WAY TO GO

Fremantle Arts Centre Press has bounced the ball and Matt Price flies. For eighteen months we in politics have been grateful that this scribe has had his humour and writing skills distracted somewhat from pillorying us. Like that west coast sea breeze, properly known as the Fremantle Docker, Way to Go eases the pain for rusted on Dockers supporters. Football fans will not get better writing than this.

The Hon. Kim Beazley, Federal Member for Brand

Matt Price, parliamentary sketcher and sports columnist ... is the freshest voice in both of his intertwining fields, belying the difficulties of doing the job. Perhaps barracking for the Fremantle Dockers gives Matt a sense of perspective, and a sense of humour.

Garrie Hutchinsoneditor, The Best Australian Sports Writing 2002.

Matt Price writes with grace and economy and never looks to be trying too hard. He knows how to set up a punchline and how to walk away from it quickly. He also has a sense of fun and mischief.

Les Carlyon, former editor of The Age, Walkley award-winning journalist and author of Gallipoli

WAY TO GO

Sadness, Euphoria and The Fremantle Dockers

MATT PRICE

Fremantle Arts Centre Press

Australia's finest small publisher

They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own
Now we are forced to recognise our inhumanity
Our reason coexists with our insanity
And though we choose between reality and madness
It's either sadness or euphoria.

'Summer Highland Falls'
Billy Joel

[©1978 Joelsongs.

Used by permission of
EMI Songs Australia Pty Limited.
All rights reserved.]

-

For Jack, Matilda and Harry,

Dockers all.

And for Susie.

She reminds us

that losing is like winning,

only the other way round.

Fremantle's Club Song

CHANT

Freo heave-ho
Freo heave-ho
Give them all the
Freo heave-ho

CHORUS

Freo Way To Go
Hit 'em real hard
Send them down below
Freo give 'em the old heave-ho
We are The Freo Dockers

VERSE 1

We're the rollers, we're the rockers,
We're the mighty Freo Dockers.
We're gunna roll them and we'll rock 'em,
We're gunna send them to the bottom
And if they get up, we'll do it again.
The Dockers stop at nothing, nothing!

VERSE 2

Doc-Doc-Dockers
Show 'em how we rock
Freo heave ho.
Doc-Doc-Dockers
Show 'em how we roll
Go Dockers, go, go, go!

Contents

Foreword by Mick Malthouse

Ridicule: Birth of a Rectangle

Obsession: A Flavour of Our Own

Whimsy: Gerard Neesham

Evil: Mick Malthouse

Paradise: Freo Way to Go

Genius: Clive Waterhouse

Cruelty: Damian Drum

Euphoria: Beating the Eagles

Sadness: Annus Horrendus

Hope: Chris Connolly

Postscript 2003

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Foreword

by Mick Malthouse

Matt Price is a cheeky bugger.

There's not much in his book I agree with. Early on Matt admits he's not really qualified to write about football. That sounds about right.

He seems determined to accentuate a few myths.

Apparently I've undergone a personality transplant in recent years, from Grumpy Mick in Perth to Cuddly Mick in Melbourne. Matt's not the only journalist to get this wrong. I'll accept that during twenty years as a coach I've been forced to change my strategies and techniques. I'm a different coach at Collingwood than I was at West Coast. And I was a different coach during six seasons at Footscray, too.

But despite what you'll read here, there's been no magical transformation since leaving West Coast for Collingwood in 2000. My friends and family will tell you I'm pretty much the same person who left Ballarat more than thirty years ago to try out with St Kilda. In fact, I'm such a good bloke that I'm happy to forgive Matt most of his delusions and eccentricities.

But I won't buy the misconception that underlies a lot of this misguided but amusing tale.

Fremantle supporters may be loyal and long suffering, but they're kidding themselves if they believe they're more passionate and committed than Eagles' fans. Or those of any other club for that matter.

I'll admit I had my concerns when the Dockers entered the AFL at the end of the 1994 season. The Eagles were already battling to recover from heavy debts, and from a financial point of view it seemed difficult to argue for the early entry of a second West Australian side. As Fremantle have struggled to pay their bills, I guess this scepticism was justified.

But from a pure footy standpoint, I welcomed the Dockers arrival.

I'd long been a fierce advocate for a genuinely national competition. Whenever Fremantle supporters start feeling sorry for themselves, they might like to recall the treatment dished out to the Eagles. We started with hopeless facilities and received scant respect from AFL administrators. When people complain about travelling today, they should remember fixtures which forced West Coast to fly east two or three weeks in a row. I thought getting a second side based in Perth would be good for the game, wonderful for local fans and help break down the Melbourne dominance of the AFL.

And we were never afraid of competition at West Coast. I'd compare it to the national airlines policy — Qantas may be a fine airline but they're kept on their toes by the competition from Virgin.

At the Eagles, we welcomed the challenge of maintaining our dominance in Western Australia. And as coach of a successful

side in a fanatical one-team football town, I looked forward to sharing some of the media pressure and general hype with my new counterpart.

Things were never going to be easy for Fremantle. For a start, the Eagles already enjoyed the backing of an entire state. Our name said it all — WEST COAST. From Kununurra to Esperance, from Rottnest Island to Eucla, an overwhelming majority of footy fans supported the Eagles.

By comparison, Fremantle were appealing to the rich football tradition in the port town. There was also a kind of underdog element to the Dockers, but it was always going to be tough being successful on and off the field.

The argument that Fremantle barrackers love their side more than West Coast fans is garbage. The figures say it all — the Eagles have always attracted bigger crowds and more members.

Personally, I often found a slightly nasty and resentful edge to Fremantle crowds while I was coaching the Eagles. They seemed to have a giant chip on their shoulder about West Coast's success. Club rivalries are part of the attraction of AFL; Carlton 'hate' Collingwood, the Crows 'hate' Port, Fremantle 'hate' West Coast. Fair enough.

But as a coach now living in Victoria, I find there's vastly more respect for people in my position in Melbourne. I can walk past a bunch of Blues or Bombers supporters, and usually there'll be some playful ribbing which everyone can enjoy. In Perth, there was often a bitterness, venom and envy about Freo fans. It was unwarranted, senseless and destructive.

Perhaps this lack of respect stemmed from the early coaches. Gerard Neesham was innovative and successful in the local league, and he seemed a fairly popular choice as the Docker's inaugural appointment. I can remember having a discussion with Gerard soon after his appointment in which my new rival began speaking enthusiastically about people I'd never heard of. By that stage I thought I'd soaked up a fair bit of knowledge about West Australian football, but I was genuinely confused by Gerard's ramblings. No wonder, since it eventually became clear he was talking about Hungarian water polo players, not footballers.

From that moment I was pretty sure we'd have Gerard's measure. It's one thing to be open-minded and willing to experiment, but I'm a great believer in history and getting the basics right. Gerard wanted to coach his way or the highway, which is fine to a point. But there was a hint of arrogance and superiority about Gerard which was never borne out by his results.

When Damian Drum was appointed, I deliberately went out of my way to establish better relations. But someone had obviously poisoned the well, because on out first meeting he was very defensive. 'I've been told not to trust you,' was Damian's greeting, and the ground rules were established. It never improved much after that.

In retrospect, I believe the Dockers suffered for this disrespect and distrust of myself and West Coast. Around trade time, I always got the sense Fremantle officials were more concerned with not being duped by the Eagles than securing the players

they required. This is always a recipe for disaster. As a coach, I've farewelled plenty of players who have thrived at new clubs. Dean Laidley, Matt Clape and Mal Michael all won premierships after being released from West Coast and Collingwood. Ex-Magpie Paul Williams has won two fairest and bests with Sydney.

Ideally, trades should be win-win. You identify what your club requires, and do what you can to secure the players you need. It's counterproductive worrying about how players will perform at other clubs. I always felt Fremantle were so paranoid about being shown up by West Coast that they squandered a lot of opportunities. Gerard's record in the draft was spectacularly bad.

I've never underestimated the Dockers, and always felt they under-performed under Neesham and Drum. Chris Connolly has made a promising start and — for Matt's sake at least — I hope Fremantle continues to improve.

If Way to Go is full of half-truths and whacky theories, it also showcases the mad passion that makes Australian Rules the world's greatest game. I suspect Matt's really in denial; he was brought up on the north side of the Swan River, lived nowhere near Fremantle and once played in the same competition as former Eagles Dwayne Lamb and Laurie Keene. By my reading that's a rolled gold West Coast pedigree.

Ten years in Perth has left me with a lot of friends and some magnificent memories — not least my role in the campaign to save old-growth forests. Eagles' fans are loyal and proud and genuine footy supporters. Dockers' fans shouldn't delude themselves — indeed, you'd reckon a lot of modern day

Fremantle supporters were cheering for the Blue and Gold during the early 1990s.

Now I'm at Collingwood where it's a privilege to be in charge of a side which boasts the mightiest supporting group in Australia. When the Magpies' Army is on the march, nothing else comes close. Just ask former Dockers Jimmy Clement and Brody Holland — since shifting to Collingwood they've been astounded by the intensity and fervour of the Army.

Collingwood, a tough uncompromising inner Melbourne suburb, can tap more than a hundred years of tradition. Younger clubs — including West Coast and Fremantle — obviously have to wait around to win that kind of devotion.

But I suspect Matt's book will strike a chord in all footy fans and players ... perhaps even the odd AFL coach. Those of us who dedicate ourselves to football live for those euphoric moments, and suffer plenty of sadness along the journey. In between there is pain, laughter, frustration, hard work, disappointment, friendship, argument, agonising and plenty more — in other words, life.

You'll get a sense of all of this from Matt's book, especially if you give some of his wilder theories the OLD HEAVE HO.

Read it and enjoy.

TWENTY-ONE GOALS TO TWO

BUT FOR an instruction from superiors to revert to my favourite topic, you would be reading an incisive, spleen-venting column about professional golfers. Instead, it's the Fremantle Dockers again. No, the sports editor has not suddenly become convinced of the latent circulation-boosting potential of dedicating precious editorial space to the misfits of the Australian Football League. Nor, sadly, does he detect a quantum leap in the literary value of this space when it rhapsodises about fifteenth-placed (with an anchor, not a bullet) Freo. Typically, he is driven by baser motives. Something along the lines of: 'After all that crap you've written about your mob through the year, you can hardly ignore last week's game.'

Last week's game, you may recall, is etched in AFL history. It has nothing to do with Tony Lockett (more on that later) but rather Brisbane's annihilation of Fremantle at the 'Gabba. The rampaging Lions kicked 21.5 in the first half — an AFL-VFL record. The Dockers managed just 2.6. It got slightly better after that, but here are a few more figures to put Freo's woes into perspective.

Add the second half of their Round 19 defeat by Carlton to the first half of the Brisbane abomination and Freo lose 30.14 to 3.8. And while the Lions piled up twenty-one goals in less than an hour

last Sunday, Fremantle have managed only seventeen goals in their last two matches. Whichever way you add the figures, the Dockers are a joke and undeserving of serious support. And yet ...

By a quirk of fate, this column travelled to Sydney last week and wound up covering Tony Lockett's last appearance at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It was a terrific day. Magnificent sunshine, perfect setting and 'Plugger' had read the script. By half-time, he'd kicked five and the story was writing itself. A ringside seat to history. You wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Then news filtered through of the Brisbane massacre. That can't be right. Twenty-one goals to two? At half-time? Laughter all round. I'd already confided my allegiance to the Dockers, so there was no prospect of imitating St Peter and denying everything. Cock-a-doodle-do.

'Why would you barrack for Fremantle?' one genuinely bewildered fellow hack asked. All the more demeaning, since he avidly follows Collingwood.

So we settled in for the second half. Plugger kept kicking goals but my attention was divided. It's the scourge of the deluded supporter. Despite being privileged to witness Lockett's Sydney swansong, my heart lay with those hapless purple-and-green troopers being bombarded in Brisbane. A call was snuck to a friend watching in Perth. 'Talk me through it,' I urged. 'We're coming back,' he replied. 'We've just kicked a point.' Cue dark, cross-continental cackling.

I've since watched the first quarter of the slaughter on video, which contains several comic gems. Young James Walker — great-grandson of Collingwood goalkicking legend Gordon Coventry no less — bursts out of the centre to be accidentally shirt fronted by

team-mate Shaun McManus. Freo's Clive Waterhouse has his pants pulled down, literally, in a tackle to reveal a set of Brisbane maroon-coloured undies. I'd already seen the hilarious second-quarter pirouette of the Lions' Darryl White. Expecting to be tackled, White spins around twice, only to learn the Dockers have no intention of grabbing him. Not to worry — he steadies and kicks a goal. 'They are a rabble,' said Mick McGuane, probably the plainest statement the tongue-tied commentator has managed all year. (He'd earlier explained how Brisbane were 'putting conversions through the scoreboard'.)

The funniest bit came when, at seven goals to nil, another commentator claimed Freo were 'starting to settle'. If only he'd known. I'm glad I watched the video. If your side is going to suffer such indignity, it's important to stick with them. Remember, Brisbane were inept for many years, though admittedly any fair reading of the Rabble-o-meter puts the 1999 Dockers in rare company. Still, it can't get worse. Except that Plugger's in Perth for the Swans-Fremantle at the WACA Ground tonight. Oh dear.

- Weekend Australian, 21 August 1999.

1

Ridicule: Birth of a Rectangle

I've got a favourite Fremantle moment.

The Dockers are playing the Western Bulldogs at Subiaco Oval on a beautiful, sunny winter's day in July 1997.

We're sitting in the then relatively new two-tiered stand in the pocket, railway side of the old three-level edifice at the western end of the ground.

Gary Dhurrkay, an Aboriginal footballer who played with rare skills and even rarer consistency, gathers the ball in the Dockers' back pocket. He finds himself in plenty of space, with just one Bulldog opponent — from memory, it's Paul Dimattina — to beat.

It's a classic stand-off situation common to almost any game of Australian Rules. Dimattina doesn't want to commit to a tackle for fear of being sidestepped by the man with the ball. Dhurrkay spends a split second weighing up his options, wondering about the best way to elude Dimattina and propel the Sherrin out of the Dockers' danger zone.

There are three obvious avenues forward. Dhurrkay can choose to kick or handball further down the field. He can

attempt to duck around Dimattina to the left, boundary side of the contest. Or he can try to cut inside and send the ball back down the corridor.

Naturally, Dhurrkay chooses none of the above. Instead, much to the befuddlement of Dimattina, Dhurrkay runs straight at him. Years later, I can still see the stunned look in the Bulldog player's eyes. Dimattina is clearly unprepared for such an audacious departure from the norm, and can't come to his senses quickly enough to lay a tackle. Dhurrkay bounces off his wrong-footed opponent and ambles casually out of defence.

Laugh? We nearly wet our pants.

For me, this golden moment symbolises the enduring attraction of the Dockers. Unorthodoxy mixed with madness mixed with caprice. On this occasion, Dhurrkay got out of jail. Lord knows, even a mug punter wins occasionally.

As loyal Dockers' fans understand, there have been thousands of similarly magnificent and crazed incidents during our formative years. In essence, this book is a testimony to these. It certainly isn't a history of the Fremantle Football Club.

I don't actually remember much about how the Dockers were created. I suspect the vision of Freo's forefathers did not include the well-earned reputation around AFL circles for incompetence, slapstick comedy, under-achievement and inventing ingenious means by which to extract defeat from the jaws of victory. Or perhaps this was precisely their intent, in which case all power to their evil genius.

In truth, I'm not at all sure what this book is about. It's driven by the hope that Fremantle's worst years are behind us, and a feeling that our black period should be chronicled for posterity. That by recording some of the eternal frustrations and travails that have accompanied avid support for Fremantle, we might better acknowledge the curious virtue of the Dockers' early and spectacularly unsuccessful existence. For it's my impression that despite, or perhaps because of, Freo's inept on and off-field performances, the Dockers have managed to inspire far more affection than they either deserved or expected.

Fremantle supporters enjoy an almost parental relationship with the football club. We were present at the birth and endured the complications. We have survived the toddler years and, despite concerns about early childhood development, anticipate with great excitement the onset of puberty. No matter that the Dockers frequently test our patience. This is all part of parenthood and, besides, a perfect kid (West Coast, ages 3-6) would be predictable and boring.

I have no serious credentials for writing this book. Lack of application and the usual adolescent diversions brought a promising junior football career to a screeching halt at Subiaco colts level. And — as you'll discover later on — I'm not one of those pedantic 'Freo People' who seem to think anyone living more than two kilometres from South Terrace should apply for a visa to cross the river into 'their' port town.

I possess no unusual tactical insights into Australian football, although let me be so bold as to suggest it might occasionally

have assisted the Dockers' cause had players chosen to kick the footy to their team-mates and bump their opponents, rather than vice versa. I am a terrible tipster, although this can be rationalised by a ridiculous tendency to stubbornly select Freo, as well as whoever happens to be playing against the Eagles. (While the former has been the equivalent of flushing money down the toilet, the latter is, happily, becoming slightly more profitable.)

And, just to emphasise my complete lack of suitability for this intangible task, I am currently living in Canberra where, despite the AFL's best intentions to spread the gospel of Australian football, the Dockers' guernsey remains about as recognisable as the Ecuador national anthem.

So how has this assignment fallen on such unworthy shoulders? As ever, you can blame Rupert Murdoch.

In 1997, after more than a decade working in commercial television, I joined Murdoch's flagship national paper, The Australian , as its Perth bureau chief. It was apparent the Dockers were receiving scant coverage outside Western Australia, for the admittedly convincing reasons that a) Mick Malthouse and his successful West Coast Eagles were the AFL giants in the west and beyond and b) Fremantle were regarded as a national joke. Still, it's no use holding a position of even meagre influence in the media without sometimes flexing your muscles. So, as bureau chief, I'd occasionally attempt to retail the charms of the Dockers to a wider audience. Remarkably, the newspaper agreed to publish these stray missives, which was all the encouragement required.

Even more remarkably, people began to respond to these infrequent stories of a strange and unsuccessful football team in a faraway land and — remarkablest(?) — the sports editor suggested I start a column in The Weekend Australian . Entitled 'Left Field', this humble rectangle has evolved into a weekly rant in the sporting section which, invariably but not always, manages to survey the Dockers' latest catastrophe.

The column has attracted regular, and welcome, correspondence, plenty of it uncomplimentary.

While many people take their sport extremely seriously, my philosophy is that life's much too short and hectic to become wound up by what happens on a football field. I've covered a lot of sport during twenty years as a reporter, but I'm not a dedicated sports journalist. This has afforded me a certain licence and luxury not available to hardened footy hacks. Ridicule and dark humour have tended to colour my assessments of the Dockers, tools not so readily accessible to reporters forced to front the coach and players twice a week.

Consequently, you'd have thought I'd have enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the club. Why should any of the dedicated and hardworking people who commit their lives and careers to Fremantle tolerate a glib, smart-alecky journo who regularly insults the side in the national newspaper? To their eternal credit, members of the Dockers' hierarchy have never been remotely precious. At least, not to my face.

This is best exemplified by my first meeting with the former club chairman Ross McLean. I'd been invited by a business

group to chair a Western Derby breakfast where McLean and his Eagles' counterpart Michael Smith were the main attractions. I'd met McLean once or twice during his stint as a federal Liberal MP in the 1980s, but otherwise we barely knew each other. It was with some trepidation that I arrived at the function, having just polished off a string of columns less than complimentary towards the Dockers and their management.

Yet McLean couldn't have been friendlier. Love your column, he said, and proceeded to quote verbatim from one or another. Now journos love this sort of thing, so we got on famously. We enjoyed our breakfast and later, at the podium, I gave a short speech to introduce the chairmen. Part of the brief was to pose a few questions, so I asked McLean to talk the audience through the hardest patch of the year. It was 1999 and Fremantle, in keeping with their penchant for hitting the ground running, had lost the opening six matches.

As a former politician, McLean knows a bit about holding an audience and he proceeded to deliver a sincere and passionate reply. He spoke about losers training just as hard as winners, perhaps even harder. He told of looking into the eyes of his players after yet another disappointment and feeling crushed by their utter despair and obvious heartache. He insisted it wasn't losing that was hardest, or the criticism that inevitably followed or the financial hardship that accompanied prolonged lack of success.

'No,' uttered McLean with fire in his eyes. 'It's the ridicule.' Since quite possibly the best available description of my rela-

tionship with Fremantle is Ridiculer-in-Chief, I almost fell off the dais. Instead, I quickly fired a question to Smith, deftly changing the topic.

There is no reconciling this conundrum. Unless McLean and other long-serving, hardworking Fremantle officials are lying, they genuinely appreciate being routinely, if gently, mocked in The Weekend Australian . Yet if Dockers' supporters require the patience of a conventful of Carmelites, imagine the frustrations of the players and officials who devote most of their lives and much of their sanity attending to the AFL's indigent and eccentric stepchild.

