Back to East Fremantle Part 1
East Fremantle's fortunes continued to wane in 1948 as the club ran 3rd, before embarking on an unusually long period of comparative anonymity between 1949 and 1952 which, after three consecutive 4th place finishes, ended with the unconscionable depths of 5th position and failure to contest the finals for the first time since 1915. The great Jerry Dolan coached the club for the last time in 1950 (having missed the 1949 season, when Jack Sheedy took the reins). All told, he coached or captain-coached the East Fremantle senior team in a total of 166 games over eight seasons for a success rate of 73.2% and 4 flags. He also coached the 1943 under age premiership team. In the view of many it would be a line ball decision between Dolan and Phil Matson for the mantle of Western Australian football's greatest ever coach.
The most significant event of the 1953 season was the club's relocation from Fremantle Oval, which it had shared with South Fremantle since the start of the century, to its own home ground of East Fremantle Oval. It celebrated by making a return to the major round but after comfortably defeating East Perth in the 1st semi it was no match for West Perth in the preliminary final and went down by 52 points.
The great Jack Clarke, four times an All Australian.
Things were definitely moving in the right direction again, however, and the trend continued in 1954 and 1955 when, with players like Jack Sheedy, Con Regan, Alan Preen, Jack Clarke and Ken Ebbs to the fore, Old East contested consecutive losing grand finals. It was hard to say which of the two losses was the more upsetting: getting thrashed by arch rivals South Fremantle in 1954 or falling short by just 2 points against Perth the following year. (Click here for a detailed review of this latter match.) In any event, the tangible upshot both years was identical - no additions to the honour board at East Fremantle Oval.
Although East Fremantle gained a small measure of revenge against the Demons the following year by winning comfortably in the 1st semi final (en route to an eventual 3rd place finish) it was not to be until 1957 that the memory was more irrevocably consigned to oblivion. In that season's preliminary final the Demons looked to be comfortably on course for a sizeable win as they led 16.17 to 9.6 at three quarter time, only for East Fremantle to unleash a miraculous brand of football in the final term to add 10.4 to 1.1 and sneak over the line by 4 points. Buoyed by this achievement the players carried on the momentum into the following week's grand final when warm pre-match favourites East Perth were overcome by 16 points after a dour, low scoring war of attrition. Old East were captain-coached in 1957 by ex South Fremantle star Steve Marsh who thereby became arguably the most popular Bulldog ever to don the blue and white of their arch rivals.
It was a similar type of grand final a year later but on this occasion it was the Royals who emerged victorious by a mere 2 points. East Fremantle's status as one of Australian football's leading clubs had been emphasised earlier that same year when no fewer than four of its players - Jack Clarke, Alan Preen, Norm Rogers and Ray Sorrell - were included in the All Australian team selected after the Melbourne carnival.
The 1959 and 1960 seasons ended with preliminary final defeats at the hands of Subiaco and East Perth respectively while the Lions were also responsible for ending Old East's season in 1961, this time at the 1st semi final stage. New kids on the block Swan Districts proved to have East Fremantle's measure in the grand finals of both 1962 (by 18 points) and 1963 (22 points), securing a premiership hat-trick in the process, while in 1964 it was Claremont's turn to administer the coup de grace with a heart-stopping 4 point triumph (reviewed here).
The 1965 season saw East Fremantle, which had finished the minor round in 4th place, participate in the ultimate game of the year for the 4th successive time. The opposition was once more provided by Swan Districts, and at three quarter time it appeared certain that Old Easts would again be leaving Subiaco Oval empty handed. True, the margin between the sides was only 21 points, but given that Swans would be kicking with the aid of a substantial breeze in the final term this seemed of minimal relevance. The events of that final quarter were such as to knit themselves into the very fabric of the East Fremantle club identity: players who had hardly been sighted suddenly tapped into resources they were unaware they had, while even those who had been playing reasonably well managed to take their performances to another plane altogether. In this context, the breeze might as well have been non existent, as indeed might the opposition afforded by most of the Swan Districts team. East Fremantle added 9.4 to 2.1 for the term to win 'going away' by 24 points in what was arguably the club's finest hour. Best afield and winner of the Simpson Medal was beanpole ruckman Dave Imrie, who later added the Lynn Medal for club champion for good measure. Other prominent performances came from captain-coach and full forward Bob Johnson, who booted 8 goals, ruck rover 'Bert' Thornley, centreman Harry Neesham, and centre half back Norm Rogers. (A more detailed, goal by goal account of the 1965 WAFL grand final can be found here.)
