ARTICLE: "Mount Pleasant Junior Football Club Under-17s, and my move to Melville", by Neil Whyte, 5/6/2019.

ARTICLE: So this is what happened in a nutshell (re Mt Pleasant Under 17’s in 1984). I am not sure about 1985, I lost the 1985 junior council grand final program...I am 99% sure there was no 16’s Mt Pleasant...definitely not a 17’s).

In late 1983 there was a gathering of us (me, Dean Cole, Phil Otley, Mick Andrews, Jason Ramsay etc), and I don’t know how the conversation started...but it eventually turned to the idea of forming Mount Pleasant Under-17’s. Ian Andrews (Mick’s brother) put his hand up for the job. He was a bit young, but anyway, he was quite cluey on footy. It was the worst decision of my junior football life unfortunately. I should have stayed at Melville. I was named captain of the new Mt Pleasant 17’s. I suppose I thought it was convenient – a hop, skip and jump from where I lived on Riseley Street compared to going to Melville...would help mum and dad as they wouldn’t have to drive me to training.

So we formed it, the club went about registration, etc etc. We went about recruiting players which wasn’t easy. We even managed to get a few outside players from the area who were pretty good (like Brad Schofield who was at EF Colts as well). At that particular time, for some reason, numbers were a bit thin in the EF junior council for 16’s and 17’s. In 1983, for the first time ever, the EF  junior council decided to make it 11’s, 12’s, 13’s, 14’s, 15’s, 16’s and 17’s. I suspect that the thinning was partly due to this reason; however, the number of teams had dropped from only two or three seasons ago, when 15’s and 17’s had probably around 16-20 teams combined.

Craig Campbell was the 15’s coach, but I wish he had been the 17’s coach...and he probably wishes he had been as well come to think of it. I feel the team would have survived if Craig had been coach. Ian’s resources were limited and he was too young.

We were only averaging 8 people to training...this was my first major concern. We just couldn’t get everyone there.

By the time the first game came around, we were against East Fremantle JFC, and I knew quite a few of the guys in that team (Gavin Miller, Ron Adams, Mat Mudie (capt.)), and I was not sure how it was going to unfold. Well, we had 16 turn up (at least there was more than at training, ha ha)...but it was typical – games are always more fun than training!  I must admit I felt a bit embarrassed and a bit lost emotionally at the time. We got flogged, I think 25 goals to 7. Then they were 25-minute quarters. I wasn’t really looking forward to the next match, and again we had 16, I think, maybe even 15. Rossmoyne fielded the same number as us to make it fair. We got flogged 30 goals to 5.

Mount Pleasant (suburb), looking north.

Then there was an Easter bye coming up, then we were going to play Melville, my old team, and Melville were the best team, strong. I pulled the plug and said "I won’t be coming back, sorry". When that match came around, I went down to Strickland and watched from the distance on my bike; a handful of Mt Pleasant guys turned up and the Melville Team...I saw Ted Richardson, the coach, and Ian Andrews. Ian told him that they didn’t have the numbers and they abandoned the match which I knew was going to happen. I felt quite disappointed.

As soon as the Attadale coach (the late great Charlie Pratt of Pratt Plumbing) heard, he pounded like a cat on a hot tin roof, ringing my home, and wanting me to come to Attadale, who seemed to also be struggling a bit. I knew of a few of the good players, and asked him is Olif Sjerp playing? Colin Walker?..he said yes. I said I would think about it.

Mount Pleasant Primary School, September 2018.

I made a decision then to make an embarrassing journey back to Melville to meet Ted Richardson...whom I don’t think was really impressed with me leaving the club...then now wanting to return. Somehow, he let me come back into the team...I tried to fit back in, but something never really made me feel 100% comfortable. Ironically Attadale folded as well...two teams folded in the first few weeks, which left only 4 in the competition.

Ironically, I picked up 3 umpire votes in a best-on-ground in one of the Mt Pleasant games, then got enough for Melville, for me to win the EF 17’s best and fairest...I couldn’t believe it. The voting included my votes from that match combined with Melville. When I rocked up to the voting count at the end of the season, there were the 6 votes on the board including the votes from the Mt Pleasant games. They count half the votes prior to the main count. I knew I had quite a few votes. Then I picked up only a few more in the second part of the count to win by 2 over Mark Amaranti, my teammate. Mark was probably the best junior footballer in the EF council to have never won a EF fairest and best, ha ha. He had been runner up at least a couple of times, third, etc.

Even though I preferred Craig, he was already committed to the Under-15s position. I just made mention that I wish it was Craig. I didn’t think it was “wrong” at the time, but I did think he was a bit too young at 19. I do think that this was part of the problem though as to why the team was struggling. I certainly did my part to round up some players like Kim Brotherson, Kim Dastlik (both ruckmen as we needed ruckmen of course), and others. I don’t think others were doing their part to assist in the recruitment area.