Whatever the criticisms and cruelties contained in this book, hopefully its readers will, like Ross McLean, appreciate it is underwritten by an illogical, deep and genuine affection for Fremantle. In a world where legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi's famous observation about success — 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing' — has been slightly tweaked (making a profit having almost superseded victory), supporting Fremantle seems to me to represent more simple and honourable values. Humour, for a start. Loyalty, persistence and struggle. Patience and tolerance. An antidote to the incurable virus of instant gratification.

These values will never prevent a coach from getting the sack or a player from being unfairly lampooned. But they are, nonetheless, important. If nothing else, this book is about recording the existence of these rare attributes while they still survive in an elite sporting competition at the start of the twenty-first century.

For it seems Fremantle has begun to emerge from its idiotic slumber under new coach Chris Connolly. Finals and AFL success appear within our grasp. Dockers' fans can anticipate a future where we'll gaze upon a five-goal lead and imagine stretching it to ten, rather than calculating, with military precision, the moment the opposing side will rally to snatch the ascendancy. When a Dockers' forward will be able to embark on a lead with near certainty his life will not be endangered by the shirtfront of an errant team-mate. When the bulk of Fremantle's squad will play their best football for the Dockers, and not with the team to which they are transferred. When the tactical wizardry of Gerard Neesham and the strategic genius of Damian Drum are fading and vaguely pleasant memories. When the players, nay, the greater football public, know by rote the words and tune to our admittedly ludicrous club song.

One of the numerous wonders of following Fremantle is the knack of detecting thin silver threads of strato-cumulus through even the darkest, most violent storm. Dockers' fans can invariably invoke the thin strand of an unfeasible argument to end a horror losing streak. Where others see brown and grey, we are forever searching for the spot of primary colour on the otherwise bleak Rembrandt-school canvas. Often such pre-match folly has been brutally exposed by halfway through the second quarter. Occasionally — joyously — we prevail against the odds.

With success beckoning, I hope this book might survive as a

reminder of Fremantle's early, horror years. They've been dark and frustrating but, in retrospect, would we have wanted it any other way? The failures of the past will surely take on a rosy, nostalgic glow as Connolly leads the team into an exciting new era.

Although, as the Dockers' silly club song concedes, we've still got some Way To Go.

SOMETHING TO CHERISH

Someday someone will make The Great Australian Rules Movie (apologies to The Club), but they should be sure the plot doesn't run along the lines of Friday night's draining epic between Fremantle and Adelaide. Put simply, nobody would believe it. Yet it happened before our eyes on Subiaco Oval.

The Dockers, who had spent the week being ridiculed and maligned amid speculation over coach Gerard Neesham's future, got up by one point against the premiers. They lost two players to knee injuries in the first half. They ceded the lead halfway through one of the most exciting, see-sawing and frenetic final quarters seen at any ground this year and looked like being steamrolled.

They watched as Darren Jarman kicked eight goals for the Crows, set up at least three more, yet kicked a mongrel torpedo off the side of his previously magic boot and out on the full from a long set shot with a minute to play.

But wait, there's more ... let's hand over to Mr Spielberg. With five seconds left and still a point the difference, Adelaide's Nigel Smart grabs a loose ball and slams it onto his left boot. (Cut to slo-mo.) Ball swirls and drifts high above the right-hand point post. (Cut to close-up.) Goal and boundary umpires confer, the hatless one

takes over and extends his arms as siren sounds. (Cut to grand finale.) Mayhem as Fremantle win, some players embrace injured team-mates while others offer rude signals in the direction of the press box. Adelaide coach Malcolm Blight nonchalantly wanders away, earning best supporting actor nomination. Neesham wins Oscar for role as downtrodden but vindicated hero. (Roll credits, up music  — 'Freeeoooh, way to go' et cetera).

All this and much more happened in what Neesham later described as 'the best moment we've had in our club'. Fair enough, since most pundits fully expected Adelaide to drive another nail into the coach's coffin. 'The only way we could answer that innuendo and talk and hype in the media was to answer it the best way possible,' Neesham said. 'And we took a young group of people out there and answered it.'

Two of those youngsters probably won't be returning for another twelve months. Knee injuries to promising tall forward Paul Maher and important midfielder Luke Toia require reconstructions and add to the Dockers' barely believable run of bad luck with injuries.

Neesham admitted the sheer volume of recuperating players had not just hampered Fremantle's on-field performance, but created a 'pretty depressing' atmosphere around the club.

Such woes were forgotten on Friday night in a game which won the Dockers many friends and may have kept the jury out on the future of Neesham, who, in tense and cruel circumstances, arguably out-coached Blight.

Fremantle's James Clement entirely sacrificed his own game in the forward line to counter the usually damaging Smart. Captain Peter

Mann played his best game of the year in defence, while unheralded forward Michael Brown kicked four goals at full-forward. Ruckman Matthew Burton and follower Jess Sinclair, used sparingly early in the game, appeared to have plenty in the tank to play important roles in the Dockers' thrilling, and ultimately successful, final quarter.

Whither Adelaide? Friday's loss and the previous week's four-point defeat by Carlton effectively derail the Crows' top four ambitions yet Blight, predictably unpredictable, played down the disappointment. 'Deep down we're still trying to be a competitive footy club,' he explained. 'That's the step I thought we might have been taking at this stage anyhow  — forgetting what happened last year.'

For readers from Mars or suffering dim memories, Blight's side won their first AFL flag last year, sending South Australia into orbit and placing the coach in the same rarefied company as another Adelaide resident who fancied himself as a sportsman, Don Bradman. Crows fans won't forget 1997 in a hurry and, having suffered a year of inconsistency and injury, Dockers supporters now have something to cherish as well.

-Weekend Australian, 27 July 1999.

2

Obsession:

A Flavour of Our Own

Sometimes I lie awake at night, eyes agog, body ashiver and bathed in sweat, petrified by the horrifying thought that, but for a quirk of timing, I too might have ended up as an Eagles supporter. Certainly there was no animosity towards West Coast when they joined the national competition in 1987; indeed, it's instructive to recall the low key entry of the first West Australian side into the expanded VFL.

Working as a reporter for Channel Nine, I remember laughing at the ridiculously kitsch introduction of the players as they emerged through a banner you're more likely to see nowadays at an Under Eights game, to stand, bemused and awkward, on a makeshift stage in those fetching blue and gold jumpers. At the time the local WAFL competition was still the central focus of most West Australians' attention and, from memory, many regarded the fledgling Eagles as not much more than a curio.

If I'm honest, I'll admit to barracking for West Coast while covering the club's first official practice game, a pre-season night match against Footscray. It was a stirring, come-from-behind victory in Melbourne, in retrospect a portent of the powerful team which would emerge a few years later. The Eagles went on to win their first serious game against Richmond and knocked up an impressive 11-11 record in their debut season, before displaying one of those nasty qualities which were to rankle in later years. They sacked coach Ron Alexander.

But I'd be lying if I attested to any deep animosity towards West Coast in that first year. My heart was still with Subiaco in the local league. Indeed, the transition to the national competition proved painful for many diehard West Australian football supporters; there is an enduring sadness in the WAFL's consequent loss of popularity, prestige and tradition from the switch.

So, as my wife and I waved a tearful goodbye to family and friends and boarded a plane to Thailand in the early days of 1988, there were no particularly hard feelings towards West Coast. To be fair, the Eagles endured pretty rough treatment from football authorities in those early days — no decent ground, shocking facilities — and any fair-minded person probably felt more than a grain of sympathy for the tackily-attired new birds of the competition. So, while I can't be sure, I suspect if you'd stopped me at the airport that day and asked whom I barracked for in the VFL, there's a chance I might have said West Coast. There, I've admitted it. But honestly, I can't be sure.

Anyway, a planned twelve month trip to London stretched into three years, and when we returned to Perth at the start of 1991, the football landscape had been completely transformed. The VFL had become the AFL and practically everyone you spoke to back home was infatuated by the Eagles. John Todd had taken over from Alexander but, after propelling West Coast into the final five — a remarkable feat, the Eagles had a shocker in 1989 and Todd was sacked.

Mick Malthouse had subsequently arrived from Victoria and steered the Eagles into the dramatic 1990 finals series, when West Coast played in four finals including a draw, travelled tens of thousands of miles across all sorts of indirect routes during a national pilots' strike, and earned wide respect for finishing third. This was part of the state's folklore by the time we settled back into life in Perth, but had entirely passed us by during our time in the UK. Perhaps my sympathies would have been with West Coast had I lived through the horrendous trouncing in 1989, when the Eagles kicked just a single goal against Essendon, or had I sucked in breath with fellow West Australians the following year as Peter Sumich missed a goal after the siren to force a draw to (shamefully) ease the way for Collingwood to win its first premiership in thirty-two years.

But Sue was pregnant and I was looking for a job, and footy had been under our radar for three years. It's hard to believe that the passion for Australian Rules can fade — witnessing your side win a close game is comfortably the best sporting experience in the world — but English soccer became a satisfying substitute in

the absence of AFL (there was scant international television coverage and no internet back then). Indeed, the one match I did see during our time away was when a friend sent over a tape of the epic 1989 Grand Final between Hawthorn and Geelong, which sparked a fleeting, and ultimately frustrating, affection for Gary Ablett and the Cats.

Anyway, having little or no knowledge of the Eagles back in 1991 was akin to arriving at the charming Scottish university town of St Andrews and asking why there's grass growing at the end of the main street. Being something of a contrarian, this tidal wave of devotion immediately got my back up. Things only got worse when West Coast started the 1991 season by winning their first twelve games.

Hysteria is not sufficient to describe the atmosphere around Perth that year as it became apparent West Coast were emerging as the best side in the competition. The Eagles were front, centre and back pages of the papers and at the start, middle and end of the television news. People who'd previously shown scant interest in football and had little knowledge of the game scampered aboard what was, by now, not so much a bandwagon as a speeding locomotive. It was sheer madness, and I became closely embroiled in — indeed, partly responsible for — it all when, while working as a general news reporter for Channel Nine, I was assigned to help feed the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for anything West Coast.

And I mean anything. If Chris Mainwaring farted, we'd film it, offer to dry-clean his underpants and present it to the

audience that night as the special fragrance that was going to help the Eagles steal the premiership cup from beneath the runny noses of those horrible Victorians. If Craig Turley appeared at the local hospital, he wasn't merely filling in time but making his bid to succeed Mother Teresa as the world's foremost carer for the poor. West Coast captain John Worsfold wasn't a mere pharmacist by day, he became a contender for the Nobel Prize in science.

Dealing with the Eagles meant dealing with Malthouse which, during these heightened, crazy days, wasn't particularly pleasant. The upshot of all this meant it wasn't long before I completely loathed West Coast. The seeds of affection I'd developed for Geelong didn't help, since the Eagles thrashed the Cats to win their two premiership flags in 1992 and 1994. Barracking against West Coast wasn't especially fruitful; besides alienating oneself from a majority of the community, the Eagles were so dominant in the early 1990s they rarely lost a game.

In truth, it was this dominance which helped spawn the Fremantle Dockers. As both West Australian sides later languished near the bottom of the AFL ladder, it was ironic to remember the paranoia engendered by the Eagles' early success. Melbourne clubs feared a dynasty which might last for decades and it wasn't long before influential footy folk, such as veteran Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, were advocating a second team out of Western Australia, ostensibly to split the talent pool in the west. By 1993, it was clear that club would emerge from the Fremantle area, which was all I and other Eaglephobes required.

We didn't know the name of the side or the coach or the home ground or the players. We weren't even certain when they'd be admitted into the competition. But one thing we did know — they weren't the wretched West Coast Eagles. This simple, glorious truth guaranteed the second side its share of instant affection.

On 21 July 1994, the Fremantle Football Club won its licence from the AFL. David Hatt — a former state hockey player, Labor Party hack and, importantly, good bloke — had already been employed as chief executive and Gerard Neesham, then in charge of the local Claremont side, was signed up as inaugural coach. A troika of pleasant surprises revealed on that famous evening proved especially attractive to anyone with a slightly warped sense of humour.

The club would be called the Dockers, which was meant as a tribute to Fremantle's historic port but, according to my brother — a conservative lawyer and Eagles fanatic — was, in fact, a blatant nod to communism as espoused, in his eyes at least, by the waterfront unions. (Years later a senior and influential minister in the Court Coalition government whispered to me that he quite liked the cash-strapped Dockers but would only countenance assisting the club if they changed the name.)

This apparent affinity with the proletariat was a clever marketing ploy since West Coast supporters, many of them new to the game, were notoriously fickle and silent. When the Dockers were up and running it wasn't uncommon for officials and commentators to remark that 20,000 Fremantle fans

cheering their losing side made much more noise than 35,000 West Coasters politely clapping another dour, low-scoring victory. Often the crowds at Eagles games were so silent you could close your eyes and hear the clink of the silverware in the corporate boxes. (On second thoughts, I'd never have cut it as an Eagles' supporter since not a drop of white wine has passed my lips since an ugly, ugly night at the wrong end of a cheap cask — riesling, from memory, not chardonnay — around the time John Lennon died in 1980.) As Dockers, the club immediately benefited from a kind of imaginary inverse snobbery. It was footy's equivalent of 'Upstairs/Downstairs'. While the Eagles drove 4WDs and lived charmed lives, and enjoyed undeserved success, we, the Dockers, would toil and battle and unite and earn whatever scraps came our way. This, of course, was utter crap and, as the team has struggled, many have questioned the negative impact of playing for a club which seems to have deliberately eschewed glamour. Yet there's no denying the charm of the club's moniker, nor that Dockers' fans feel morally superior to their Eagles counterparts. While there is absolutely no proof of this, the thought continues to sustain us.

The second surprise was the choice of an anchor to symbolise Fremantle Football Club. This simple, humble and, frankly, ridiculous decision reinforced the Dockers' working-class roots. Let the Bombers bomb, the Tigers roar, the Magpies fly and the Eagles soar. We were the Dockers — heavy, ungainly and sinking like a stone. It was as though the architects of the club were letting everyone in on a private joke. In an era where

money and perceived professionalism were as important as talent and victory in gauging a sporting outfit's success, the Dockers seemed intent on creating their own counter-culture. It wasn't sufficient not to be the Eagles, we had to emphasise this difference at every juncture. As the Dockers have struggled through the years, the anchor has proved a cartoonist's dream. But most of the fans love it and the absurd pre-game ritual whereby a giant anchor is solemnly hauled onto the ground and triumphantly raised, Excalibur-like, into the air remains immensely popular against the odds.

Finally, the colours — red, white, green and purple — instantly set Fremantle apart as sartorially superior to the rest of the AFL. No other club had experimented with green and purple, possibly because one symbolises envy and the other profanity (Dockers' supporters would quickly learn to relate to this colour combination). But the mix proved a nice tribute to Fremantle's Italian heritage and, again, emitted a strong signal that the Dockers would be different. Long before a ball was bounced, Fremantle had won many hearts for their bold (some would argue silly) anti-establishment sensibilities.

At the end of the 1994 season, Neesham conducted an historic first training session in front of three thousand enthusiastic supporters. That first pack of Dockers resembled an unholy rabble — some things never change — but there was an undeniable sense of excitement and momentum building as the club prepared for its AFL baptism.

The early mail had the Dockers dedicated to being as

different inside the boundary line as they were off the field, and confirmation of this arrived in the inaugural practice match against Essendon in February. All AFL fans understand pre-season form is as fraudulent as a 1980s entrepreneur, especially since most coaches take advantage of these friendly encounters to experiment with their line-ups. Sheedy, the Bombers' coach, is a master exponent of the AFL Bunsen burner, and on this particular day the eccentric veteran pulled what could only be described as an unobvious ploy by starting with seventeen rather than eighteen men. It may have provided Sheedy with some amazing insight, it may have been merely patronising and complacent. Either way, by half-time the scoreboard at Fremantle Oval showed the Dockers had kicked ten goals to Essendon's one. The Bombers' missing player was eventually summoned to appear as Fremantle went on to win comfortably.

Excitement was building but wiser heads anticipated Fremantle would struggle. In their traditional pre-season previews, pundits around the nation agreed the Dockers would finish last and struggle to win a handful of games. Coming off their second premiership season, the seemingly indestructible West Coast Eagles hogged most of the publicity and speculation. By the time Fremantle were ready for the official home-and-away debut — appropriately enough on 1 April — not much was expected of these green but sartorially stylish rookies.

Ten of Fremantle's twenty-one players made their AFL debuts running onto the MCG against Richmond. Of the rest, only brilliant Hawthorn premiership player, and fairest and best, Ben

Allan, our first captain, belonged anywhere near the top shelf. Vice-captain Scott Watters had defected from West Coast, while Peter Mann and Stephen O'Reilly returned to Perth after establishing themselves in Victoria. Otherwise, that inaugural team might have been an advert for Footballers Anonymous.

And yet, against all probability, these gallant April Fools performed beyond expectations. We were actually in front of the Tigers at the first break, but had fallen four goals behind by the start of the last quarter. While the script may have read 'comfortable win for Richmond', inspired by the occasion and Neesham's quirky coaching methods, the Dockers rallied and nearly stole the game. The home side thanked their lucky stars they'd escaped total humiliation, and the visitors flew home to rave reviews.

A similar thing happened the following week. Essendon travelled to the WACA ground and, wisely, Sheedy opted to start with his full allotment. Fremantle were competitive in the first half, faded in the third quarter but again rallied to lose by just nine points. Sheedy left muttering about a dangerous new enemy army gathering strength on the western front.

By Round 3, the Dockers' first victory was almost an anti-climax. Fitzroy had started the season suffering two fearful thumpings and would eventually be ejected from the competition at the end of 1996. Fremantle travelled to Melbourne on the Easter weekend and proceeded to wallop the dispirited Lions by seven goals.

In retrospect, this trio of matches was a mere bagatelle before the

sumptuous feast which would, effectively, cement the relationship between Fremantle and its supporters. Geelong arrived in Perth for a Friday night game, unbeaten in their first three matches. The Cats had played and lost the previous year's Grand Final, a feat they would reprise later in the year. The Dockers had opened with a brace of honourable losses against middling opponents and the workaday victory over Fitzroy, an AFL carcass. Geelong, though, were regarded as a benchmark for the competition.

It was a balmy night at the jam-packed WACA ground as we arrived for what was my first eye-witness glimpse of the new kiddies in town. With hindsight, those magnificent and frenetic three hours perfectly captured the spirit, fun, flair and frustration of the Dockers under Neesham. During the first half, Fremantle controlled most of the play to score an appallingly prodigal 3.14. As Dockers forwards lined up to invent brilliantly creative ways of missing from within fifteen metres, superstar full-forward Gary Ablett did just enough on his own to keep Geelong in the contest. The Cats got the stumbles as well and, looking back at the video, it's doubtful any AFL contest has contained such sustained abominable kicking on goal. 'You'd have to see this game twice to convince yourself it's true,' declares awestruck Channel Seven commentator Ian Robertson. 'What's happening out there is unbelievable.'

And yet for all the Dockers' wastefulness and inefficiency, they were stunning that night. Geelong were clearly ill-prepared for Neesham's unorthodox tactics, and as the journeymen in green and purple ran and foxed and bounced and weaved, their

fancied opponents had not a clue how to cope. Fremantle seemed to be employing a deliberate Keystone Kops approach to football, where everyone ran everywhere in all sorts of odd directions in an attempt to propel the ball from one end of the ground to the other via both boundary lines. It was like watching a colony of amphetamine-fuelled ants bamboozling a bunch of slow-moving and even slower thinking slugs. The largely anonymous Fremantle tyros were making the celebrity-packed Grand Finalists look like clowns.

Some of football's finest party tricks were invented that night. Dale Kickett is the football reject's football reject. Having tried and, let's be frank, failed with four other AFL clubs, Kickett had been given a fifth chance by Neesham and was playing his fiftieth game. On two precious occasions, Kickett, running Geelong ragged with his erratic, darting charges out of defence, took possession of the football and chose to stop dead in his tracks. The game literally ground to a halt as the deft Aboriginal player openly taunted opposition players to tackle him. Watters, the vice-captain, also adopted this audacious Unofficial Time Out tactic a couple of times that night. It was apparently part of Neesham's maintain-possession-at-any-cost strategy and it bamboozled everyone — especially Geelong, but fans and commentators as well.

'Is that a penalty?' a clearly confused Robertson asks himself on air after Kickett's first impersonation of a statue holding a football. 'No,' Robbo reassures himself. 'Well, he hasn't moved anywhere I suppose.'

Later, Seven's footy doyen Bruce McAvaney is speechless before muttering, 'That's unusual, isn't it, in AFL footy that a bloke can have the footy for so long.'