It was to be six long years - arguably, the longest, bleakest six years in the entire history of the club - before East Fremantle would again be in a position to mount a serious challenge for the flag. After dropping to 4th in 1966 - bad enough in itself - the side spent the next four Septembers watching the finals action from the outer rather than participating at first hand. At the time, it was the longest concerted period of non finals participation in East Fremantle's illustrious history (eventually surpassed in 2007).
By 1971, however, there was a new generation of exciting talent at the club. With players like Dave Hollins (who won the Sandover Medal), Max van Helden, Graham Melrose and Les Holt to the fore, and under the astute coaching of a young Victorian by the name of Alan Joyce, East Fremantle overcame Claremont by 47 points in the 1st semi final and with a bit of good fortune would have tumbled eventual premiers West Perth in the preliminary final. As it was the Cardinals sneaked home by 3 points after a seemingly goal bound kick from East Fremantle's Gary Fenner floated off course at the last moment and went through for a point; it proved to be the final kick of the match. (For a detailed report on this match, click here.)
The WAFL during the early 1970s was the most intensely competitive and unforgiving of Australia's major football competitions (see footnote 9). East Fremantle's level of performance dropped only slightly in 1972 but it was enough to bring them 10 fewer wins overall for the season and to catapult them out of the four. There was a slight improvement in 1973 as the side squeezed into the finals but East Perth achieved almost effortless supremacy in the 1st semi, winning by 59 points.
With skipper Graham Melrose playing probably the best football of his life to secure not only the Sandover Medal but virtually every media award going East Fremantle at long last returned to the winners' list in 1974. In what, even for the era, was an extraordinarily closely contested season, East Fremantle finished the home and away rounds in pole position half a game clear of Perth (and, indeed, just six and a half games ahead of wooden spooners West Perth, who had managed seven wins for the season and had actually lowered Old East's colours on one occasion). Once the finals arrived, however, East Fremantle became pre-eminently, as the cliché has it, "a team on a mission", downing Perth in remarkably similar fashion and by near identical margins in both the 2nd semi final (by 23 points) and grand final (by 22 points). The flag decider, watched by a surprisingly small crowd of 40,758, was hard fought for three quarters with the Demons enjoying a narrow 2 point lead at the final change, but the last quarter brought that traditional Old East 'lift' all over the ground which saw them quickly achieve an unassailable lead. Three late goals to Perth made the final scoreline respectable. East Fremantle youngster Brian Peake was many people's choice as best player afield but the Simpson Medal was split between Perth's Dave Pretty and Old East centreman Gary Gibellini. Others to do well for the victors included ruckmen Becu and Ferguson, ruck rover Dave Hollins, and 4 goal full forward Paul Nicholls.
After the grand final East Fremantle headed to Adelaide for the Australian club championships where it lost to Sturt by 9 points and overcame a Tasmanian combined side without even needing to try.
The second half of the 1970s was especially noteworthy for the emergence of Brian Peake as one of the most prodigious talents in the game. However, not even Peake could enable East Fremantle to maintain a position of pre-eminence in Western Australian football. After failing to qualify for the finals in both 1975 and 1976 the side's next involvement in the September action proved to be an unmitigated disaster as it was twice (in both the 2nd semi and the grand final) annihilated by Perth. Brian Peake's Sandover Medal win that year afforded scant consolation.