When the team dissolved, a few went to Rossmoyne 17s and a few went to Karoonda Under-16s. I was the only one who went to Melville 17s which has been regarded as one of the strongest junior 17s teams ever in the history of EF junior council. Stephen Edgar and Cameron Knapton bypassed Under-17s and were already playing EF Colts. Eggs (Stephen’s nickname) was eventually best-and-fairest at EF, and then went to Carlton. Four other players in the team went on to play league football for EF (Mark Amaranti, Scott Annandale) and SF (Ashley Clementi and Todd Grierson) and there was David Hewitt and me who played Colts EF as well. The other junior clubs also had players go on in their career to EF; from Rossmoyne, most notably Chris Waterman (West Coast Eagles premiership player in 1992 and 1994), Dean Cole, Cadell Buss, Brad Read, Michael Little, and Craig Roberts. From EF Junior FC, there was Gavin Miller, Graham Dart, Matt Mudie, and Ron Adams.

[Neil Whyte trained with the East Fremantle (WAFL) senior team in the 1991-92 pre-season before moving to play with Applecross in the Sunday Football League. He played some East Fremantle Colts games in 1984 and did pre-season training with the Colts team in 1984-85. He has an active interest in sports medicine and treatment, sports history, sports psychology, sports sociology, and local history.]

ARTICLE: "Did the Spirit of Football die when Roy George moved from Applecross JFC to Karoonda?"

Applecross JFC stalwarts Roy "The Spoon" George (centre) and Doug "Dougie" Stirling (right), 23 years on.

Did the spirit of football die when Roy George moved from Applecross JFC to Karoonda?

Karoonda Reserve, Booragoon.

Back in the 1970s, Perth was still a traditional and very much mono-cultural city. Each primary-school had a local junior football club which was independent of the school but, in most cases, used the primary-school oval for training. It was almost compulsory for boys to play Aussie Rules football in the winter and cricket in the summer (as well as possibly Little Athletics). However, even then, times were beginning to change and a few junior football clubs, namely the smallest ones attached to the smallest primary-schools, were beginning to struggle for numbers. As a result, in East Fremantle Football Club heartland, just to the west of the Canning River, Ardross JFC (with its red-and-white South Fremantle guernseys) merged with Brentwood (with its red, blue, and white guernseys similar to the Footscray guernseys of the early-1970s with one red and one white horizontal stripe against a royal blue background). This merger created an early junior mega- or super-club which lacked the same connection to district as the other junior clubs and the two original merged clubs had. This merged entity was called Karoonda JFC, and it kept the red, blue, and white of the two merged clubs in a new and trendy guernsey design. It was called Karoonda JFC because its home ground was Karoonda Reserve, located on Karoonda Road, Booragoon. Although its players and officials might deny this, it became something of an upper middle-class club because that part of Booragoon had opened up for housing only a few years before and was home to upwardly mobile upper middle-class families. The section of Booragoon on the western side of Riseley Street was even newer, having mostly opened up in the early-1980s. By 1983-84, Karoonda had begun to attract the more serious footballers who were aiming at a professional career, including, most notably, Mike Broadbridge (although it was also his local junior club).

I played for Mount Pleasant JFC (the Mounties) Under-14s in 1982 under the legendary coach Craig “Craigo” Campbell, who was a charismatic and flamboyant Malcolm Brown type personality. He would do unheard-of things, at junior level, like host rowdy and fun players’ teas at his home in Mount Pleasant, a few blocks from the river. I think he needed that male-bonding environment especially because he had two daughters and no sons. However, by Year 10 of high-school (1983), Mount Pleasant could no longer field a team. They may have had an Under-16s in 1983, I can’t recall.

Applecross JFC was going to field an Under-15s team, so I joined up, perhaps recruited by my high-school friend, Roy “The Spoon” George. Applecross JFC, with its red, black, and white St. Kilda guernseys, was also a small club catering only to the small suburb of Applecross which, even then, boasted an aging population and was showing the first signs of gentrification. Under-15s was different from primary-school football, which was relatively even and egalitarian with most players not being too dissimilar to one another in playing skill and fitness; most young people then lived active outdoor lives at least while in primary-school. At primary-school level, all clubs were roughly equal in strength (just as in sprints racing) and any club could pretty much beat any other club on any given day.

By contrast, by Under-15s, a big gap had emerged between those footballers who were fit and saw football as a possible career path and those who were regular smokers and casual drinkers and who were just in it for mate-ship and enjoyment. Players of the first type tended to be attracted to Karoonda while players of the second type were recruited that year to play for Applecross. As a result, there was a massive gap between the quality and ability of these two teams although Applecross had five or six reasonable footballers and everyone who pulled on that underdog St. Kilda guernsey (a poor-performing VFL/AFL club at the time) tried their very hardest every single minute of action. There was one game, Applecross versus Karoonda, at our home ground of Gairloch Reserve (named after an obscure Scottish lake), when the home ground advantage counted for nothing, and Karoonda beat us by about 40 goals to one point (say 40.25 to 0.1 or similar). The great Mike Broadbridge played on the half-back flank and still kicked ten goals against me that day. Years later, I was surprised Mike never made it to the VFL/AFL; I guess a VFL/AFL player would have scored more goals against me! We had just enough players to field a team each week, but we struggled for numbers and so we had to accept even the very weakest of players (and I include myself in that category). We might have gone one or two men short for certain games.