It certainly was unusual, as were the frustrating but hilarious tactics employed by the Dockers' defence. Dozens of potentially suicidal chip kicks were delivered within the shadow of the Geelong goals, yet on this night a majority miraculously managed to find their target. In his fourth AFL game, Scott Chisholm was emerging as a national star and chief scriptwriter in the Dockers' stand-up comedy team. Chisholm, another Aborigine, could perform jaw-dropping feats of skill and evasion one minute, only to follow them up with mistakes so basic as to make a primary school kid blush the next. For much of the night, Chisholm carved up Geelong, but several hideous bungles — dropped marks, silly kicks, dumb handballs — would contribute to half the opposition's score. Neesham and his players may have had a plan, but it certainly couldn't be found in the index of any English language textbook.

If Geelong went to the break like a bleeding boxer stumbling blindly for the ropes, it emerged amidst a hail of knockout punches. Somehow, Freo managed to combine exhilarating field play with reasonable accuracy and by the end of the third quarter the Dockers were six goals in front. There were a few stumbles on the way home, but Fremantle's nineteen-point victory flattered Geelong. Close to 27,000 people at the sold-out WACA gave the home side the type of reception last heard at the

famous oval when Dennis Lillee was steaming in from the river end during the 1970s and 80s.

'They've got a real flavour of their own, Fremantle,' McAvaney raved at the end of the match. 'They're great to watch, gee they're exciting.'

Not for the first time, Bruce was spot on. The joy and camaraderie in the crowd were tangible as we drifted away out of the white light of the WACA to return to our homes in the shadows. Sporting magic had been concocted that night and tens of thousands of helpless footy fans were now charmed by the Dockers' spell.

PEOPLE WITH A VICIOUS HATRED

I received a call from a friend this week. He's an old friend, someone I can trust to be honest. The kind of friend who, if I were an Opposition Leader struggling in the political opinion polls, might make the call to gently urge me to resign for the good of the nation — no hard feelings.

He started with a spoonful of sugar: 'You know I like your column.' Go on, get on with it. 'But aren't you going on too much about the Dockers?' Being as receptive to criticism as most men, a thin mist of steam immediately appeared before my eyes, the pulse raced and my hackles went up.

What would this (ex-)friend know? Without thinking, I could fill a handful of these rectangles on diverse and enthralling topics such as how young Dockers' draftee Paul Hasleby is the best first-year player since Nathan Buckley, how mercurial Clive Waterhouse may be traversing the Andre Agassi path from clown prince to champion and how pleasing it was to see another disappointing Freo reject, Kingsley Hunter, kick the goal of the week running magnificently out of defence for the Western Bulldogs. Doesn't this traitorous former colleague — on reflection, he was never really a

friend — understand that, without the Dockers, there is no column.

I'll admit to a twinge of self-doubt when the editor rang soon after with a friendly suggestion for a future column: nothing to do with Fremantle. But being a Sydney-sider, he a) doesn't understand AFL and b) is roughly five thousand kilometres away and can be ignored. Besides, Freo won last weekend. Such an unobtrusive sentence, but one Dockers' fans haven't been able to drop into casual conversation for more than eight months.

Fremantle's convincing away win over Port Adelaide not only delivered the Dockers a shock four points, it helped fill a void created by Mick Malthouse's shift to Collingwood last year. For almost a decade, Malthouse reigned as the grumpiest coach in the AFL, intimidating reporters with typical snappishness tempered by the occasional mystifying ancient Chinese adage. But by the end of his ten-year tenure at West Coast, Malthouse had started to soften. And he's been downright mild-mannered since taking over at Victoria Park.

The absence of a cantankerous coach hasn't been healthy. Grumpiness is an essential ingredient in the coaching mix, along with unhinged (Kevin Sheedy), tortured (Tim Watson), dour (Denis Pagan), earthy (Terry Daniher), earnest (Terry Wallace) and intense (David Parkin).

Enter Damian Drum to fill the breach. Clearly unhappy with his typecast role in the coaching dramatis personae — besieged — the Dockers' coach came out spraying after Saturday night's win. 'You know I'm a bit sick of you blokes,' he told reporters. 'They make me talk to you blokes, I don't do it because I want to.' But Drummie was only warming up. 'There are people in your industry that do a

lot of damage to guys like me. If we play horrible ... we expect to be hung out to dry. But we don't expect people with a vicious hatred of our club holding positions of power in the West Australian media.'

Now Drummie's not a natural grump and, like a ham actor, he's overplayed the role on debut. It's simply unthinkable that anyone anywhere could bear a 'vicious hatred' of the Fremantle Dockers. Cruel indifference, perhaps. Mild annoyance. Wicked ignorance. Gentle mocking. Fiendish pity. Lukewarm antipathy. Even moderate dislike. But people are more likely to viciously hate Susie O'Neill than the Dockers. If Drummie's going to be a convincing grump, he's got to get a better scriptwriter.

By the way, those snide folk who've made contact to claim the Freo coach may have been referring to this column are way out of line. True, this rectangle holds a 'position of power' in Western Australia, where locals tremble at the notion of being trapped in Left Field's sights. But how can my odd gentle dig at Freo possibly be misconstrued as vicious hatred? To eliminate any doubt, let me end with an embarrassing admission.

Listening on the radio to the Dockers' win last Saturday night (I couldn't wait for the delayed television broadcast), it took some effort to fight back tears of joy when, despite the incredulity of the commentators, Freo pulled about eight goals ahead of Port during the last quarter. This bloody hapless bunch of footy players is starting to get to me. Perhaps I should take notice of the ex-friend and lay off for a while.

-Weekend Australian, 25 March 2000.

3

Whimsy: Gerard Neesham

The Grand Sorcerer responsible for the Dockers' erratic charm, Fremantle's version of Hogwarts' Professor Albert Dumbledore, was our iconoclastic inaugural coach.

In retrospect, it's easy to see where Gerard Neesham's penchant for the chaotic originated. As one of thirteen children, it would have been tougher for young Gerry to get a word in around the dinner table than to win a kick out in the middle. And as an expert water-polo player, Neesham was steeped in a sport where ostensible calm tends to disguise unseen mayhem.

An outstanding player for both East Fremantle and Swan Districts in the WAFL, Neesham played to a beat of his own. He wasn't tall or strong, and seemed inordinately slow for a midfielder, yet somehow Neesham managed to locate the ball and meander around the park at his own deceptively leisurely pace. He'd win possession amidst heavy traffic, pause, casually sidestep and somehow avoid a half-dozen desperate tackle attempts. Neesham was shrewd and cunning and cocky, much smarter than the average player and he knew it. He was a sneaky

bugger, too, able to dish out sly backhanders and escape the scene of the crime wearing a cheeky 'Who me?' grin.

Neesham played a handful of games for the Sydney Swans but, like many star West Australian players during the 1970s and early 1980s, he'd left his run too late. There's no question Neesham would have been up to VFL/AFL standard had he made the journey in his prime. A fiercely proud West Australian, Neesham never subscribed to the theory that the standard of football played in the world's most isolated city was automatically inferior to that being practised elsewhere. It was this stubborn streak of parochialism and self-belief that would later colour his approach to AFL coaching, producing the template for Fremantle's many endearing quirks and foibles, and laying a few landmines for Neesham's eventual implosion.

The extended Neesham family was virtually a mini-sporting dynasty. Various Neeshams over numerous generations played with East Fremantle in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL), Gerard's grandfather was a champion welterweight boxer and his brother Ted led the Australian water polo side at two Olympics. Yet, as it became apparent Neesham would be appointed to take charge of the Dockers, the grumbles around the port town about the coach's lack of 'Fremantle-ness' were instant and audible. Neesham's sin was an eight-year stint in charge of WAFL club Claremont, where he presided over four local premiership sides from six Grand Finals. Critics claimed Neesham's Freo credentials had been soiled, especially since the wealthy Claremont area was prime Eagles' chardonnay-

quaffing territory. From a distance this may appear staggeringly small-minded, but to an awful lot of people it seemed to matter. Not, though, to Neesham who didn't merely ignore the critics, but made sure roughly half his initial Dockers' squad had some kind of Claremont connection stamped on their footy passports.

Neesham had earned a reputation as an innovative coach with a knack for producing top flight AFL footballers. He was also an ornery character, never shy to speak his mind and ever vigilant and suspicious of the impact the burgeoning national competition was having on the local league. Neesham had been bred on an elite WAFL, but by the early 1990s, as Mick Malthouse led West Coast to grand finals and premierships, the local competition was a shell of its former self. Where crowds of 20,000 once gathered, barely two thousand diehards bothered to follow the second division. This rankled with Neesham, who made a habit of defending the fading history and dying traditions of the WAFL.

Neesham's courage and outspokenness can best be gauged by his willingness to lock horns with Malthouse. Fringe Eagles' players would drift in and out of their local clubs, where they'd expect to receive red carpet treatment in the WAFL to assist their usefulness to West Coast. Neesham bristled at this inherently patronising system, and didn't hesitate to raise his concerns in public. Given that Malthouse's status and popularity were comparable to George W Bush's in America circa 12 September 2001, criticising Mick and his Eagles required rare effrontery.

Certainly the majority of Perth's sports reporters weren't prepared to similarly risk their lives and livelihoods.

Neesham seemed to actively enjoy needling Malthouse whose Eagles, despite their dominance during the early 1990s, were widely perceived — especially by putative Dockers' supporters — as interminably dreary. Neesham would never specifically admit to it — he wasn't such a mindless maverick to disrespect West Coast — but in preparing the inaugural Dockers he appeared to be deliberately pressing all the right buttons. 'Someone has to develop the type of club it's going to be and that to me is very exciting,' Neesham told the Fremantle Herald  newspaper on being appointed. 'You can look at all the clubs and they're quite different and I like to think we will be different again because we are Fremantle.'

By the time Neesham was ingloriously axed four years later, Fremantle weren't so much 'different' as diseased. Yet for a painfully brief but beautiful period, Neesham's singular approach to football wrong-footed other coaches and clubs and was hailed as revolutionary. Here's how Ted Hopkins in the Herald Sun , Melbourne's mass circulation tabloid and football bible, summed up Fremantle and Neesham early in 1995:

After three rounds Neesham is leading the way which is unreal. Surreal. Never seen before. Miraculous. Neesham, a newcomer to league coaching leading a new team, has the distinction of topping the coaches' quality rating after three rounds.

His achievement is even more remarkable because it goes against the grain of conventional footy wisdom and expectation.

The word before the season was that Neesham had revolutionary ideas that would come unstuck in the big league. He had no Victorian footy know-how. He was insufficiently toughened.

Hopkins then proceeds to analyse Fremantle's statistics and efficiency before declaring:

This is pure and classy footy played in the style of great Victorian-based teams of bygone days — do it once to get a result, clean, crisp, efficient, good defence, good attack and a productive centre group.

Now Ted Hopkins is most famous for coming off the bench to kick four second half goals in Carlton's epic win over Collingwood in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. He's also something of a statistical wizard. But you'd suspect that on re-reading his glowing report on Fremantle, Ted feels like one of those European political correspondents during the early 1930s who predicted Hitler's rise to power in Germany might assist world peace. Indeed, any Dockers' supporter perusing that last paragraph — Clean? Crisp? Efficient? Productive? — would seriously wonder whether the Herald Sun's  man wasn't either colourblind and writing about another club, or else the newspaper's resident satirist.

Yet, for what we now recognise as the flutter of an eyelid, Neesham had people worried. Established coaches, such as Carlton's David Parkin, St Kilda's Stan Alves and Hawthorn's Alan Joyce, declared the balding, chinless Dockers' maestro to be a football visionary. Alves has since told how all AFL coaches were taken aback by Fremantle's style of play, and when Parkin declared Fremantle's 'manipulation of time and space' was great for footy, you'd have thought Neesham, Stephen Hawking and the head of the CSIRO got together each week to discuss quantum theory, black holes and their relationship to centre-bounce strategies.

Much time, talk and text were devoted to Neesham's new age tactics but, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever remotely understood them. Almost certainly a majority of the players didn't. As a renowned lateral thinker, Neesham apparently sought to incorporate elements of water polo, soccer and basketball into the Dockers' play; unfortunately, all too often the rudiments of football — get it, kick it, preferably to one of your own — seemed lost or forgotten amidst this potpourri of innovation.

The conventional wisdom had Fremantle playing a 'chip and draw' style of football. As opposed to a flowing, play-on pattern, this centred on winning possession, drawing an opponent before delivering to freed, running team mates. I couldn't quite see it, myself — it seemed the Eagles and other teams adopted similar tactics — but I'm quite willing to accede to far wiser football minds and agree that Neesham was a genius before his time.

From a spectator's perspective, it seemed Neesham presided

over a type of loosely organised anarchy. The Dockers' short but speedy players were encouraged to run with the football. While a reliable, miserly defence was, and still is, regarded as the cornerstone of premiership sides, Neesham urged his full-backs and half-backs to be wildly creative. At training, Fremantle would hold speccy-taking sessions where one player would hitch a mattress to his back as another launched himself over the top for a screamer. Neesham, who forever seemed to have the spectators' boredom threshold at the back of his mind, saw no earthly reason why a player shouldn't fly for a 'hanger', whether in attack or defence. Compare this to Malthouse, who'd have no compunction in dropping a player awarded Mark of the Century if the acclaimed grab had been taken in circumstances which violated a team rule.

It's said Neesham was against taggers — the coach himself rarely articulated his tactics, preferring to retain an aura of mystery and intrigue — and from the grandstands that seemed about right. At times Fremantle players seemed astonishingly unaccountable for their opponents. Collingwood were a very ordinary side during the mid-to-late 1990s, but the Dockers always struggled against the Magpies, largely because their sole class player, Nathan Buckley, tended to win close to forty-five possessions and three Brownlow votes each time the two sides met. This wasn't so much frustrating as hilarious — Dennis Cometti and his fellow Channel Seven commentators once got the giggles watching Buckley's possession tally skyrocket as he pranced around Victoria Park with impunity and, it seemed,

immunity. Yet you had to hand it to Neesham, he was a nuggetty, self-confident type entirely convinced of his own abilities and prepared to defy the critics.

The coach stuck to his guns and occasionally the planets would align and the Dockers would click. The Geelong victory was the first of a series of joyous, against-all-odds triumphs under Neesham's tenure. By Round 10 in 1995 the Dockers had won half their games to emerge as a finals threat. Neesham's young and inexperienced squad faded, but Fremantle's eight wins and thirteen losses saw us finish above four other clubs. By any measure the debut season had been a success.

It was during the following year that Fremantle began to cement its peerless reputation for outrageously erratic performances. The Dockers started strongly, winning three of the first five games. One of these victories came against reigning premiers Carlton, breaking the longest winning streak in the famous club's history. Yet barely a month later the Dockers travelled to Melbourne to be thrashed by Fitzroy, now serving out notice before being evicted from the competition. It was the Lions' sole win of the season and Fremantle were flattered by the five-goal margin. The Dockers struggled home to finish thirteenth with seven wins and fifteen losses. (In the last round of 1996, Fremantle belted Fitzroy at Subiaco Oval in the Lions' farewell match. Magnificently, the Dockers spent several thousand dollars ensuring Fitzroy's historic departure was 'celebrated' with the required gravitas, a moving and perfect gesture typical of the club's generous ethos.)

It was during the ensuing eighteen months that Fremantle's roller-coaster ride under Neesham would hit its sharpest peaks, tightest somersaults and steepest plunges — often within the space of four quarters of football. The Dockers began 1997 beating the Western Bulldogs, one of the league powerhouses that season, who were again thumped by Fremantle in the rematch. St Kilda, who were losing grand finalists in 1997, also lost to the Dockers, and Sheedy's Essendon was slaughtered by almost one hundred points at Subiaco Oval.

A champagne Dockers' moment came during the home game against Brisbane where Fremantle dominated, yet almost surrendered victory. The Lions had managed to keep within reach, mainly through freakish accuracy which saw them kick 15.3 for the day. All appeared lost as the wasteful Dockers trailed late in the game, until Quentin Leach was awarded a free kick on the final siren. Two extraordinarily rare phenomena combined that famous Sunday afternoon. First, the umpires smiled upon Fremantle, since the controversial free was remarkably soft. Second, Leach conspired to kick the goal, sparking jubilant scenes across Perth.

Yet there were many shocking, costly defeats. Against a very ordinary Richmond side, Fremantle led by four goals at three-quarter time, yet couldn't score during the final term and lost by five points. Neither were Collingwood anything special, yet the Magpies and Buckley belted the Dockers by one hundred points, raising serious doubts about Neesham's coaching tenure which would persist until his demise.

Going into the final game of that see-sawing 1997 season, Fremantle still had a silly chance of making the finals. It required several cards to fall the Dockers' way, the only trump being Fremantle were playing bottom side Melbourne. Sadly, Neesham's fatigued and injury-depleted team were smashed by the wooden spooners, closing the door on any chance of September action. Perversely, all other results fell Fremantle's way so that a win over the Demons would, indeed, have propelled the Dockers into the finals. You'd have bet, though, that had we beaten Melbourne the sporting gods would cruelly have conspired to deny us.

The end of the season signalled the expiry of Neesham's initial three-year contract. There was enormous speculation about whether or not he'd be reappointed, a conundrum made all the more intriguing by the finals near miss. The Dockers finished twelfth in 1997, but their ten wins was (and, sadly, still is) a record. In a tight year, Fremantle had missed out on eighth spot by dint of an inferior percentage. Consequently, the jury was still out on Neesham and practically every armchair expert in Western Australia considered him or herself to be chief juror.

It's true that a shocking run of injury had crippled Fremantle during those first three years and would continue to haunt the side long after Neesham's departure. Many of the Dockers' best players seemed to spend as much time in hospital wards and hyperbaric chambers as at training; this horrible run of bad luck and Fremantle's dreaded 'captain's curse' — to be discussed later — landed a double whammy to end the career of Ben Allan.

By far Fremantle's best and most crucial player, and an almost lone source of inspiration to younger Dockers, the captain played just eight games in 1996 whilst plagued by a serious knee injury. Allan stepped down as captain in 1997 and was forced to retire after just forty-seven games with the Dockers. Allan's brutal and premature demise was a bitter blow for Neesham, who struggled to fill the vacuum of skill and experience. While Allan was the most telling casualty, he was no orphan — whichever company was providing health insurance to Fremantle during the late 1990s must surely have gone broke. Neesham was loath to make excuses about the Dockers' performance, but no one doubted the impact of injuries on his plans to build and improve the team.

Nonetheless, Neesham's recruiting nous was widely held open to ridicule. Allan aside, Neesham was unable to persuade any high profile 'marquee' players to shift to Fremantle, despite concessions to the new club and plenty of money to throw around. This may not have been the coach's fault — quite rightly, few star footballers would seriously countenance abandoning a traditional and/or successful club for relocation in the strange Fremantle laboratory. But Neesham's inexplicable contempt for the draft system cost him and the club dearly. On at least one occasion, Neesham didn't bother to show up on draft-pick days and his record in horse-trading with other clubs painted Freo as the AFL's prize mug.

Andrew McLeod has won two Norm Smith medals and is largely responsible for Adelaide's two AFL premierships, yet Neesham was unimpressed with the young Aboriginal player who

he apparently regarded as 'cocky'. McLeod's father thought Neesham rude and the fledgling superstar was eventually traded to the Crows for Chris Groom. Groom contributed virtually nothing to the Dockers, largely because of a crippling knee injury.

It's difficult to judge whether this was the worst of Neesham's trade disasters since there were so many others. At the end of 2001, the Dockers belatedly secured the services of Melbourne superstar forward Jeff Farmer, but only after spending so much money as to get themselves into salary cap trouble. Yet almost on a whim, Farmer was traded before the start of the Dockers' inaugural season for one of Neesham's old Claremont cohorts, Phil Gilbert. Perhaps Farmer will prove to be one of the best players to wear the Dockers' jumper; there are plenty of supporters around who'll provide you with convincing arguments that Gilbert was one of the worst.

Young Korean-born rover Peter Bell made an auspicious start for the Dockers, scoring goals with his first two kicks in the club's first match. Yet Bell would only play once more with Fremantle before Neesham adjudged him excess to requirements. North Melbourne promptly signed Bell and watched him emerge as one of the club leaders and best players in two Kangaroos' premiership sides. Fremantle later wooed the tireless and refreshingly intelligent midfielder back home — he is now Dockers' captain — but if businessmen did deals like the Farmer/Bell fiascos they'd risk ending up wearing prison greens.

There are many other examples of horrific trades, most of

which Dockers' supporters can cite by rote. North also lured Aboriginal player Winston Abraham to Arden Street, where the mercurial and opportunistic forward was part of a premiership team. In return, the Dockers received Stuart Anderson, a premiership player at North turned virtual non-contributor at Fremantle.