The 1978 season brought yet another in the sequence of spectacular nosedives which have tended to beset East Fremantle over the past four decades or so. The side finished 6th, with just 10 wins, and looked to be well and truly on the skids, but the following year was to bring yet another spectacular reversal of fortune, only this time of the right kind. Under new skipper Brian Peake, now sporting trademark seventies facial hair, Old East fielded an all Western Australian combination in 1979 in what was a noteworthy season all round for Western Australian football (see footnote 10). Peake himself enjoyed another memorable year, winning his 4th consecutive Lynn Medal as East Fremantle's best and fairest player, and rounding off the season by winning the Tassie Medal at the Australian championships, the first - and only - Old Easts player to do so.
East Fremantle's 1979 premiership victory was by no means the consummation of a season's dominance. As a matter of fact, the side looked distinctly mediocre at times during the home and away rounds, losing on one occasion to Claremont by 86 points, and on another even less auspicious occasion to East Perth by 103 points. This latter defeat was the first ever time that East Fremantle had lost a game by more than 100 points. Once the finals arrived, however, it was a different story. Old East achieved revenge against both their minor round conquistadors in quick succession, overcoming the Royals in the 1st semi final by 2 points in a high scoring thriller, and then, responding vibrantly to the incentive of a potential 'derby' grand final, emphatically downing Claremont by 27 points in the preliminary final.
The blue half of Fremantle had enjoyed marginal supremacy over the red half during 1979 (2 wins to 1) and grand final day saw their dominance extended. In a high standard, see-sawing tussle Old Easts ultimately displayed superior fitness and desperation to see off their opponents with an 8 goal to 2 final term after trailing by 4 points at 'lemon time'. Forward pocket/rover Kevin Taylor booted 7 goals to earn the Simpson Medal and take his season's goals tally to 102, while not far behind him were Tony Buhagiar, the irrepressible Brian Peake, and Doug and Stephen Green. If it was not exactly the club's finest hour, it was certainly one of the most highly satisfying.
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9. It is comparatively easy to bear out this assertion. In the five seasons between 1970 and 1974 the WAFL premiership was won by five different clubs, two of which (South Fremantle and West Perth) also gained a wooden spoon during the same period. All eight clubs contested at least one finals series, while no club qualified for the major round every season. The success rates of the clubs were also remarkably even as the following table makes clear:
| WAFL Summary 1970 to 1975 | ||||||||
| Flags | Made Finals | Wooden Spoon | P | W | L | D | Success Rate | |
| East Perth | 1 | 4 | 0 | 113 | 72 | 41 | 0 | 63.72% |
| Subiaco | 1 | 3 | 0 | 111 | 61 | 50 | 0 | 54.95% |
| Perth | 0 | 3 | 0 | 113 | 57 | 55 | 1 | 50.88% |
| West Perth | 1 | 3 | 1 | 111 | 56 | 55 | 0 | 50.45 |
| Claremont | 0 | 2 | 1 | 109 | 53 | 56 | 0 | 48.62 |
| South Fremantle | 1 | 1 | 1 | 107 | 52 | 55 | 0 | 48.60 |
| East Fremantle | 1 | 2 | 0 | 110 | 52 | 57 | 1 | 47.73 |
| Swan Districts | 0 | 1 | 2 | 107 | 35 | 70 | 2 | 33.64 |
10. Among the season's highlights were Western Australia's 17.21 (123) to 16.12 (108) vanquishing of Victoria in the inaugural state of origin championship final, and East Fremantle's 32 point defeat of St Kilda in Melbourne in the VFL night series. Over the years, victories by Western Australian club sides over their Victorian counterparts have been rare enough; wins in Melbourne, however, have been like hen's teeth. Another memorable feature of the 1979 football season was the establishment of an all time WAFL aggregate attendance record of 1,013,615 which included an all time high of 52,817 at the grand final. Back to Main Text