Gairloch Reserve, looking south to Macrae Road.

We had Scott “The Fish” Herring as first ruck-man, and I knew him well from primary-school days at Mount Pleasant; in those days he lived in Davenport Road, Booragoon, and I lived nearby in Hewitt Way, and we would sometimes play cricket and football at the local Layman Park at the foot of my street. In high-school, Fish was one of the tough guys, and a heavy smoker, but he always maintained a good heart and he did not forget primary-school friendships. He had charisma but he also had a good set of values. He was short for a ruck-man at Unde-15s level and I remember him struggling manfully against taller, fitter, and faster opponents all season. Scott grew up in Booragoon and attended Mount Pleasant Primary School so he was one of the very few Applecross JFC players (I was another) who lived outside of Applecross proper and had not gone to Applecross Primary School.

One of our best players was Roy “The Spoon” George, a strong and aggressive key-position player who could play at centre-half-forward or in the ruck. He was a Malcolm Brown / Jason Dunstall / Tony Lockett / Dermott Brereton / Stephen Kernahan type footballer. He was one of our very few players who could have held down a regular spot at a club like Karoonda (which is exactly what did happen, as we will see).

The other Applecross JFC players I can remember are Craig Wright (full-back), Doug Stirling (wing), and David “Blackie” Black. Blackie was probably my best friend in the team, along with Roy, as we had sat next to each other for a few weeks in Science class in Year 9 and I think we were in Photography class together in Year 10.

Craig was a good full-back; reliable, and a strong mark and kick. However, he could not do much to stop the tide of opposition goals as these would be initiated in the midfield and the ball would always be sailing over his head. He was a great kick out from goal; he had a majestic and righteous drop-punt which was accurate and deadly in flight. It would drop suddenly, like an expert’s volleyball serve, and his teammates knew about this and could often mark his kick outs from the goal-square. I remember taking at least one mark from one of his kicks; it was on the half-back flank at Gairloch Reserve in the south-west corner of the ground (the Gairloch Street side but at the Macrae Road end). Maybe that was my only mark for the year! Craig’s kicks could deceive the opposition as they would float magnificently, in the usual textbook way, and then drop suddenly as if shot by a pistol. Wrightie had the integrity of being a guy who had come up through Applecross Primary School, Applecross JFC, and Applecross Senior High School.

Then we had Douglas “Dougie” Stirling on the wing who was one of our top six players without a shadow of doubt. Looking back, I guess we were stacking the back-line which was a common sense thing to do given our team’s shortcomings. There was no-one of quality forward of the wing and especially after Roy left. Doug was slim, fast, and agile; he had pace and was a thinking person’s footballer. It seemed like he was running on tiptoes as he had no presence and could move quickly into empty space without seemingly making any noise. A good comparison would be the Carlton wingman, David Glascott, who was at his peak during the Carlton back-to-back premiership years of 1981-82. The soccer player, Shunsuke Nakamura, who played for Glasgow Celtic, was similar in that, if you watch videos of his goal-scoring efforts, you will see him silently and quickly moving into just the right positions to outwit the defence and score often with a single touch from a teammate’s pass. Doug was in the unenviable position of often getting the ball and not knowing what to do with it as he was always under pressure and we had no-one of any talent forward of the wing.

Roy “The Spoon” George’s departure from Applecross JFC to join Karoonda mid-season 1983 was massive news among our group of mates in high-school and beyond. It caused almost as much of a sensation as when Maurice “Mo” Johnston became the first high-profile Roman Catholic player to join Glasgow Rangers in 1989 (well, perhaps not). It felt, deep down, like a betrayal of sorts. It shook my faith in the spirit of football and the goodness of the world. No wonder that Metallica released an album called …And Justice for All. Applecross needed all the good players it could get whereas Karoonda was already spoiled for choice. Imagine the legendary Doug “Dougie” Hawkins leaving struggling Footscray in the mid-season of 1981 to join a premiership-quality team at Carlton or Tony Lockett leaving St Kilda in mid-season 1985 for Essendon. It felt like that. There was something very depressing, if not morally questionable, about the whole sad affair. It shook your faith in humanity. I played one year for Karoonda Under-16s in 1984 as Applecross didn’t field a team. It wasn’t very enjoyable. Applecross should have demanded a transfer fee from Karoonda for Roy’s services in 1983 and shared the cash out among the players! A free pie and chips and a free ticket to a WAFL game would have been very much appreciated! [By Jack Frost, 5 October 2018.]

Gairloch Reserve looking south towards Macrae Road from Gairloch Street. The view would have been very similar in 1983.

Karoonda Reserve in Booragoon (bottom four pictures). The children's playground replaces the double cricket nets which used to stand here in the late-1970s and 1980s. The club-room is the same as in 1983-84 except for the new section on the far western end which juts forward compared to the rest of the structure (and has no veranda section).