I once had a long conversation with Kevin Sheedy who tried to convince me how generous Essendon had been releasing Dale Kickett, Todd Ridley and Tony Delaney to the Dockers prior to their debut season. Now this was all part of a couple of very complicated deals, but Fremantle's largesse definitely allowed the Bombers to snare prominent forward Scott Lucas, and there was a chance we might have been able to get our hands on Essendon's superstar spearhead Matthew Lloyd. Certainly Sheedy seemed convinced he deserved some kind of charity award for assistance to the young port club; I can't recall his rationale since my eyes had glazed and other senses numbed at the sheer gall of trying on such a ludicrous argument.

Cursed luck played a hand in Fremantle's trade misfortune. Neesham's first priority pick was used to snare immensely talented ruckman Jeff White, who arrived from Victoria a shy and skinny teenager. The Dockers' master plan was to feed and clothe and educate the boy, to reap rewards when he developed into a man. But White became both homesick and disillusioned at Fremantle, and split back to his home state at the earliest opportunity. Dockers' fans have since enjoyed a modicum of perverse delight in watching White generally under-achieve at

his new club, Melbourne. Unfortunately, the talented and still young ruckman has several years left to inflict further pain.

Logic tells you Neesham deserves castigation for his wanton disdain for the draft system and horrendous record at trading. But a true Dockers' fan understands that all of these sins and more can be forgiven, after the coach's inspired use of the club's first number one priority pick. Clive Waterhouse, Neesham's crazy-brave selection, deserves (and receives) a chapter on his own, but the spending of such recruitment gold on a world-class stand-up comic with barely any football experience has been celebrated ever since.

Indeed, humour, usually of the black variety, became interminably linked with the Neesham years. The coach himself refused to bow to the conventional wisdom that those in charge of AFL teams acquire all the colour and charm of former members of the Soviet politburo. Neesham invariably shrugged off defeats with a timely reminder that, despite all the emotion and the angst and the pressure, football was still just a game. Occasionally he'd deign to commit what had previously been regarded as a cardinal sin by smiling in the coaches' box. Perhaps this was performed on medical advice, otherwise Neesham's heart might have broken a hundred times.

If Neesham was the ringmaster of the Dockers' circus, he had at his disposal more than a handful of clowns. Clinton Wolf was a slowish, ordinary struggler who, when facing the AFL tribunal after being reported, happily admitted he was too uncoordinated to have struck the opposition player. Sydney's Craig Nettelbeck

was snared by the Dockers as a priority pick before the debut season, but struggled to win selection. Eventually Nettelbeck received the call up, but on the way home from training was involved in a serious car accident. It was as close as he came to playing for Fremantle.

While people whispered about Neesham's close affiliation with Claremont, many roared with disapproval when the coach drafted his nephew, John, from the East Fremantle club at the end of 1997. The best that could be said for Neesham Jr was that he was an excellent water polo player. John never played a game and was one of the first delisted when Uncle Gerry departed. (Neesham also selected a basketballer, Brendon Feddema, who returned from a college scholarship in the United States to try out with the Dockers. This was marginally more successful — groomed as a giant forward, 'Hoops' Feddema played three games for no goals.)

While the Dockers lost many more games than they won, fans were never short of a belly laugh. When things went well and the team clicked, a joyous thrall gripped those of us who had arrived at the ground not the remotest chance of a win. A Fremantle victory inevitably provoked a wild celebration, especially when we belted one of the fancier clubs. But losses, too, were often filled with hidden pearls to hearten the loyal supporter, as the Dockers invented dozens of different, and often humorous, methods of losing a football match.

As you'll learn, Clive Waterhouse was usually the Chaplinesque figure in these weekly slapstick routines. But on his

day, defender Scott Chisholm was just as funny. The excruciatingly talented Aboriginal player dubbed himself 'The Prince' after the publication of a dodgy story about links between the Chisholm clan and the British Royal family. During his years with Fremantle he was one of our best players but, dear Lord, how Chisholm could pluck disaster from the jaws of triumph. When he won the ball, usually deep in the Dockers' defence, no one had any idea what he might do with it, certainly not his team mates and least of all Chisholm himself. His eyes would widen and dart in a hundred different directions, he'd stall and start and prop and baulk, and the crowd would hold its collective breath.

Incongruously, Neesham would often assign Chisholm the task of kicking in. This proved the defensive equivalent of playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber. Occasionally Chisholm would waver and hesitate, and then find his target to launch a forward thrust. More often, he'd agonise over where to kick the ball before deciding to deliver it straight onto the chest of a waiting forward. Like many Aboriginal footballers, Chisholm could display breath-taking skills; he won plenty of kudos and Brownlow votes during his days with the Dockers. But 'The Prince' could also bungle the simplest of marks or, when faced with several options, choose the path of most resistance. He once took off on a trademark dash down the wing, only to be thwarted when, on bouncing the Sherrin with a tad too much exuberance, the ball proceeded to fly back over his own head. Chisholm, a cheeky bugger as well as a grand entertainer, once said, 'Gerard told me, you made four mistakes

this week, let's try to make it two next week.' Alas, 'The Prince' never quite managed to reach his target.

After all the debate over Neesham's future, the Dockers' administration made the type of decision best summed up by the phrase eccentric English cricket commentator Brian Johnston employed while discussing the singular surname of New Zealand cricketer Bob Cunis. For the offer of an extra season to Neesham was, indeed, 'neither one thing nor the other' — while Fremantle had neither the will nor heart to sack Neesham, the paltry one year extension was hardly an expression of confidence.

The Dockers began 1998 with a win and during something of a purple patch — perhaps mauve-ish is a better description — compiled some of the club's greatest ever victories. Fremantle travelled to Melbourne and promptly beat Sheedy's Essendon in an uncharacteristically commanding performance.

The following week, the Dockers hosted North Melbourne, billed by many as the team of the 1990s, at the WACA ground. Given North's awesome line-up (including controversial superstar Wayne Carey), and the frustrating fact that several of our finest rejects were regularly starring for the Kangaroos, I had a cheap theory that the Dockers would never beat North Melbourne during my lifetime. As it happened, I was in Melbourne that week where the game was being telecast live. I was due at a friend's party and dashed to his house during the half-time break with, astonishingly, the Dockers five goals in front. Fortunately, he was one of perhaps five Fremantle fans

residing in Victoria and didn't take umbrage when his rude guest eschewed social niceties to turn on the television. By three-quarter time, the entire party had shifted to the television room, mainly to observe first-hand the rare spectacle of a Dockers' supporter screeching at the top of his voice. Naturally, Neesham's side made hard work of it — North drew level late in the match and looked odds-on to steal a win — but Fremantle rallied and Andrew Wills' sealer in the dying minutes — a preposterous soccer goal from an impossible angle in the forward pocket — remains the goal of the last century.

I made a habit that year of missing the Dockers' better moments. When we beat 1997 grand finalists St Kilda at home in Round 9, I was holed up in a Jakarta hotel covering the demise of President Suharto. Fortuitously, the game was broadcast on a delayed basis into Indonesia — Lord knows what hotel staff made of the racket coming from Room 174 after midnight.

We also beat Adelaide, then reigning premiers on their way to a second successive flag. This time I was in the press box as two Fremantle players — Luke Toia and Paul Maher — were stretchered off with season-ending knee injuries. The Dockers dominated but, as ever, wasted far too many opportunities. In the dying seconds, with Fremantle in front by a point, Crows defender Nigel Smart let fly for goal. The siren sounded as the ball sailed through the night air, and 20,000 people held their collective breath as the goal and boundary umpires looked askance at each other. Sensationally, the ball was adjudged to

have flown over the point post and was declared out of bounds. The Dockers had won by the slimmest of margins.

Sadly, it was to be the side's last victory under Neesham. For all the unlikely wins over top class opposition, the Dockers had dropped far too many games against mediocre sides. After three consecutive losses, the last a 104-point massacre by North Melbourne, Neesham was axed. Except even then the club didn't have the heart to deliver a clean blow. In an extraordinary and honourable move, Neesham was allowed to serve out the last two games of the season. The little general deserved this parting gesture and conventional wisdom in football is that a lowly club is never more dangerous than the week after a coaching upheaval. But Neesham's last game at Subiaco Oval saw the Dockers destroyed by Port Adelaide. It was a horrible afternoon, yet Neesham eschewed the orthodox media conference to address supporters in what has since become known as the famous Sermon on the Mount.

'The best steel is made in the hottest furnace,' our fallen Saviour told two thousand true believers who stayed behind on the Subiaco Oval slope. 'We have done as good as we could have under the incredibly difficult circumstances we have been put under.' If this were a movie, it would have ended there, with St Gerard ascending into heaven to smile benignly over his green and purple flock. But this was bleak Fremantle-style cinema verité, and Neesham travelled to Melbourne the next week to steer his beloved Dockers to another heavy loss against lowly Hawthorn.

And then it was over. During four turbulent but magnificently quixotic seasons, Neesham had presided over thirty-one victories in eighty-eight games. These mediocre figures disguised a magical legacy. Neesham's brave and innovative methods may have failed on the scoreboard, but they launched a hundred thousand vivid arguments and captured the hearts of most supporters.

Neesham had little hair to speak of when he started at Fremantle, and most of that had vanished by the time he left. Through what must have been a tortuous journey, the stubborn, self-confident coach never lost his sense of perspective. The coach's grace and humour under pressure was a reminder that AFL, the essentially silly but majestic pastime that holds so many of us in raptures, is, in the wider scheme of things, but a charming distraction.

Neesham has since set up an Aboriginal football academy on the outskirts of Perth that has produced several AFL draftees, but more importantly educates scores of black teenagers about the diverse paths they might choose for their lives. With his quirky approach to football and generous, broad perspective on life, Neesham has also served as an adept radio commentator and thoughtful newspaper columnist. He has also waged a near solo campaign to warn football administrators about the dangers of exposing teenagers to the many pressures of AFL football.

Not long after handing over the manuscript for this book, I received a phone call from Neesham. I hadn't spoken to him in years, and briefly feared the long-retired coach had been shown a draft and wasn't impressed. Happily, Gerard had more

important things on his mind. He enthused for a while about the expanding Aboriginal project before cutting to the chase. 'How do I get in touch with Bob Dylan and Ray Charles?' he asked. The music legends were touring Australia and Neesham was hoping to get one or both to pop in at his academy to speak to his students, especially a blind Aboriginal boy with exceptional musical talent. I laughed at the unbridled enthusiasm and audacity of Neesham, and sent him the promoter's numbers. I doubt Bob or Ray turned up, but Gerard was never one to die wondering.

Fremantle may not have won often under Neesham, but those rare successes were all the more delicious for their unexpectedness. Neesham's Dockers were comical, infuriating, chaotic, whimsical and occasionally inspired. And, as the coach had promised, they were different.

GLORY IN THE STRUGGLE

I've got a theory. Around three million people are keen AFL followers, but I reckon only about fifteen percent take it seriously. They include coaches, players, officials, sponsors, all Collingwood and Crows supporters, and perhaps half of the other clubs' memberships. To them the business of football (winning and/or money) is everything and loss, sporting or financial, a disaster. To the rest of us, footy's simply a magnificent distraction. An excellent excuse to cheer, bet, pontificate, laugh, despair and spend a few hours away from work and worries. Which brings me to Gerard Neesham.

The sacked Fremantle coach is a failure to the fifteen percent. The Dockers don't win enough, are inconsistent, have recruited appallingly, can't draw a decent crowd and haven't gained respect. The prosecution rests. But let me present the case for the defence.

My eldest son turned four in 1995 when Fremantle entered the AFL and, as his footy interest developed, I thought it might be character-building to barrack for the newcomers. In Perth, jumping aboard the Eagles juggernaut was the easy option. They'd won two of the previous three premierships, but there was something appealing about boy and club travelling along similar lifelines, through infancy and childhood into adolescence and maturity.

'Don't worry too much about winning,' I warned Jack. 'There's glory in the struggle.' And for all the misplaced handballs, bungled kick-ins, mediocre players and bizarre game plans, the journey behind Cap'n Gerard has been richly rewarding.

Astonishingly, Fremantle won five of the first ten games of Neesham's brave chip-and-run style. The glory came early through an unimagined victory over 1994 and 1995 grand finalists Geelong at the WACA. It was a balmy, joyful, emotional evening which set a pattern for Neesham's tenure.

The fans rarely expect a win, so every one seems an epiphany. This mindset is unhealthy, but provides nervous excitement for the eighty-five percent who simply enjoy their footy and don't live and breathe it. On a bad day Fremantle played like Under 12s making awful mistakes. But when it came together (the longest winning run is two matches), it was sublime.

Channel Seven's Perth AFL 'boundary rider' Adrian Barich says a pumped-up Dockers crowd of 18,000 'sounds more like 70,000.' West Coast fans, raised on a gluttonous diet of success, are reserved (even after half-time when the chardonnay kicks in). It is the one area in which Fremantle justly feels superior.

Neesham tried to modify the Dockers' madcap style but the memories will live forever. During that 1995 Geelong win, Dale Kickett grabbed the ball, stopped, propped, shaped to handball and ... the game froze. For five seconds Kickett stood, watched and goaded his opponent, who stood watching him as the other players watched them and we watched on. Bold, bizarre and hilarious. When Fremantle beat the in-form Bulldogs last year, Gary

Dhurrkay grabbed the ball in space at Subiaco with one man to beat. He could have gone left, right or backwards, but ran straight at his dumbfounded opponent, bouncing clear. Effective, audacious and funnier than Seinfeld.

Even the mistakes could be works of art, such as when Quentin Leach unveiled the rare triple-turnover by hand-balling to three opponents within a minute. Two weeks ago, when Scott Chisholm burst goal-wards against Essendon, he bounced once, twice, before the ball ballooned over his head on the third attempt.

Off the field, Neesham was just as different. He smiled in the box (isn't this against AFL rules?) and uttered the unspeakable by referring to footy as a game. 'I've had worse things happen in my life, mate, than losing a game of footy,' was a typical reaction.

Neesham's sides have been prone to horrendous injuries, but mainly his team of artisans have lacked an artist. While Jack's mates look up to the likes of Peter Matera, Wayne Carey and Tony Modra, he has taken a shine to Kingsley Hunter. Enough said.

Despite the many frustrations, expect Neesham to get a hero's reception when he coaches Fremantle for the last time at Subiaco against Port Adelaide on Sunday. It was courageous to stay on after being dumped, but typical of a bloke who has remained friendly, optimistic and crazy-brave during a tough four years.

-Weekend Australian, 20 August, 1998.

4

Evil: Mick Malthouse

During 1991 the United States and their Allies fought Iraq in the first Gulf War, Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation sparked the dismantling of the Soviet Union, Paul Keating shafted Bob Hawke and John Howard was a largely forgotten Opposition MP, still to have his miraculous triple-bypass surgery modelled on the rudimentary operation performed on Lazarus a couple of thousand years earlier.

But all of this was irrelevant to the isolated burghers of Western Australia because their team, the West Coast Eagles, were about to barnstorm Melbourne and rip the precious AFL Premiership Cup out from under all those miserable, snotty Victorian noses. We can laugh at it now, but the interest generated by the Eagles during the early 1990s wasn't far short of insane. Even fringe players received VIP treatment, and that hoary sporting cliché — 'keeping a lid on it' — went out the window. The western half of the island continent went lidless. Its lid had disappeared after West Coast won their opening twelve matches, and re-attaching it would have been as futile

and impractical as attempting to pop the cork back into an ejaculating magnum of champagne.

Mick Malthouse — Ballarat boy and rugged Richmond back-pocket player turned intense football coach — was the man responsible for all this madness and, in retrospect, it's not surprising he was such a grumpy bugger. Malthouse wasn't interested in hype or words or niceties. As a relatively young coach he was driven by insecurity and obsessed with winning the Premiership. In those early days at West Coast, Malthouse's praise was hard won. Champions such as Peter Matera, Guy McKenna, Glen Jakovich and Chris Mainwaring might play blinders, yet you'd rarely hear a peep of praise from the curmudgeonly coach. There was method in his public miserliness, since any young Eagles' rookie who happened to get a couple of clean touches off the bench could look forward to days of being touted as a future Brownlow medallist in the fawning local media. Malthouse saw himself as a grim counter to all of this — Eagles' players might earn obscene amounts of money opening shopping centres and be in constant demand for radio and television appearances, but they'd receive short shrift from the coach, at least in public.

For those of us without any particular affection for West Coast, watching Malthouse attempt to dampen the hype became a source of constant amusement. Mick would berate the media, intimidate reporters, suffer no fools and routinely lock cameras and journalists out of training. It was tremendous fodder for the voracious local news outlets searching for any excuse to run stories on the Eagles.

Having only recently arrived back in Perth after our overseas jaunt, I watched most of this with a sense of detached bemusement. Malthouse had established his reign of terror amongst local football reporters, and the Eagles' administration exercised an almost Goebbels-like influence over news coverage in Western Australia. The occasional 'negative' story from Melbourne — that is any coverage not embarrassingly positive towards West Coast — was presented as further evidence of Victorian envy and paranoia. West Coast players, too, lived in fear of saying anything remotely out of school which might raise their coach's hackles. In those days, Malthouse had a mantra — MEDIA, ENEMY — consequently your average Eagle was about as candid and media friendly as a middle ranking public servant.

Roughly halfway through the 1991 season, when it became clear West Coast would be serious finals contenders, I was assigned by the news director at Channel Nine to help cover Eagles' mania in the lead-up to September. It was, in many ways, a ridiculous assignment but also plenty of fun. With a bit of mischief and imagination, we managed to manufacture no end of fatuous stories about the local heroes. This brought me into Malthouse's radar for the first time which, I can emphatically vouch, was quite terrifying. I've interviewed numerous prime ministers, premiers and other famous types, but fronting up to Malthouse circa 1991 with anything vaguely controversial — Q: Um, er, excuse me Mick but, um, er, gulp, swallow, is Dean Kemp's knee all right? A: We don't talk about injuries.

Next? — was as frightening as it gets. Normally, I'd leave the tough stuff to the dedicated sports reporters, but on one famous occasion I stumbled, blindly, into Mick's telescopic sight.

It was in the lead-up to the crucial Eagles' opening match of the 1991 finals series, an historic game since it was the first final ever played outside of Melbourne. West Coast, who'd finished top, were taking on Hawthorn at Subiaco and, after a season of rapturous success, Perth was abuzz with anticipation. As it happened, Michael Thomson, a great friend and chief sports presenter at Channel Nine in Perth, had stumbled upon a quirky local radio promotion which, we agreed, would make a cute and silly Eagles yarn for that night's news. One of the FM stations had printed tens of thousands of masks bearing the face of West Coast pin-up boy Craig Turley to be distributed to the crowd attending the Eagles' final. We got permission to shoot footage of the masks, and managed to secure a couple for ourselves.

Malthouse and West Coast chief executive, Brian Cook, had scheduled a press conference for late in the afternoon and Thommo and I came up with a cunning master plan. It involved placing a second Channel Nine camera behind the coach and, once all the footy questions had been posed, I'd pop up wearing the Turley mask and ask Mick what he thought of the lark. In retrospect, it's seriously embarrassing to admit to dedicating an entire working day to such an imbecilic project but, hey, that's television.

Anyway, the media conference proceeded as normal — journalists sheepishly asking clichéd questions, Mick giving nothing away — when I finally got the nod from Thommo. With what I'd like to think was Lord Olivierian timing I rose, put the Turley mask to my face and asked: 'Mick, what do you think of this?' We expected Malthouse to be mildly dismissive or, at best, shake his head with dismay and end the press conference. In fact, he blew a head gasket. Malthouse said he'd never seen the mask before and was quickly informed by Cook that 40,000 or so would be worn at the ground that weekend.

'No they won't,' growled Mick, as Cook turned eleven shades of violet while quaking in his seat. As it happened, Cook had sealed a deal with the radio station to produce the masks, but, inexplicably hadn't told Malthouse. It quickly degenerated into a battle between the man who ran the club and the man who ran the team. Naturally, this was a no contest, resulting in the masks being trashed and replaced by a generic blue and gold bird.

The Eagles went on to lose in Perth, and Hawthorn beat them again in the Grand Final, contested that year at Waverley while the MCG was under construction. In retrospect, West Coast were probably the best side in 1991 but the formidable Hawthorn juggernaut had one last rev' in its ageing engines. The old adage that you have to lose a grand final to win one might be as close to a truism as there is in footy, but it wasn't much comfort to the Eagles on that September afternoon. Malthouse was devastated and, after the match, had to be restrained from

decking a journalist from the West Australian . I was one of numerous reporters sharing the plane ride home with the vanquished, and the animosity was palpable. From memory, not one of my colleagues bungled a handpass or squibbed a tackle during the big game, yet the media seemed to cop a fair amount of the blame.

