picture shows the kick-off of the friendly match between Glasgow Celtic and Perth Glory on 9 July 2011 which was won 2-0 by the Scottish giants.

East Perth Cheer Squad which was active from the years 1982-88 according to David Lockhart. That ROYALS 82 banner indeed became very well-known to WAFL fans back in the day (photo courtesy of David Lockhart / Lost WAFL Facebook page). I'm only guessing but this picture might be from early in the day of the 1982 First Semi-Final East Perth versus West Perth (when you had to arrive very early to obtain seats directly behind the fence).