The Eagles would atone for the loss in 1992, creating AFL history by becoming the first non-Victorian team to win the flag, and converting the western half of the continent into a footy mosh pit. While the 1991 runners-up were more flamboyant, Malthouse had proceeded to fashion a premiership side around players with skinflint defensive skills. Mick's proud aim was to kick ten goals and restrict the opposition to eight. Quite apart from the malice directed at West Coast for being so successful, the Eagles also forged a reputation for playing boring, robotic football.

Much of this animosity was unwarranted — players such as Peter Matera and Dean Kemp were as blissfully skilful as any who have played the game — but the wisdom and fairness of a High Court judge has never been a prerequisite for following the footy. The Eagles were boring, Malthouse was grumpy and we hated them.

Naturally, this enmity deepened when Fremantle entered the AFL. Numerous factors, but mainly a lack of talent, meant the Dockers played a sort of Bizarro Mick brand of football — we were happy enough to kick ten goals, unfortunately the opposition tended to kick twenty-odd. Nevertheless, coach

Gerard Neesham was chirpy and inventive, and Dockers' fans satisfied themselves with cheerful, comic losses and the occasional magnificent victory.

Unfortunately, in the initial years none of those victories would come against West Coast. The Eagles seemed to savour thumping us, hence we hated them and Malthouse even more.

Disliking Mick was a bit like fancying the Velvet Underground when everyone else was flouncing along to the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever . It was cool and snobbish and self-righteous. Sure, he'd won two premierships and would eventually guide the Eagles into ten straight finals campaigns. But we were better people. We understood the Zen of Football. We were Lou Reed in our black leather jackets compared to all those gold chain-wearing Eagles' fans in their white disco suits.

From memory, I was quite content with my Mick loathing. I could bore people witless at dinner parties explaining how Malthouse had destroyed West Australian football by sabotaging State of Origin games and paying little more than lip service to the local league. I had a brilliant theory that Eagles' players were so intimidated by their coach that they warehoused their personalities and surrendered their individuality, thus allowing affable boneheads like retired fringe player Adrian Barich to emerge as media superstars. (To a point, Barra agreed with this thesis.) I wore my disdain for Mick and his team like a comfortable cloak.

And then, during the 1997 season, I was taking a shower. The

radio was on — it's a male thing — and the legendary and parochial Perth broadcaster, George Grljusich, was railing with Mal 'The Mouth' Brown about racial slurs on the footy field. The discussion occurred not long after Essendon Aboriginal star Michael Long had begun his brave and public campaign to eradicate race-based sledging from the AFL. Both Brown and Grljusich agreed this was namby-pamby stuff. Grljusich, who played a handful of games for South Fremantle in the old WAFL competition, proclaimed he'd often been labelled a 'wog' yet thought nothing of it. Neither could Graham 'Polly' Farmer, probably Australia's greatest ever Aboriginal footballer after an epic career in Western Australia and Victoria, understand what the fuss was about. Their argument for allowing cruel, racial taunts to pass unpunished boiled down to 'in my day, what happened on the footy field stayed on the footy field.'

In amongst all of this, Malthouse was called upon to submit his opinion. From the tone of their introduction, it was clear Brown and Grljusich expected Malthouse to share their archaic views on racism. They were, to put it mildly, mistaken.

I can still remember getting chills up my spine as Malthouse launched into a fierce condemnation of racial vilification in the sporting arena. He spoke of the inherent difficulties faced by Aboriginal players, how many of them were young, poor and traumatised by being separated from their families to try their luck in the AFL. Malthouse explained how Aboriginal boys — not all, but a majority — required extra patience from the

coaching staff. How many needed to overcome a natural shyness and develop confidence in their ability and their team-mates. And how vicious taunts about their colour — from both supporters and opposition players — could have devastating effects on young black footballers.

Mick's radio spray had two extraordinary effects. First, it rendered both Brown and Grljusich speechless. To the unfamiliar this might appear unremarkable, but imagine flamboyant Footy Show star Sam Newman taking a vow of chastity and poverty en route to joining the priesthood, and you'll get some idea of the magnitude of this feat.

Quite apart from silencing, albeit briefly, the two loudest and most opinionated people in Western Australia, Malthouse also prompted this author, by now towelling down and cleaning his teeth, to reassess his stubborn dislike of the coach. Put simply, it was nigh impossible not to warm to a fellow prepared to voice these heartfelt views in such unreconstructed, blokey surrounds. True, Mick was still a grump and coach of the boring West Coasters. But here was a man of principle prepared to use his position to promote uncommon decency in sport.

By 1998 I had moved to The Australian , where I assigned myself to covering the local AFL matches. This also involved keeping a weather eye on the more interesting footy stories around Perth, so when West Coast started pre-season training I found myself joining a gang of reporters hanging off Malthouse's pearls of wisdom. Mick was talking about tactics and made the

point that, in his opinion, a mid-game move by the coach rarely affected the outcome of a game.

Taking my life in my own hands, I interjected with 'Darren Jarman, last year's Grand Final.' Footy fans will recall Adelaide won its first flag in 1997, in no small part due to the shifting of the exquisitely skilled Darren Jarman to full-forward where he kicked five goals in the last quarter. Malthouse glared at me and, for a deluded moment, I thought he was on the verge of acknowledging my great football wisdom. Instead, he turned away and continued with 'before I was so rudely interrupted ...'

So it wasn't a great start to my year as footy writer, but later in the season I talked Mick into agreeing to an interview. We didn't chat much about AFL — instead Malthouse enthused about his love of trees, mountains and stars. 'In every man there's other people,' the coach mused. 'I've got a number of people in me. I would love to be a geologist. Anthropologist, astronomer, zoologist; that's me — the other part of me.' He also spoke of dreaming about retiring to Tasmania to live amongst the pristine huon forests. We had a friendly, expansive discussion and the story came up well. Dammit, this Malthouse character was becoming less of a monster as each month passed.

Not long afterwards, Mick became embroiled in a political firestorm. In something of a journalistic coup, Thommo persuaded Malthouse to take a helicopter flight to the timber town of Northcliffe in the south-west of Western Australia. There the Eagles' coach surveyed the pathetic stumps of giant

karri trees being logged in the state's diminishing old-growth forests. When Mick declared that saving trees was more important to him than his job, the story took off like a space shuttle. Thommo's scoop made the front page in the next morning's West Australian  and, over the ensuing twelve months, the forest debate dominated Perth news coverage.

The Eagles' administration was less than pleased, especially when timber workers and their families started burning their West Coast memberships. Premier Richard Court immediately began courting Malthouse, consulting him as the coalition government sought to produce a logging policy that might appease green groups and logging companies. Abrasive federal forestry minister Wilson Tuckey took aim at the coach, questioning his motives and expertise.

Malthouse was by no means the first person to highlight problems in the south-west — for decades conservationists had been trying to rouse interest in the protection of trees. But the coach's intervention instantly raised the issue to a higher public plane. Geraldine Capp, the then environment reporter for the West , wrote in the journalists' trade magazine Scoop  how pre-Malthouse her stories were more often spiked or run deep in the newspaper as editors told her 'the debate has moved nowhere in twenty years.' Post-Malthouse, Capp was being instructed to re-file stories she'd essentially written many times before, only this time they were being run all over the front page.

The forest issue evoked plenty of anger — 'Piss off back to Victoria,' was the mill workers' unsentimental message to Mick

— and eventually became a key factor in the downfall of the Court government, after the Labor Opposition vowed to ban all old-growth logging. Whether or not this would have happened without Malthouse's uncommon intervention is open to conjecture, but there's no doubting the coach's contribution enflamed the embers of a sensitive and contentious political issue. Mick was duly chided by West Coast's administration, but it didn't stop him from later lending his support to the Yes  campaign in the republican referendum. Cunningly, Malthouse re-entered politics during the State of Origin weekend when, he argued, he was off regular AFL duties. The coach was to be reminded of his limitations when a majority of Australians eventually opted for the Queen over Mick.

At the end of the 1998 season, a tiring West Coast bowed out of the finals in the first weekend, courtesy of a 70-point thumping by the Western Bulldogs. It was the Eagles' ninth straight — albeit brief — finals campaign, yet Malthouse copped a pasting in the west. Partly, it was due to Mick's clumsy treatment of Eagles' dual-premiership captain John Worsfold. Woosha, the closest thing to a pop star in Perth, had been dropped from the side on the morning of the ill-fated final and would never play again. Malthouse insisted his skipper was injured, but Worsfold had wanted to play. It was a messy, undignified exit for a club hero.

Still, the backlash against Malthouse was extraordinary. The West Australian  lashed out at the coach and questioned his judgment over the front and back pages. From the tone of

talkback radio callers you'd have thought Mick was a close cousin of Osama bin Laden. The petulant reaction sought only to reinforce in Dockers' fans their innate superiority over West Coast's horde of front-running supporters breastfed on success. While we could but dream of finals action, the Eagles seemed to regard participation in September as a fixed perk of their membership. Their blubbering — then and since — has sustained us.

Towards the end of 1998, The Australian  decided to try to increase its West Australian readership by tailoring the state edition to include more local stories. Coincidentally, the newspaper also committed to a more vigorous coverage of the AFL, by now clearly the dominant national game. With a mind to this, I warily approached Malthouse about contributing a weekly column to the paper a few weeks after the humiliating Western Bulldogs loss. He wasn't at all interested.

Not to be deterred, I later constructed a letter to the coach containing numerous reasons why he should accept The Australian's  offer. These included high-minded arguments such as addressing an educated, national readership and modifying his image as an intense, one-dimensional grump. But the clincher, I think, was the last — 'It will really get up your friends' noses at the West Australian .' Eventually, Malthouse agreed — even after I declared my friendship with Barich who, let's just say, doesn't feature in Mick's list of all-time favourite players coached — and ever since he's been writing for the paper, in close consultation with yours truly.

Malthouse, of course, famously moved to Collingwood where he's taken the Magpies to a grand final appearance, while undergoing a major personality transplant operation to emerge as cute, cuddly and media friendly. And I don't think I'm overstating the situation by declaring we actually like each other, although I'm sure when Mick happens upon my weekly columns he suspects I call in from Mars or Venus.

So, there you have it. From sworn enemies to friends in under a decade. There's hope yet for this troubled world.

A BAD, BAD THING

An admission, readers. Since we last met I have strayed over to the dark side. Baby did a bad, bad thing. An inexcusable, sinister thing.

It was late last Friday night. The wind was howling, thunder resonated over the city and lightning lit up the Perth sky. It happened on the sofa in the living room of a modest suburban weatherboard home. Yes, my wife was away, but that's no excuse. Worse still, the foul transgression occurred in full view of my innocent eight-year-old son. It meant nothing, just a one-off, I promise. Things have been stressful at work, I'm heading towards mid-life crisis territory or perhaps it's just end of millennium blues.

Whatever, at around 10 o'clock I succumbed to the sin that dare not speaketh its name. All right, I'll spitteth it out. I started barracking for the West Coast Eagles. Repeat, the WEST COAST EAGLES. Mick Malthouse's miserable bunch of robotic blue and gold storm-troopers. The very same bunch that drove me and thousands of fair-minded West Australian footy supporters into the arms of the Fremantle Dockers and a lifetime of ridicule and torture.

No, I wasn't drunk. I can't blame a woody chardonnay or half-bottle of champagne employed by most Eagles fans to wash down the

smoked salmon roulade served at room temperature in the corporate box after being dropped off in the four-wheel-drive by the au pair. It simply blurted out.

When Eagles' full-forward Scott Cummings kicked a late goal to stretch West Coast's lead over the Western Bulldogs in the last quarter of the first qualifying final, I spontaneously yelled 'Yes, go,' at the flickering screen.

My boy — who reacted with a quizzical look followed by 'But Dad, we hate the Eagles' — may require intense counselling for severe psychological problems. The first sentence drilled into all three Price children remains: 'Up Dockers, Down Eagles,' accompanied by appropriate thumb callisthenics. The three-year-old regards the inverse of this simple, if immature, family motto as the ultimate mischievous insult.

Yet here's Dad carrying on like a pork chop in front of the telly, counting down the clock and cheering when West Coast sneak over the line by five points.

One day when they're older I may be able to explain it to them, though I doubt it. I've spent an uneasy week pondering it myself.

Dealing with Malthouse on a semi-regular basis may have something to do with it. The coach is never anything but cooperative in delivering his weekly Australian column on deadline; why can't he be an old grouch like the advanced publicity? His coach's box performance at the MCG sealed it.

As West Coast stumbled, bumbled and fumbled towards the finish line, Malthouse flung his headset, punched the desk, fisted the wall, banged his head against the door and almost self-immolated

on the siren. He then smiled and joked — repeat, SMILED AND JOKED! — as his players swamped him while leaving the MCG.

For non AFL-buffs, this uncharacteristic expression of emotion is roughly equivalent to Bjorn Borg mooning the Queen at Wimbledon, or Clint Eastwood turning down Dirty Harry to star in The Nutty Professor. During the years when the Eagles were causing more trouble in foreign territory than Richard Carleton, Malthouse led West Coast to three grand finals and two premierships. Yet the peculiarly driven coach — motivated by a near pathological fear of loss rather than what he regards as the transient joy of victory — remained relatively calm and contained.

Remember Malcolm Blight leaping over his joyous Crows, or Leigh Matthews punching the air in 1990? Kevin Sheedy has the jacket swing, David Parkin the Incredible Hulk jugular vein. We've had to wait a full ten years for the definitive image of the Malthouse era. They'll still be replaying that MCG Coach-Cam in a hundred years.

None of this explains or excuses last Friday's outburst. It's a good job Malthouse is heading back to Melbourne, so that normal business can be resumed. (If dour Ken Judge replaces Malthouse, the Austin Powers comparison is irresistible: identical in every way, except one-eighth the stature ... we shall call him 'Mini-Mick'.)

My boy made his First Confession during the week, perhaps I should have joined him. Penance: re-watch every boring Eagles game of the last decade while reciting the Fremantle creed. Up Dockers, Down Eagles.

-Weekend Australian, 11 September 1999.

5

Paradise: Freo Way to Go

Towards the end of 1986 I was offered a dream assignment. The America's Cup defence in Fremantle was still several months away, but after the nation had thrilled to Alan Bond's audacious winning of the thing three years earlier, Western Australia was agog with anticipation. The defence of the Cup was, naturally, a massive news event and every media outlet in Australia was gearing up for a comprehensive coverage starting in February 1987. The Nine network had broadcast rights, and a large makeshift studio was being constructed on one of the quays near the centre of the action. All kinds of important people from Sydney were forever travelling across to prepare for the sail fest. Against this background I was summoned to the news director's office.

'How would you like to spend the summer working out of Fremantle, filing colour stories for the news and the network?' I was asked. Initially, I was only half-hearted. In truth, the America's Cup — basically a bunch of obscenely rich men indulging in their expensive hobby — wasn't exactly my

speed. But the prospect of hanging out on the harbour for a few months wasn't to be sniffed at. 'You don't have to decide now,' I was told. 'Just do a couple of stories and see how you feel.'

Not long afterwards, an opportunity arose to better gauge my enthusiasm. The New Zealand syndicate, Kiwi, had developed what seemed an obvious training tactic, which back then was apparently revolutionary. By building two identical yachts, the crew and their financier, the late Michael Fay, were able to assess the impact of any moves or modifications aboard the boats. For example, if the New Zealanders wanted to test a new sail, they simply rigged up one of the 12-metre yachts and watched how it operated against the old one.

Perhaps there was something far more technical and impressive involved, but as a non-boatie I didn't have a clue. Mainly, as Van the cameraman and I drove down to Fremantle, I was thinking this was a bit of all right. It was late morning on a balmy Perth day; the sun was out but it wasn't too warm, barely a cloud overhead and a hint of breeze as we alighted at the Kiwis' dock. Everyone welcomed us like dear old friends which, since a) we were the source of the syndicate's free publicity and b) Fay was wealthy and charming (especially by New Zealand standards), wasn't surprising. After a long hail-fellow-well-met introduction and lots of yacht talk, which I didn't understand, we headed off to film the twin racers.

This was all to be done from the vantage of Fay's charger

boat, a large craft that carried all sorts of complex computer equipment. As we set out, I remember sharing a grin with Van which, roughly translated, spelt out 'Four months of this? — YES PLEASE.'

I can't really recall how far the racing yachts were from the shore — perhaps a couple of kilometres, not much more. To be honest, I was slightly apprehensive about seasickness as I'd not spent much time in boats. (I'd famously barfed huge chunks of ham and cheese roll all over the cabin floor during an early trip in the Nine chopper, but that's another story.) Still, as we made our way out it appeared to be smooth sailing. As I was soon to learn, appearances can be deceiving.

When the charger vessel edged out into the open seas, it began to sway. Apparently, this is what boats do. My hands became slightly clammy and I began staring out over the horizon — as you do. I remember the water wasn't especially rough since everyone aboard was remarking how calm it was. I coyly nodded in agreement.

The first bone-shuddering, intestine-burning vomit occurred before we reached the racing yachts. I'd quietly slipped down to the toilet so as not to come over like a big nancy boy, but there's no way this epic chunder could be kept secret. I'd not have been surprised if it was heard by scuba divers on the other side of Rottnest Island.

Operating on the theory that a healthy, chunky, meat-and-two-veg chuck cleanses the stomach and replenishes the soul, I returned to the deck. Sadly, this theory proved to be severely

flawed, as yesterday's breakfast, last week's lunches and the previous month's dinners began to magically emerge from between my teeth. These were followed by my toenails, socks and, eventually, my shoelaces. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, since after my seventeenth involuntary eruption I was sure we'd been out on the boiling ocean for a couple of hours. In fact, it had only been twenty minutes. Van had yet to start filming. And, as everyone else concurred, it was still pretty calm.

Van — who has since passed away, God bless him — was faintly sympathetic. An American, he'd come to Australia after working in feature films, including a stint on The Deep  starring Jacqueline Bisset. I remember this because virtually every trip we shared I would spend hours hounding him with the obvious question — had he seen the beautiful English actress with no clothes on? Either Van was too much of a gentleman to let on, or else he enjoyed torturing me. Whatever, that experience on The Deep  — a movie about sharks filmed mainly in the ocean — demonstrated Van's suitability for the task at hand. By comparison, my shirt, trousers and shoes, by this time all covered in dribble and (I suspect, literally) shit, indicated I was struggling.

Fay and the Kiwi crew were in the middle of an important practice session which wasn't ever going to be curtailed to appease a chunderous reporter. I tried numerous stratagems. None of them worked. Thrusting my head into the fresh air only propelled the detritus back into my face. Lying down ran

the risk of incurring the rock star's curse — drowning in my own vomit. Praying wasn't much good either. In the Name of the Faaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhh ...

Kindly, Van shot the minimum amount of footage to allow a story to be edited and declared himself finished. Our escape was to be aboard a small rubber dinghy, which didn't have seats but a type of plastic vault running from the bow to the stern. Three of us — Van, me and the driver — straddled the beam and headed back to Fremantle.

If you think, as I did, that this windswept, outback motor-powered journey might provide relief, you're mistaken. I've no idea how many knots the little rubber bullet travelled at, but we seemed to be having a crack at Donald Campbell's water-speed record. The effect of this on the choppy water was akin to being smashed on the forehead with a house brick every two seconds. How on earth I still found the fuel and energy to chunder, I've no idea, but that part of the nervous system responsible for spew reproduction kicked in again. Consequently, the dinghy was forced to stop at least five times, more out of self-protection than anything else since vomiting from such an unorthodox position aboard the tiny craft would have splattered all three of us.

Finally, we made it back to dry land. I haven't seen the movie, but if you picture Tom Hanks in the trailer for that film where his plane crashes and he's shipwrecked on an island, that pretty much sums up my general appearance at the end of the saga. On re-entering the newsroom, I spotted

the news director and made a remark along the following lines: 'You can take that pointy, shiny America's Cup and stick it up your arse. Sideways.'

The point of this digression, other than to disgust readers with details of my involuntary body functions, is to underline the fact that while I love the footy team, I am not what many Dockers' fans would regard as a natural Fremantle person. In fact, if one of those fancy police computers were to make a list of all my details and defects, I suspect they'd come up with the profile of, whisper it, your average West Coast Eagles 'supporter.

I grew up north of the Swan River, barracked for Perth, worshipped the legendary rover Barry Cable and then tried out for Subiaco as a teenager. I played junior football against a couple of prominent Eagles, dual premiership player Dwayne Lamb and beanpole ruckman Laurie Keene.

On leaving school the Fremantle markets became a regular attraction. They're a bit tired these days, but in the late 70s and early 80s a walk through the markets was as good as visiting another country, especially to someone like me who'd never been overseas. My first proper girlfriend was a vegetarian and she had a big sister who, to me at least, seemed like one of those hippie types from the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. In fact, they were relatively normal and I was a wide-eyed, white-bread boy who thought beetroot grew in tins.

For decades locals have been buying their fruit and vegies

at the markets. By 1980, a ghetto of tiny stalls — including palm readers, jewellers, potters and second-hand traders — had developed around the produce, creating a kind of two-tiered hierarchy. There were the normal, often ethnic folk doing their weekly shopping. And there were the rest of us, wearing cheesecloth tops and sandals and sarongs and overalls, scrounging around the narrow aisles playing guitars and smoking aromatic cigarettes.

I loved the markets and, in retrospect, probably learnt more hanging around the glorious old Victorian building than I did during three years studying at university (admittedly, that wasn't an awful lot.) On one occasion, I returned home with a sachet of peppermint tea. This completely threw my mum, very much a Bushells' girl, and I'm sure she suspected the contents of the cellophane bag were illicit. My younger brothers and sisters simply thought I was having psychological problems mixing spearmint leaves with hot water.

There's no denying the America's Cup helped modernise Fremantle and make it attractive to a wider section of the community, which helps explain why West Australians have been so forgiving of rogue tycoon Alan Bond. Before 1983, Freo had what shonky real estate agents might describe as 'rustic charm'. There were, and still are, many beautiful old houses and buildings, but much of the city had been neglected. In retrospect, it seems unfathomable that Sir Charles Court's extremely conservative government closed down the twenty-kilometre rail link between Fremantle and

Perth in the late 1970s. The political argument was all about money, but the fact that the Liberals were able to get away with it shows the port town hasn't always been held in the affection it deserves. Brian Burke's Labor government restored the train link in 1983.

Australia lost the America's Cup, but Fremantle attracted international kudos and a heap of property development investment. The town proved a 'renovator's dream' and today there are plenty of terrific pubs and cafes attracting tourists and locals. Doubtless many poorer people have been forced to shift from central Fremantle as rents and house prices skyrocketed. But somehow Freo has managed to retain its egalitarian charm. Walk any day down the South Terrace cafe strip and you'll see scores of crowded tables where grubby rastafarians bump shoulders with daggy dads in cardigans. Certainly, Fremantle has in spades what I suspect many Australians miss in modern life — a genuine sense of community.

Since 1995, however, it's also had a crappy football team which, eerily, appears to have cast a Dockers jinx over the city's more famous brethren.

Bond is an Eagles supporter and appeared to be as charmed as West Coast when, after going to jail in 1992 for his involvement in the failed Rothwells' rescue, he was released on appeal just a month before Malthouse's side won their first flag. Inevitably it was the Dockers wot got him. A year after we entered the AFL Bond was back in jail for fraud, and he'd

soon cop another four years for admitting to stealing a billion dollars. (Had he not been a crook, Bond might have made an excellent wheeler-dealer for the Dockers during the end-of-season trade period.)

In 1994, Carmen Lawrence farewelled her friends in the state parliament to run for the federal seat of, you guessed it, Fremantle. The former Labor Premier won easily, was parachuted straight into Cabinet by Prime Minister Paul Keating and found herself widely touted as potentially Australia's first female PM. The following year, the Dockers were born and Carmen was appointed number one ticket holder. I won't bore you with the sordid details, but in 1995 Lawrence's role in the suicide of Penny Easton, a Perth lawyer who'd been caught in a political scandal three years earlier, re-emerged. Lawrence's actions became the focus of a nasty Royal Commission which shattered her political career and caused her years of legal heartache. When a jury cleared her of serious criminal charges four years later, many blamed Sir Charles's son, Richard Court, who'd used his position as Premier to target Lawrence. Others suspected it had as much to do with her association with the Dockers.

The state member for Fremantle is Jim McGinty. At the end of the Docker-less 1994 season, McGinty took over as Labor's state Opposition Leader. By the end of 1995, the Dockers' first season, Jim was all over the place: struggling to handle the flak from Lawrence's woes, suffering from an awful public image and leading a Freo-like rabble in parliament. By

the end of the 1996 season, McGinty had been dumped. Happily, he has since recovered to be a senior minister in (Eagle-supporting) Geoff Gallop's government.

Kim Beazley Jr's dad also represented Fremantle in the national parliament, and the big fella quickly adopted the Dockers as his side, a brave move for a politician since most Australians regard barracking for Freo as some kind of exotic mental affliction. Unfortunately for Kimbo, he, like the footy side, flattered to deceive. Beazley was eight goals up and cruising at half-time in the 2001 race to become prime minister. Then Labor's backs, forwards and midfield collapsed allowing John Howard to win easily. Which was a shame, really, since the prospect of having a Docker in The Lodge was more scrumptious than Nigella's lips covered in dark chocolate and whipped cream. Certainly, a Prime Minister Beazley would never have gotten too far up himself. While other leaders have been inclined to welcome Cathy and Greg and Lleyton and Thorpey over for dinner, Kim would have felt compelled to invite Clive and the lads over for a monthly barbie. Alas, it wasn't to be.

There are numerous other examples. Former Dockers' chairman Ross McLean's appointment to the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation coincided with the prolonged crisis over ABC managing director Jonathon Shier's troubled tenure and plunging ratings. Former Fremantle board member and prominent businessman Rod Eddington was an ex-executive director of Ansett. Admittedly, it was a

few years before the airline disappeared down the gurgler, but the Dockers' jinx works in strange ways.

Even the club's most renowned and eloquent supporter has not been immune. In his teens, twenties and early thirties, author Tim Winton conspired to churn out novels and children's books with obscene alacrity. Then, in the mid-90s — when Fremantle came to town — the acclaimed West Australian writer became bogged down with a book that would haunt him for seven years. As Tim recalled in the Bulletin :

For the first time in my life I lost faith in my craft. I'd had my days before, but not weeks, not months.

Eventually Dirt Music  would be another deserved Winton success, earning him a Miles Franklin and many other awards, but only after Tim had all but scrapped the project. I'm certain Tim, an ardent, rusted-on Dockers' man, has no regrets about hitching his star to Fremantle's jinxed juggernaut. He may have suffered a near nervous breakdown, driven his family to despair and almost wasted seven years of toil. But better that than barracking for the Eagles.

Ever since the Dockers entered the AFL, a core of supporters has bellyached about the club's dubious Fremantle credentials. Many loyal followers of Western Australia's traditional port teams — East Fremantle and South Fremantle — were furious when the Dockers' first squad and adminis-

tration did not reek of Freo tradition. In their eyes, Gerard Neesham's port pedigree was seriously tainted after a long and successful association with Claremont.

There has been a long-running argument about the structure of the club. Most reasonable folk find it unsatisfactory that the Western Australian Football Commission imposes itself over both West Coast and the Dockers — imagine Manchester United and Liverpool under the umbrella of the same management — and ordinary club members are unable to vote for members of the respective boards. A breakaway group, the Freo MOB, has emerged to protest and tackle these issues.

Still, there's also an element of misguided snobbery attached to the argument that the Dockers must, preferably, be made up of all things Freo. The AFL juggernaut has long transcended the suburban competition from which it sprang. Wayne Carey came from Wagga Wagga, not the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Essendon's James Hird was born and bred in Canberra. Ballarat boy Mick Malthouse managed to steer West Coast to ten consecutive finals series while barely able to conceal his restlessness to return to Melbourne.

I'm not certain how long this row over Fremantle-ness will rage — admittedly, it's subsided since Connolly's arrival and early success — but I know for sure when it will stop. Once the Dockers start winning regularly, no one will care a jot whether the players were drafted from the Taliban, the coach is a female chimpanzee and the chief executive commutes from Saturn. In

fact, the logical conclusion of my theory about the club's jinx would seem to be that the less the Dockers have to do with Fremantle, the more successful we'll be.

A THING OF RARE MAGNIFICENCE

As MUCH as it strives to maintain a sunny disposition towards life, occasionally this column descends into a mild torpor. It might be due to war in the Balkans, world debt or, at present, the frustration of having to miss this week's Partridge Family television special to meet deadline. Historically, I've found the best remedy for such melancholy can be garnered from simple pleasures. Beating the children. Drug trafficking. Dusting off those old Leo Sayer LPs. In recent weeks, however, I've stumbled upon a sure-fire cure for the onset of gloominess.

It's a tape of veteran sportscaster George Grljusich, dispensing his unique blend of eccentric genius on Perth radio last month. Grljusich may not be a household name beyond Western Australia, but he should be.

Most sports fans, certainly all AFL supporters, would be aware of the maniacal media veteran who, during a forty-year career, has covered thirty-nine sports and numerous Olympics on radio and television. Improbably, most of Grljusich's years were spent at the ABC. How Aunty and this unreconstructed, opinionated

broadcaster managed to tolerate each other for so long remains one of life's mysteries, though in recent years Grljusich has shifted to the more comfortable asylum of commercial radio.

George's hijinks are legion. He has sworn on radio and television. He has thrown a television set out of a press box window.

He is a fount of sports knowledge and, in his own mind at least, always right. Famously last year, Grljusich spent a morning attempting to convince co-hosts and listeners that Anna Kournikova's name was pronounced with no emphasis on the 'o'. It's Kour-nika-va, insisted George, arguing his eastern European ancestry made him familiar with the name. But I asked her, replied Grljusich's bewildered colleague. She said it's Kour-ni-kO-va. Well she's wrong, insisted George.

For all his quirks, Grljusich is, indeed, a sports encyclopaedia. A bit like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. I've no doubt George could, unprompted, recite the placegetters in the 100 metres men's and women's hurdles from the Helsinki Olympic final. Want the list of Interdominion winners? Don't get George started.

His speciality is documenting the unsavoury parentage of every Victorian football umpire who has ever robbed a West Australian-based football team of victory. In George's book, that is literally EVERY Victorian umpire.

And don't for a minute think Grljusich is feigning his passion. There is not a hint of artifice in George's madness. No assuming roles for ratings or pretending to be bonkers. Grljusich is the real deal. Which is why last month's dissertation on South Australian football fans is so compellingly funny.

George was asked by Radio 6PR announcer Paul Murray to comment on moves to establish swearing-free-zones at local SANFL matches to encourage families to attend the footy. Naturally, George was unimpressed.

'I don't think it's a great problem,' Grljusich insisted before delivering one of the most brilliantly demented arguments in radio history. 'Maybe in Adelaide it's a problem because of the Lutheran sanctity of some of the swearing. I mean it's more guttural, for example, and more Germanic in nature because of the sort of people who happen to be over there. And also, if it's a little bit Germanic it sounds more fair dinkum, more threatening, I suppose. A la Adolf Hitler.'

All right, it doesn't read as it sounded, but trust me — George's take on the Croweaters is a thing of rare magnificence. It is spontaneous, yet deadly serious, delivered with the gravitas of an emeritus professor.

A close perusal reveals George, who once studied law, has dipped into theology, linguistics, philosophy, military and European history, sociology, demographics and French to concoct his half-arsed theory of South Australian peculiarity.

Working up a head of steam, Grljusich insists it's against the order of nature to ban profanity at sporting events. 'I mean, someone yells out "You're a bloody wanker",' George explains. 'It's almost like an analytical comment.'

I must have played my tape of Grljusich more than twenty times, and it never fails to raise a grin. If someone out there is able and inclined, I'll send them a copy to bung on the internet.

In this increasingly sanitised, corporate, sporting world, George's skewiff clarity is a rare thing. Scrub out the crazy logic, and the sixty-year-old veteran is spot on. Banning swearing at the footy is plain dumb. And South Australians are a strange breed.

(NB: In a belated career shift, Grljusich recently sought election as mayor of his local shire council south of Fremantle. The results were posted this week, and George was soundly trounced. We West Australians may be strange, too, but we're not stupid.)

-Weekend Australian, 9 December 2000.

6

Genius: Clive Waterhouse

There is a general consensus that we are all far too busy doing the stuff we feel we have to do to ever get around to doing the things we actually enjoy. We are — and I'm sure some smart alecky Harvard graduate coined this term or, at the very least, one of those smug Eagles-supporting management consultants with his own corporate box — 'time poor'. We don't read books. We don't buy newspapers. We don't have children. If we have children, we don't speak to them. If we speak to them, it's generally truncated and truculent. GO ASK YOUR MOTHER. Or something like that.

In the context of these frenetic, unfulfilling lives we lead, avid support for the Fremantle Football Club is fairly incomprehensible. Should time and motion experts conduct an audit on the entire Dockers' membership, you could assume their findings would be sweeping and unarguable. Something like: 'In conclusion, we at Howe, Doo & Wegeddawaywithit find that if the aforementioned sample chose to forego their emotional, financial and psychological attachment to the aforementioned

football team, they would, within a relatively short period of time, find themselves wealthier, saner, more affable, less "time poor" and instantly cured of what HD&W believes to be a pathological and nigh universal loathing of men dressed in white carrying whistles.'

Which is entirely reasonable, as is the usual refrain from opposing supporters — especially those disadvantaged by living outside of Western Australia's borders — when confronted by someone who barracks for the Dockers and has the temerity to admit it. That refrain being, Why bother? — generally accompanied by the type of look most commonly found on the visages of people gathered outside church at the end of a funeral mass for a bunch of teenagers killed in a car crash.

In a sense, this book is an extreme exercise in trying to answer this sensible query. Otherwise, if there's time, one can attempt to engage the uninitiated in a wide-ranging conversation about Fremantle's contribution to the evolution of the AFL. Unfortunately, this method of convincing doubting Thomases and Theresas is subject to the classic Catch-22 conundrum: while Dockers' supporters can enthral each other for hours about the hidden joys and subtle glories of our dud footy side, others have much better things to do. Like plucking the hairs from their nose.

In fact, you don't need to write a book nor start a debate to articulate the mystical attraction of Fremantle during these formative years. One word will do it. A seemingly unremarkable five-letter word which, in fact, contains just about everything you need to know about the Dockers.

That word, of course, is CLIVE.

Even before we get to the extraordinary person behind this clump of consonants and vowels, let's examine the word itself. While an English professor might insist it consists of a single syllable, anyone who has attended a Dockers' home game knows there can be anything up to a dozen subtle, and not so subtle, variations of our most sacred proper noun. On a good day, 25,000 people will salute in unison: CAAAAH-LIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIIII-VVVVV-EEEEEEEEEE. This will, invariably, be accompanied by a phrase along the lines of 'You bloody bewdy.' On a bad day, 'Clive' will more likely than not be spat out like a wad of rubbery green and brown phlegm brought on by a near fatal asthma attack. Followed by, 'You complete fucking idiot.'

Clive is yin and yang. Mars and Venus (although not Earth). Fire and ice — and, on far, far too many occasions, lukewarm water. Clive is good and evil. Indeed, Clive's name spelt backwards signifies a hundred types of evil. Dockers' fans have seen them all. In triplicate.

At face value, Clive Waterhouse — for it is he, Fremantle's mesmerisingly erratic forward-cum-Aryan sports god — has little with which to recommend himself. Clive was born in Birmingham, England and raised in South Australia, a bi-hemispherical pedigree of dubious distinction. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it's invariably difficult — and always bad form — for one male to judge another's handsomeness. Suffice to say, that while a majority of the population would find themselves

either impressed by or attracted to Brad Pitt's physical characteristics, a similar majority, plus or minus Mrs Waterhouse, wouldn't score Clive well in a beauty contest. On one famous occasion, veteran broadcaster and Geelong legend Bobby Davis remarked that Clive bore a striking resemblance not so much a moose as a deer. While this would probably offend Canadian lovers of the antlered mammal, it's not a bad description. Especially if we were to discover a moose roaming the snowfields sporting a shocking-blond mullet.

Having established that Clive is, indeed, no oil painting, it must be acknowledged that our beloved No. 26 possesses several remarkable skills. Clive is extraordinarily fast, not so much a moose as deer. Clive has pace to burn, steam, sizzle, simmer, roast and fry. He is quick like an escaped felon who has just been spotted by police with his hands in the service station till. Clive runs like he stole something.

Clive can also kick a football like few of his peers. When the planets are aligned, the gods are smiling, the wind is at his back and Clive has somehow remembered to get out of the side of the bed where he also keeps his brain, Waterhouse can punt the inflated red leather seventy metres and beyond. Clive has a kick like a mule. A moose, even.

To be an extremely pacy footballer able to launch the football an unfeasibly long way would, you'd think, be an unequivocally good thing. And in Clive's case, you'd be mistaken. For such is the wizardry of the Waterhouse psyche that, like a spoiled reprobate at an expensive private school, Clive all too often

seems determined to employ his talents to champion the cause of wrong rather than right.

For example, running quickly is generally only an advantage in Australian Rules when a player is charging in roughly the right direction. Sadly, Clive invariably finds himself darting senselessly about the footy field like a driverless speedboat on the Swan River. In theory, these random explosions of velocity might prove perilous for opposition players who find themselves trapped in the path of our flaxen-haired express train. While neither especially tall nor Herculean, Clive is what the boys back in Brummy might describe as a 'big lad', capable of causing an inordinate amount of pain to those with whom he comes into contact. Unfortunately, as often as not Clive manages to clean up one or more of his team mates. It's as if at an early, impressionable age, Clive listened to The Who's pretentious rock opera, Tommy , and, in a confused state of over-excitement, set out to model his football career on an amalgam of the deaf, dumb and blind kid, and the glistening, rebounding silver ball.

Indeed, career is an apt word to describe Clive's, well, career. If there's a Dockers' player with over thirty games experience who hasn't been dealt an unexpected blow by their indiscriminate snowy-haired team mate, he's in a fortunate minority. Clive has careered into forwards, defenders, midfielders and ruckmen. He has delivered glancing elbows and copybook shirtfronts, all at a speed which makes the Roadrunner appear an ageing middle-distance hack. Since the recipients of these affronts are blindsided allies, generally operating under the flawed

assumption that the fellows in the red, purple, green and white jumpers with the anchors on the front pose little or no physical threat, the results of these collisions are usually doubly painful. Not to mention downright hilarious.

Clive's kicking is also a source of endless wonder. Faced with the relatively simple task of, say, popping one through from a set shot, directly in front of goal, twenty-five metres out, Clive is at best a 50/50 proposition. Perhaps he'll thread it effortlessly. Perhaps he'll hit the post. Perhaps he'll shank it completely out of bounds. Since one can never be certain, the wait is agonising.

Conversely, Clive is much more reliable when attempting the nigh impossible. Should he, in a moment of naive inspiration, decide to contest a throw-in between the half-forward line and the wing, grab the ball from the clenches of the ruckmen, take a bounce or two and offload from the boundary line, you can settle back in your seat and relax. Nine out of ten times, Clive will split the middle, raise his arms and break into the dumbest grin in world sport. Clive is more mercurial than mercury, and sometimes just as volatile.

On one infamous occasion, the television cameras captured Clive aggressively confronting an opponent and repeatedly flinging him to the ground. Waterhouse was fortunate not to have been reported over the flare-up, doubtless saved by the fact that it occurred during a Dockers' training session at Fremantle Oval and involved Clive publicly sorting out a disagreement with his team-mate and then vice-captain, Jason Norrish. Conversely, on some match days you'd swear Clive wasn't

remotely interested in what's going on around him. When asked to name the biggest obstacle to his football career, Clive famously replied, 'Myself.' Exactly.

Everybody has their favourite Clive-isms. Mine occurred during a nail-biting encounter between Richmond and Fremantle in Melbourne. The ball had been bombed into the Dockers' goal square and proceeded to clear all-comers to land in the arms of our magnificent No. 26. Admittedly, Clive was somewhat stunned to find himself with temporary ownership of the footy, but, ever the opportunist, he spun around and took aim for goal. Since Clive was, at worst, one hundred centimetres from the target — repeat, ONE HUNDRED CENTIMETRES, this is not a misprint — chickens were hatched, glasses put down and misères laid all around Colonial Stadium. In short, Clive couldn't possibly miss. Except, and I'm sure you've guessed this already, he did. God bless him, Clive didn't merely miss the goal, he deftly conspired to miss the entire ball, managing to execute a text book punt kick through thin air. Once the laughter died, Clive eventually went on to help seal a rare away win for Freo with a monster bomb goal late in the game.

Another of Clive's circus tricks for the ages occurred in tandem with Tony Modra, Fremantle's star recruit from the Adelaide Crows. Having been coached by Malcolm Blight, another of the AFL's genuine eccentrics, Modra probably thought he'd seen it all before shifting to the Dockers to complete his fine career. He was wrong. Often, Modra appeared

to be frustrated with Clive which, given No. 26's penchant for getting in the full-forward's way, wasn't an entirely unreasonable response. On this occasion, though, Clive managed to win the ball near the Dockers' goal and, with only a single opponent between him and Modra, needed simply to float a handpass over the top to ensure a certain goal. Like most instinctive forwards Clive likes to kick them himself, but on this occasion Waterhouse realised Modra was the sure thing. Yet for all his good intentions, he launched a spearing handpass which, as well as clearing the frantic defender by now charging Clive, also soared high over the bemused Modra's head and through the Freo goal. Officially, the scorers refer to this type of thing as a 'rushed' behind. In truth, Clive's misdemeanour demanded a new category — ridiculous.

And then there is what Clive-watchers the world over would regard as his signature. This audacious feat is not produced often, perhaps once or twice a season. But like a Shane Warne flipper or Eric Clapton's guitar solo on 'Layla', the crowd waits in awe for its arrival and feels blessed upon witnessing such a wonder. Clive's prize stunt revolves around what would otherwise be a rudimentary marking contest, the kind that happens in any AFL match when the ball is kicked high into the forward line. In this situation, a pack develops and players launch themselves to try to mark the thing. In a normal game, the crowd becomes excited when a forward succeeds in taking a grab and setting up a shot for goal. At Fremantle, we stand and salute when Clive performs what the Ringling Brothers might

announce as The Amazing Armless Marking Attempt, in which our fearless hero sails through the air and across the pack, invariably getting himself into a perfect position to mark the elusive leather. Except, for some mysterious reason, Clive forgets to raise his arms. The visual effect of this bizarre and cryptic stratagem is akin to a crash test dummy intruding on to the playing arena. What the Dockers coaches' box thinks of it could only be printed in a magazine purchased from behind the newsagents' counter in a brown-paper bag. The crowd, of course, loves it.

Astrology, karma and sheer coincidence could be used to explain Clive's unorthodox approach to AFL, but there is a more mundane explanation. While most of the teenagers that are drafted have been kicking Sherrins around since their nappy days, Clive did not pull on the boots for a game of Australian Rules until he was seventeen. Consequently, by the time Fremantle selected Clive with their precious first pick at the end of our inaugural 1995 season, Waterhouse had played barely four years of footy. For most of his youth, Clive had his heart set on becoming a soccer player and he still lists playing for Manchester United as an unrequited dream. In some ways it's a shame Clive drifted away from the world game, since he'd almost surely be a global cult figure by now; certainly Alex Ferguson and his shareholder mates at Old Trafford could have earned a small fortune marketing Clive's ninety minute Own Goals  video-comedy classic. Clive's love of soccer explains his penchant for The Amazing Armless Marking Attempt — clearly,

in the heat of battle, Clive simply forgets which code he's devoted his career to and erroneously seeks to head the oval-shaped ball. Indeed, on more than one occasion the Sherrin has been seen to bounce off the Waterhouse noggin during a game. It was no surprise that, on being called up to represent Australia in the awkward hybrid AFL-Gaelic game against the Irish, Clive emerged as one of the best equipped to manipulate the round ball around the park.

There is an affectionate innocence about Clive that always reminds me of Buzz Lightyear, the animated star of the Toy Story  movies. All parents will recognise Buzz as the rocket-man character who doesn't understand he's just a toy and refuses to accept that all of the accoutrements on his spacesuit, such as laser guns and booster tanks, don't actually work. Entirely unhindered by self-doubt, Buzz constantly attempts feats which he has no right to consider. While the result is often comical, equally Buzz's self-belief inspires him to achieve the impossible. This pretty much sums up Clive, who is at least as loveable as Buzz. If Freo could organise it, fans would gladly purchase Waterhouse dolls on a 1-800 number.

It's hard to believe Clive hasn't been with the Dockers since the beginning, since he and Fremantle are the perfect fit. Certainly, if Freo's chaotic first year posed numerous questions, Clive supplied the answers when he climbed aboard our rickety jalopy in 1996. He has since come to embody all of the qualities that attract supporters to Fremantle — youth, enthusiasm, talent, frustration, slapstick, naïveté, stubbornness, infuriation,

inspiration, unconventionality and improvement. For years we've been waiting for Clive to emerge as an elite footballer, and on many occasions have been rewarded with glimpses of Eden. Just when you've spent a half hour cursing Clive's apparent lack of interest in the contest, he's just as likely to stun you with four exquisite goals in a fifteen-minute burst. Sadly, injury has plagued Clive in recent years — his 2002 season vanished with a serious knee injury in the pre-season competition — but the Dockers sans our beloved No. 26 is simply unimaginable. When Clive's father became seriously ill in 2000, a furious controversy emerged as Waterhouse made noises about shifting back to Adelaide. This was, of course, entirely reasonable given the concern for his family and the hopelessness of the Dockers. Fortunately, Clive was persuaded to stay and we've now signed him until 2004. Sadly, his father has since passed away.

I guess if Clive had been traded he'd have gone the way of other Freo rejects and discards, and won a premiership medal, if not a Brownlow. But he's ours and we intend to keep him.

I have spent several years rhapsodising about Clive in the national newspaper, yet have never summoned up the courage to meet him. I remember reading an interview with Joan Armatrading, the moderately famous singer-songwriter who, during a long career, has mixed it with many of her better known contemporary musicians. Armatrading admitted to being a huge Van Morrison fan, but had declined several opportunities to meet her Irish hero on the basis that she didn't want to be disappointed. I have adopted a similar attitude to Clive.

There have been a couple of chances; I once strolled straight past the flaxen-haired one as he sipped a drink at a sidewalk cafe. On another occasion Clive was comfortably settled in business class as I made my way to the back of an aeroplane. I figure the seating arrangements on our shared flight is a metaphor for my imaginary relationship with our No. 26.

Quite simply, I am not worthy.

GETTING CARRIED AWAY

ROBERT SCOTT (British explorer, not Kangaroos tagger) knew a lot about ice and snow but not much about footy. 'Make the boy interested in natural history; it is better than games,' Scott wrote in the last letter to his wife before he died returning from the South Pole. To be sure, back in 1912 it must have been difficult getting hold of a Sherrin and playing kick-to-kick in what Micky McGuane might describe as 'extreme conditions not ideal for the application of leather conveyance by foot at rapid leg speed ...' i.e. wet weather. But even if limited to Spot The Fairy Penguin, Scott should have known better.

Admittedly, we Fremantle fans aren't much interested in history. Having been around a mere four years, the best we can do is reminisce about the 'glory' days of 1997, when the Dockers limped home to finish twelfth. That was also the year we ALMOST won three in a row.

But for a few days, at least, the indignities of history can be forgotten as Dockers' fans, like all other AFL supporters, dream of the delicious possibilities ahead. For until the first ball is bounced, we all stand equal. Which may not last long, so it's something to savour.

Fremantle dreaming goes something like this. Gerard Neesham's dumping and the recruitment of Damian Drum will provide that 'new coach bounce' which should be good for at least two extra wins. Our summer form has conformed to both conflicting pre-season theories. Thrashings by West Coast and Hawthorn confirm practice-match form should be ignored. Improvement against Adelaide and Essendon are good signs. The Dockers now possess their first bona fide, if erratic and ageing, superstar — Tony Modra — and all that young talent is ready to step up. So, here we go:

Round 1: Historic first victory against West Coast. Modra kicks eight on All-Australian full-back Ashley McIntosh. Eagles coach Mick Malthouse fined $10,000 for bagging umps in subsequent Australian column.

Round 2: Port Adelaide, widely tipped as finals contenders, humbled at home by storming Dockers. Modra, after kicking six, tells Channel Seven's Dipper he thinks South Australians are boring.

Round 3: Subiaco Oval goes bonkers as Freo beats the Hawks for a record three straight wins. Modra kept to a relatively quiet three goals, but unfancied forward Michael Brown boots five, making mockery of a disgraceful two point rating in Australian Footy Game.

Round 4: Blues' president John Elliott lambasts Carlton players as 'stupid and insular' after Freo goes 4-0 at Optus Oval. Elliott, however, heaps praise on Dale Kickett, who kicks four for the Dockers. 'Bugger me, I forgot those people could play footy,' enthuses Elliott.

Round 5: MODDDDDDRAAAAAAA!!!! Tone goes mad, kicking eleven as the Dockers crush Brisbane. In his local newspaper column, Gerard Neesham endears himself to Dockers

fans with public admission that he deserved to be sacked.

Round 6: Freo anti-hero Dan Parker holds Plugger goalless as Dockers swamp Swans at home. Eagles' membership plummets as chardonnay set seeks to jump bandwagons in mid-season.

Okay, I'm getting carried away. Yes, things could all have turned sour by quarter-time on Sunday. But, as Micky might put it, 'at the end of a 24-hour period starting at midnight ...' a fan's gotta dream.

-Weekend Australian, 25 March 1999.

7

Cruelty: Damian Drum

Item 1: It is getting late at the AFL's prestigious dinner to announce the All-Australian side at the end of the 2000 season, and John Elliott, Carlton's high profile and arrogant president is, er, tired and emotional. Rarely short of an obnoxious opinion, Elliott sidles up to AFL Players' Association chief executive Robbie Kerr and proceeds to give him a mouthful. From all reports it's a ferocious spray covering numerous grievances, mainly how Kerr's communistic organisation is making things difficult for Elliott's beloved Blues. The Carlton president in full flight is a sight to behold, and it usually takes something extraordinary — a team of riot police, a United Nations peacekeeping force — to stop him. Only this time ,Elliott applies the handbrake himself since, amidst his turbo-charged diatribe, he can't help but notice the blank expression on the face of his prey. Which, to be fair, isn't surprising since Elliott isn't actually letting fly at Kerr but has mistakenly cornered Damian Drum. Drum has nothing to do with the AFLPA, mainly because he is the Fremantle Dockers' senior

coach and has been for two full seasons. It's just that Elliott hasn't recognised him.

Item 2: After an extended brawl between Australia's television networks, Channel Seven has lost the rights to broadcast football and is preparing for its final season of AFL in 2001. Seven's loss has bred enmity between the network and the AFL, and people wonder whether this might embolden television commentators to be a little more critical, and lot less obsequious in their approach to the game.

In fact, not much will change, although in the pre-season competition resident commentary bozo Doug Hawkins is either brave, or stupid, enough to proclaim that the Dockers are looking good and can anticipate a successful and fruitful year. By now on something of a roll, Hawkins declares Fremantle to be his roughie for the season ahead. 'I think the Dockers could be the big improvers under Gerard Neesham,' he tells his audience. In fact, Neesham is long gone. Drum, Neesham's replacement, is by now in his third year with the club.

To say that Damian Drum was never an overly-charismatic figure is to state the bleeding obvious. True, Elliott was inebriated and Hawkins schtick is playing the dill. Yet, should the Carlton president drink a pallet of Foster's Lager, and Hawkins undergo a frontal lobotomy, you'd reckon they'd still be able to automatically identify every other AFL coach of the past five years.

No, Drummie wasn't merely ordinary; he was extra-ordinary . A thoroughly decent fellow and devoted father of four, Drum was entirely devoid of pretension or artifice. What you saw was what you got, and what Fremantle got was a hard-working, passionate overseer who dedicated every molecule in his mind and body to the apparently hopeless task of getting the Dockers to win more often than they lost.

Which was all very well, but no one was ever really sure whether Drummie was up to the job. I spent the three years Drum was at the helm pestering experts and observers with what must have been the AFL's most frustrating conundrum: 'Can Drummie coach?' Veteran Melbourne scribe Mike Sheahan would simply shift his gaze into the middle distance, as if contemplating the meaning of life or the Tao of Kite Flying. I posed Mike the question dozens of times, but — apart from an extraordinarily silly outburst on television which we'll highlight later — he simply couldn't answer.

Patrick Smith is The Australian's  sports doyen who, as far as I can gather, knows practically everything there is to know about everything. Yet faced with arguably the most infuriating question of the post-Cold War era — 'Can Drummie coach?' — Patrick tended to brood and sweat and adopt the lotus position before shaking his head and walking away without uttering a word.

While we'll probably never untangle the mystery of Drum's coaching prowess, he certainly arrived at Fremantle with an impressive pedigree. When Neesham was flicked at the end of

1998, the Dockers, job was one of several vacancies in the AFL. Drum, an assistant at the Sydney Swans, had been interviewed by Richmond, Collingwood, Brisbane and Melbourne before a firm offer came in from Fremantle.

In truth, Drummie's greatest contribution to football occurred in the weeks before he secured the Dockers' job. Like Fremantle, Collingwood had been struggling, and there was plenty of unrest in the Magpies' camp both on and off the field. Drum became embroiled in this when ex-Collingwood president Kevin Ryan approached him about taking over from beleaguered Magpie veteran Tony Shaw. With the Fremantle job offer virtually in his pocket, Drum told Collingwood 'Thanks, but no thanks'. Understandably, Magpies fans regarded this as an unspeakable insult, akin to turning down a date with Elle MacPherson to stay home with Bronwyn Bishop. One high profile supporter was more than insulted, he was fuming. Ubiquitous journalist, broadcaster and Footy Show  host Eddie McGuire couldn't stomach that anyone might possibly prefer the still laughable Dockers to a club with the prestige, history and tradition of Collingwood. Consequently, McGuire became inspired to make a successful tilt for Ryan's job, and has since emerged as perhaps the most powerful individual in the southern hemisphere. Take a bow, Damian.

It seems to me that predicting whether or not a rookie coach will succeed is as futile as trying to explain pregnancy and childbirth to a classroom full of teenage virgins. You can espouse theories, draw diagrams and predict, with a degree of

confidence, that the girls who enjoy babysitting will make excellent mothers. But all of this counts for less than a jot until you've popped one out and started to experience the wonders and woes of raising kiddies. Drummie arrived at Fremantle with excellent credentials. Sydney couldn't speak highly enough about their departing assistant as Drum was hailed a master centre-square strategist and video-machine visionary. Later, when the Dockers continued to struggle, cynics began to suspect the Swans had deliberately sold us a lemon. Which isn't really fair, since it's doubtful whether an amalgam of Sheedy, Malthouse and the good Lord himself would have made much progress with the Dockers' young and injury-crippled squad.

Ever the optimists, Dockers' fans dreamt of a new start under Drummie. Even the staunchest Neesham supporters conceded the ex-coach's endearing idiosyncrasies had their limitations. Initially, many clubs had appeared bamboozled by the way the speedy Dockers ran haphazardly around the oval playing an adult version of kindergarten keep-it-off. Inevitably, the other fifteen coaches worked out that even the quickest and most adept of the Dockers' runners slowed significantly when subjected to sustained physical assault. Neesham's boys could run but they couldn't hide. Increasingly, opposition clubs would rough up the Dockers, who were generally younger than and not as strong as other sides. These quite legitimate tactics didn't merely quell Fremantle's effectiveness, they added to the already bulging injury list.

Drummie understood this and arrived at Fremantle

determined to knock some of the avant  out of the Dockers' garde . Asked to describe his style, Drum said: 'It will be based around a lot of hard work ... it will be based around a lot of discipline, a lot of rules and structures that will be in place for the players to work on.' The new coach wasn't satisfied merely talking the talk, he'd occasionally walk the walk as well. On more than one occasion Drum would join in training drills and volunteer to flatten a player. He could yell and scream with the best of them as well.

As the Drum era dawned, supporters became cautiously optimistic. During the off-season, Fremantle had secured its first bona fide AFL superstar. Disillusioned at missing out on playing in two winning grand final sides at Adelaide, prolific full-forward, and surfie pin-up boy, Tony Modra had agreed to shift to the Dockers. We now had a 'marquee' player to attract crowds and, hopefully, build a forward line around. Neesham had provided the flair, Drum would instil professionalism and an improved work ethic. At the very least, the Dockers could expect the sort of honeymoon most clubs seemed to enjoy when they changed foremen. Surely, we would benefit from an AFL phenomenon which might plausibly be labelled New Coach Bounce.

Sadly, Fremantle's opening to the 1999 season was more Dead Cat Bounce, the term coined by smug stockbroker types to describe a market which threatens to rebound before dying in the arse. Drum's charges opened the season with a heart-breaking defeat to West Coast — history and a long-awaited first win over the Eagles eluded us by a miserable four points. The

following week the Dockers travelled to Adelaide, where Port prevailed by less than two goals. While Fremantle remained winless, Drum's new team had made a promising start. Progress seemed assured, victory just around the corner.

Appearances, however, proved deceptive. Six-goal losses to Hawthorn and Carlton were followed by an Anzac Day walloping at home by Brisbane. Another defeat in Sydney made it 0-6, a less than satisfactory result for which I felt obliged to accept a modicum of responsibility. On the eve of the season I'd penned a 'fantasy' column — or, to be more accurate, a column more fantastic (in the true sense) than usual — confidently predicting the Dockers would win their opening six matches, and providing bemused readers with vivid details of each futuristic triumph. Like the infant Clark Kent inadvertently ripping his mother's arm off, it was here I first recognised the strange and perilous curse at my disposal. Whenever my Left Field ramblings idiotically strayed towards praising Fremantle, the Dockers would respond by getting thumped. Far safer — and infinitely more honest — to pour scorn on the lads, which occasionally appeared to produce an inspired victory.

Drummie was quickly beginning to understand the peculiar brand of torture that arrived with his weekly pay cheque. It wasn't exactly a dream debut for the modest, straight-talking rookie. 'We may have to reassess our aims for 1999,' he mournfully declared. 'Zero-six doesn't look good on paper, but in three of those games we played pretty good footy. But it doesn't equate to much when you don't get the chocolates.'

Thankfully my pre-season column had stopped at six games and in Round 7 the confectionery arrived courtesy of a stirring, come-from-behind win over Geelong. Modra had lived up to his pre-publicity and hefty pay check, bagging six in the win over the Cats to sit high on the goal-kicking ladder with twenty-three for the season. Aside from slotting six-pointers, the surf-spunk-spearhead had already proved a marketing boom for the club, with thousands of youngsters scampering to stitch his signature number 6 to their Dockers' jumper. Fremantle lost its next two games, before a joyous annihilation of Melbourne in which Modra kicked ten goals. Reigning premiers Adelaide were dispatched the following week as the end of the millennium took on a distinctly rosier glow.

Drum, like all coaches, was to discover the hazards of plying his trade in a passionate two-team town. In quieter moments, Dockers' fans understood our club was a hastily constructed sailboat entering treacherous seas filled with nasty AFL pirates. Neesham, we knew, had been industrious and wonderfully entertaining, but four years of rare quixotic victories amid routine defeats meant Fremantle was now ready to take that difficult, intangible and often illusory 'step up'. Drummie, we hoped, would provide the scaffolding by which the players would elevate themselves and prosper. It was never going to be an easy nor particularly speedy process. In an effort to 'step up' we needed to 'rebuild'. Before St Damian could check us in to five-star accommodation in the Promised Land, we had to spend a bit of time slumming it at the Limbo Motel.

Unfortunately, no one was ever certain whether we were stepping up, back, forward or sideways under Drummie. And all too often, Limbo felt like Purgatory. There seemed to be a consensus that the new coach needed to de-Neeshamise the side and attempt to re-educate the players to unlearn the charming, if ultimately unsuccessful, tactics they'd learned under General Gerard. No more firing the ball backwards, running around in circles and bumping into each other; Drummie would teach us to meld together, play to a game plan and gain respect. More than anything, Drum was determined to toughen up the Fremantle players. He came from the east, where other clubs apparently regarded the Dockers as a vaguely amusing novelty outfit who folded like the Twin Towers under the sniff of physical pressure. Drummie would build our muscles, stiffen our sinews and steel our minds; his Dockers would run and bump and never shirk. We would be, as they say, 'hard at the football.'

To a point, he succeeded. During that first year under Drum, whatever flair Fremantle had possessed was sacrificed for ferocity. Where Neesham had dared to dream of John McEnroe, Drummie was quite satisfied with Ivan Lendl. That's a shocking metaphor which could cause both tennis stars to sue, but if you'll continue to indulge me, Freo generally conspired to deliver something closer to Anna Kournikova. Which is an even worse comparison, unless between the time of writing and now Anna has stacked on five stone, developed warts and welts over her face and body, and been run over by a school bus. Because the Dockers lost often and ugly.

Again, I'm no expert but there appeared to be a couple of basic problems. The main one, which would haunt Drummie through his entire, inglorious career at Fremantle, was skill. Or, more precisely, the Dockers' lack of it. Five years in and the players seemed to make double the usual quota of unforced errors, much to the chagrin of loyal but intensely frustrated supporters. How the coaching staff coped with some of the awful mistakes must surely be the stuff of a future psychology PhD dissertation. If Fremantle frequently seemed capable of winning our fair share of the football, we were far too prone to generously donate the thing to the opposition.

And while there's no question we were 'harder at it' under Drummie, there never seemed to be much method in the Dockers' macho-ness. Too often Freo's tactics mirrored those employed by a bunch of primary school children at the fairground bumper cars. As Fremantle players were busy being 'hard at it', throwing themselves into packs, tackles and smothers, their opponents often found themselves free to accept the ball as it emerged from a pack, often via an errant Docker handball.

Fremantle finished second last in Drum's first season. The New Coach Bounce had produced just five victories, only one of which was especially memorable. In Round 16, after nine consecutive losses, Fremantle finally beat the Eagles. Or rather, we trounced them (more, much more, on that later). But for all our newly acquired 'hardness', the exhilarating unpredictability of the Dockers under Neesham had vanished. Drum inherited

his predecessor's awful luck with injury, and the players seemed tired and jaded through much of the season. What began as a comic adventure was moving into darkly tragic territory. There were fewer party tricks; indeed, the best of the season was performed by umpire Peter Carey, who enlivened the Dockers' game against St Kilda by intercepting a pass from Fremantle midfielder Adrian Fletcher. Carey's 'mark' almost overshadowed a rare Freo win. Such was Drum's luck.

Some of the losses were horrendous. An otherwise anonymous Richmond hack — Ben Holland — made a name for himself by kicking the winner on the siren to down Fremantle by a point. Holland was chaired from the ground and barely heard of again. On a freezing night at the WACA, the Dockers were close to Carlton at half-time but lost by more than eleven goals. The ball barely found its way into the Fremantle forward line in the second half, and of three Dockers scoring shots, two were behinds rushed by Blues defenders. Modra and his opponent, legendary full-back Stephen Silvagni, needed thawing after watching idle from the non-striker's end. Walking from the ground that night with second-degree frostbite, it was suggested that the Dockers might like to invest in cryogenics to preserve fans for when the club might make the finals circa 2099.

The worst moment of the season, and probably the club's on-field nadir, came the following week in Brisbane. By half-time the Lions led 21.5 to 2.6. Mercifully, the home side took pity on us in the second half to win by a lazy nineteen goals. 'Once the

momentum started through a couple of poor efforts by us, it grew into more poor efforts,' Drum later lamented. 'Before we knew it, we had a tidal wave of poor efforts.' The PE tsunami took in two more lackadaisical losses as Fremantle limped to the off-season in terrible shape.

Under the AFL's laudable socialist doctrine, there was at least a side benefit to finishing near the bottom of the ladder. While draft preferences reward mediocrity, uselessness attracts even greater rewards. By finishing second last in 1998, Fremantle had won a bonus pick of Australia's best youngsters. This coincided with news that in luring Dockers' ruckman and number one draft pick Jeff White back to Victoria, the Melbourne Football Club had cheated by breaching the salary cap. This earned Fremantle another priority pick.

Drummie made plenty of mistakes during his tenure at Freo, but by grabbing Paul Hasleby, Matthew Pavlich and Leigh Brown in the 1999 draft, the Dockers' coach established the foundations of an exciting future. This trio of teenagers all debuted in 2000 and quickly emerged as the fulcrum of the team. Another Drum recruit, ferocious midfielder and Sydney Swans reject Troy Cook, won the fairest and best in his first year with the Dockers. Otherwise, there wasn't much to celebrate in the Year 2000.

The Dockers began the new millennium with a narrow loss to Geelong, with Hasleby casually amassing thirty, mainly effective, possessions in his AFL debut. Hopes rose when Fremantle won its first — and, so far, only — game at Football

Park, with an uncharacteristically impressive victory over Port Adelaide. After losing to the resurgent Essendon, the Dockers got off to a blinder against Richmond at the newly constructed Colonial Stadium, to establish a six-goal lead. Freo's wastefulness and comedic lack of skill brought the Tigers back into the game, but in a frantic finale the Dockers managed to wreak vengeance on Richmond with a one-point win. Tony Modra kicked seven for the Dockers. Ben Holland didn't play for the Tigers.

Fremantle had started 2000 with two away wins but, frustratingly, couldn't manage a victory at home. Melbourne beat us at the WACA in Round 5 and then vile West Coast delivered a murderous twenty-goal humiliation in the Western Derby. After being pile-driven into the turf by Eagles, full-back Ashley McIntosh, Modra departed with a serious shoulder injury. Things were looking decidedly bleak.

Then, for the briefest of moments, signs of life returned to the carcass. Brisbane travelled to Subiaco and Fremantle got over the line by a couple of goals. Having won three from seven matches, the Dockers returned to Colonial to take on the Magpies. Mick Malthouse was in his debut season with Collingwood after ending his ten-year reign of terror in the west, and the Black and Whites had responded to him like a Jack Russell on speed. Collingwood won their first five games of the year before a pair of honourable losses to North Melbourne and Essendon, the powerhouses of the competition. When Drummie's mob ran out on to the ground, not a soul gave them a sniff of a chance of breaking their Melbourne drought against the Pies.

Yet, Fremantle were magnificent that night. Nathan Buckley, who generally pencilled in a doctor's appointment for the morning after Dockers' games to attend to his leather poisoning, barely got a touch under the close attention of Freo's tireless defender, Shane Parker. New captain Adrian Fletcher played a blinder, there was not a passenger in the green and purple, and by three-quarter time Fremantle had restricted Collingwood to five goals and led by more than seven. It wouldn't be a Dockers 'match without a few wobbles, and sure enough the Magpies threatened in the final quarter. But, employing the deceptive cool of a kid with all of eight games under his belt, Hasleby landed a couple of critical last-quarter goals and Fremantle got home by twenty-two points.

Suddenly, the Dockers had won four from eight as well as the attention of serious pundits. Back at The Australian , I received an encouraging email from Brownlow medallist and television commentator, Gerard Healy. It read:

Just a short note to say that I have been following your articles on the Dockers in The Australian for some time. An excellent read — may they continue. A challenge looms, however, for I suspect they are not far from being a genuine contender in the comp and look forward to seeing your articles deal with their success as they improve as a team.

Cheers

Gerard Healy at 3AW Sports Today

Now Gerard was a terrific footballer and is one of the better media pundits going around — certainly a connoisseur of, ahem, fine journalism — but on this occasion his powers of clairvoyance were several kilometres shy of centimetre perfect.

Far from ushering in a brave new era of Fremantle competence, the Dockers plummeted into a woeful month-long trough. Carlton came to Subiaco the following week and, despite a handy half-dozen goals by Clive, smashed us by more than ten goals. Next week, at the MCG, the Kangaroos dished out a fifteen-goal belting. Then the Western Bulldogs travelled to Perth to deliver a sixteen-goal mauling to Drummie's mob. By comparison, Hawthorn's fifty-nine-point victory over Fremantle the following week appeared almost competitive.

The May Millennial Massacre had produced four horrendous losses averaging roughly thirteen goals. The Dockers started the month marginally out of the final eight on percentage. By the time winter arrived, we were languishing in fourteenth place, had dropped fifteen percentage points and the prospect of a finals appearance had completely disappeared. 'We're playing horrible footy,' was Drum's assessment of the Dockers' predicament. For once, nobody could argue with him.

Fortuitously, the following week brought struggling St Kilda to Perth and the Dockers registered an easy win to break the chain of disaster. Sydney and Port Adelaide, who were also struggling that year, provided further relief when they came and lost over the next six weeks. But these token victories could not disguise the lack of progress we'd made under Drummie.

By Round 18, Fremantle had won just seven games, mainly against lowly opponents. Even the Collingwood win had been a mirage — having flattered to deceive at the start of the season, the Magpies lost nine straight to finish near the bottom. Drum's Dockers were a pedestrian shadow of Neesham's capricious side, which, while frustratingly inconsistent, was occasionally capable of beating, or at least frightening, the very best.

Yet, in the wrap-up after Fremantle's fourteen-goal pounding by Essendon, a confounding conversation took place on a couch in a television studio. Seven's Talking Footy  had cemented itself as one of the more informative television programs going around and on this Monday night Healy, Mike Sheahan and Malcolm Blight were mulling over things football. Perhaps it was the bright lights. Perhaps they'd dropped a couple of E's in the make-up room. Whatever, when talk turned to the Dockers the trio mulled over Healy's suggestion that Drum might be a contender for coach of the year. Admittedly, there wasn't an awful lot of enthusiasm for the proposal. Eventually, Blight appeared to twig to the preposterousness of Drum as All-Australian coach and swiftly changed the subject. But this misguided banter illuminated the wider problem for Fremantle. People didn't take us seriously, and even smart folk like the couch people could reach mid-July without understanding what was going on at Freo. Barely any Dockers' games were broadcast outside Perth; the team was at best a curio, at worst a laughing stock.

It's worth recording that Drum's name was missing when the

All-Australian side was announced that year — perhaps that's why John Elliott didn't recognise him. The Dockers limped home, suffering three more thumping losses in the final month of the season. Yet the sole euphoric victory — an epic one-point triumph over vile West Coast in the penultimate game of the year — remains arguably Fremantle's greatest moment. Freo finished twelfth in 2000, a fair reflection of an ordinary year. More importantly, the Eagles finished thirteenth.

TOO HORRIBLE TO CONTEMPLATE

As improbable as it now seems, you can bet some poor soul will eventually feel compelled to write the definitive history of the Fremantle Football Club. It will probably be published in the twenty-second century to coincide with the fervour induced by the Dockers making the final eight for the first time. It will tell a chaotic and quixotic tale of hardship, woe, incompetence and persistence. It will chart the trail of ridicule and hopelessness travelled by the naive, inept, but fashionably attired, AFL club. And an entire chapter will be dedicated to this last week — an ebb so low, a nadir so deep, it induced a sigh of relief from Fitzroy fans, glad the death of their club at least saved them from such humiliation.

For the benefit of curious futuristic sports historians, let me rake through the muck of the Dockers' indignity.

Last Saturday Fremantle travelled to Colonial Stadium desperate to curb a run of three horrendous ten-goal-plus defeats. To this end, the Dockers were successful. By a stroke of good fortune, Fremantle came up against an out-of-form Hawthorn unit. As the headline on The Australian's Monday match report noted: 'Insipid Hawks perform before uncrowded house.' 'Insipid' Hawthorn managed to

sneak home by fifty-nine points, a miskick shy of ten goals.

And it's true, the Hawks were awful. 'Playing like zombies,' the report said. (I'm not making this up.) At least we now have a scientific measurement by which to define this Freo team. It reads: Dockers = Insipid Zombies minus ten goals (plus one point).

And so, with heavy hearts and broken spirits, the players returned to Perth, hopeful their coaches and club management might have some kind of master plan to improve the above equation. Except Fremantle couldn't organise a chook raffle.

Last month the club started selling tickets for its annual raffle — admittedly the prize is a cruise holiday, not a stuffed number 12 — but was forced to recall hundreds of tickets and refund money after a bureaucratic bungle. (I'm not making this up.)

The week also brought news that ex-Collingwood hard man Stan Magro is suing Fremantle for more than $200,000. Magro, an assistant coach at Fremantle in 1998, alleges his dismissal by the Dockers damaged his chances of winning a senior AFL coaching position. Now I'm no lawyer, but perhaps Stan copped too many elbows to the head during his hectic AFL career. Surely Magro's premature departure from Fremantle has vastly improved his senior coaching credentials. It certainly works that way with the players: Winston Abraham, Peter Bell, 'Spider' Burton, Kingsley Hunter and Andrew Wills are just some of those thriving after receiving a Freo flickpass. Imagine the irreparable damage to Stan's career were he still aligned to the Dockers. He should be kneeling down each night and giving thanks. Instead, Magro is taking the Dockers to court, angry he was never given a promised interview for the job

when Damian Drum replaced Gerard Neesham before the 1998 season. (I'm not making this up.)

Naturally, Fremantle's appalling form has raised speculation Drum will go the same way as Magro, with Western Bulldogs, coach Terry Wallace politely denying he is in the running. Yet the local West Australian newspaper this week pleaded for critics and fans to lay off Drum and, in an editorial, argued that despite Freo's horror stretch there's no justification for a 'whispering campaign' against the coach who should be given a 'fair go'.

'You really learn how to coach when you are doing one of these jobs,' Drum said this week. If the Dockers' streak continues, Drummie will end the year as an emeritus professor.

And it has been revealed a dozen Dockers' players have been secretly recruited by George Speight's Fiji rebels. (I made that up.)

Of course, the upside of such a down week is that things can't possibly get any worse. Except Fremantle plays the marginally more useless St Kilda tomorrow, with star players 'Spider' Everitt, Stewart Loewe and Daryl Wakelin absent from the Saints team. Dockers' supporters will travel to Subiaco Oval sick with apprehension. We can't possibly lose, can we? The mere thought is too horrible to contemplate.

-Weekend Australian, 3 June 2000.

8

Euphoria: Beating the Eagles

Of all Fremantle's early childhood achievements — and, admittedly, there haven't been many — one has been seriously under-appreciated.

When the Dockers entered the AFL, West Coast were reigning premiers. The Eagles had humiliated Geelong in the 1994 grand final, smashing the Cats by eighty points to win their second premiership in three years. Mick Malthouse's allegedly ultra-defensive unit went on the rampage at the MCG, kicking twenty goals from forty-three scoring shots. The talk turned to juggernauts and dynasties as the Eagles, packed with depth and All-Australian champions, seemed set to dominate the competition through the 1990s.

Except they didn't. Fremantle arrived in 1995 and the Eagles haven't won a trophy since. There is no watertight explanation for this. It's not as if the Dockers' deft recruiting department deprived Malthouse of nuggets such as Leigh Wardell-Johnson and Clinton Wolf. Indeed, you could argue that by stealing a (small) portion of the publicity and footy

hype in Western Australia, the Dockers might have assisted West Coast in keeping their minds firmly on the job of winning premierships.

Yet the Eagles could finish no higher than fifth through the rest of the 1990s. I like to think a little of Fremantle's incompetence rubbed off on West Coast during those early years. Golfers understand that, just as your game can be elevated by being partnered with a low handicapper, it can also go to pieces when everyone else in your group is playing like a duffer. While the Eagles entered the Dockers' era resembling Tiger Woods, they played more like Kirk Triplett. Freo, of course, was Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack .

For Dockers' supporters, there is no more important match during the season than the Western Derby. Perhaps in the future, when we're accustomed to finishing in the top half of the ladder and booking flights to Melbourne in September, we'll invest a little less effort and emotion in the biannual game against West Coast. Otherwise nothing comes close. In television newsrooms there's a vague, unsentimental equation that dictates a thousand dead Indians equals a hundred dead Europeans equals fifty dead Americans equals twenty dead Brits equals one Australian injured in a nasty road accident. Similarly, for Freo supporters, one win over the hometown enemy can assuage a season of horrendous losses.

The Dockers entered the inaugural Western Derby back in 1995 with the odd pundit — all right, me — giving them a quarter of a chance. It was played in Round 7, by which time

Fremantle had unexpectedly accumulated three wins to the Eagles' four. Subiaco Oval was being re-opened after a prolonged period of renovation, and more than 41,000 fans assembled in the assortment of new and used grandstands to christen the most important contest in Western Australian sport. It was a brilliant, sunny afternoon and, as it happened, Mother's Day. Which was perfect, really, since the Eagles dished out the mother of all hidings to the hapless Dockers.

Looking back at the video of the game, it's difficult to believe the two sides were part of the same elite competition. Fremantle resembled a bunch of computer nerds who'd wandered by accident into a World Wrestling Federation ring. Peter Miller was the Dockers' pipsqueak rover who wrote himself into the Sporting Quiz Night Hall of Fame by kicking the first goal of the historic game. Somehow, Fremantle kept the rampant Eagles goalless for the opening fifteen minutes. This was probably because several West Coast players were quite obviously more intent on collecting scalps than possessions. West Coast's fearful hard man John Worsfold must have prescribed himself a surfeit of angry pills before the game — or perhaps Woosha hates his mother. The Eagles' skipper, and friendly neighbourhood pharmacist, developed a virulent strain of white-line fever that afternoon, which traumatised any Dockers forward naïve or impetuous enough to attempt to get near the football. Next to Worsfold, young Winston Abraham, the mercurial Aboriginal goalsneak who would eventually be released by Fremantle to win a

premiership medal with North Melbourne, looked like a Little League player who'd got his times mixed up.

Eagles forward Brett Heady played a blinder for West Coast, kicking five goals and taking a first-quarter screamer on the flank, which would emerge as the signature of the game. We were about five metres away from Heady as he launched himself skywards, by which time it was fairly obvious Dockers' supporters were in for a rough afternoon. Not long after half-time, West Coast's lead had stretched to seventy points and they eventually coasted to an eighty-five-point victory. As it happened, Paul Keating was in town for the Mother's Day Massacre and, while the former prime minister doesn't know much about AFL, he knew he'd witnessed a slaughter. The game was so one-sided that Keating, who himself would be given the Worsfold treatment by voters within a year, felt compelled to have what seemed to be a friendly chat over a cup of tea, with sworn political enemy and sparkling conversationalist, Premier Richard Court.

'Fremantle have come face to face with the AFL this afternoon,' was commentator Dennis Cometti's assessment, and it was fairly obvious many Dockers' players were traumatised by what they saw. Yet, to revisit the first Western Derby is to recognise coach Gerard Neesham's extraordinary achievement that first year. Only skipper Ben Allan and experienced defender Stephen O'Reilly looked anywhere near the same class as West Coast. It was, indeed, an illuminating

and potentially demoralising contest. Fremantle won only three times after the Mother's Day Massacre, but neither coach nor players ever seemed depressed or dispirited. Clearly the AFL's schedulers had something against parents in 1995, because the rematch was scheduled for Father's Day. Again, the Dockers were comprehensively outclassed, but managed to restrict the damage to forty-seven points.

In 1996 the Derby was played in Round 1 on an awful, windy and wet Sunday afternoon. Fremantle were flattered by the final margin — twenty-two points — after a dour, low-scoring game in which half the Dockers' six goals were kicked in the last quarter. In the rematch, Fremantle won plenty of the ball but simply couldn't score. Neesham's men managed just two goals, before a five-goal final term reduced the loss to a respectable thirty-four points.

Dockers' supporters consoled themselves with the certainty West Coast's winning streak couldn't last forever, and a thumping fourteen-goal victory over the Eagles during a 1997 pre-season practice match convinced most of us the drought was about to break. Alas, we were wrong. Clearly, the blue-and-gold enemy relished the prospect of thumping Freo, because they jumped us every time. Once again, Western Derby #5 was virtually over by half-time, with Dockers supporters left to bemoan a forty-point defeat. In this context, the rematch was almost a thriller. Scores were level at half-time before the Eagles accelerated to a six-goal victory.

By 1998, it was getting silly. Fremantle had more than its

share of the ball during the first quarter of Derby #7, yet couldn't manage to score a goal. West Coast kicked five to eventually win by twenty-seven points. Clearly, there was a significant psychological element to the Eagles' dominance. In public, Mick Malthouse stoically underplayed the importance of the local grudge match, refusing to award it any special importance and sticking to his party-pooping 'just another game' script. In private, however, the Eagles' coach managed to instil an extra dose of adrenalin in his troops before Fremantle games. Derby #8 ran to a different script, but the ending was the same. The Dockers, nearing the end of Neesham's reign and crippled by injury, started brilliantly, establishing a five-goal break before being steamrolled by the West Coast juggernaut. The final margin, thirty-nine points, was almost exactly the average extent of Fremantle's Western Derby losses under Neesham's four-year tenure.

When Damian Drum reflects on his disappointing coaching career, he doubtless ponders the caprice of his debut in the Fremantle box. The 1999 season opened with a Western Derby in oppressively hot conditions. Clearly, most of the Dockers were still in summer holiday mode, since they opened appallingly to trail by more than six goals at the first break. By three-quarter time, this was another dreary, routine, run-to-script encounter. West Coast were seven goals in front, Fremantle appeared outclassed and uninterested, and many Dockers supporters must have been tempted to take the early train home.

Remarkably, we nearly stole the game. Fremantle surged like a locomotive in the final quarter, monopolising the play and restricting the exhausted Eagles to a paltry three points. The Dockers were on the rampage, making their traditional enemies look old and haggard. Only appalling prodigality, and an inability to negotiate the psychological obstacles presented by clashes with West Coast, deprived Drum of a dream start and an historic first victory. Freo booted 5.9 in the final quarter and had numerous chances to drive our anchor into the Eagles' breast, yet fell four agonising points short. 'I feel sick in the guts,' Drum declared afterwards, and he had to wait another six weeks before curing his indigestion with a victory.

By the rematch in Round 16, Fremantle had won just four games. In contrast, West Coast were top of the ladder, having drawn inspiration from the fortuitous victory over the Dockers to win eight of its first nine games. Admittedly the Eagles were losing momentum, but Malthouse's side remained overwhelming favourites, desperate for a win to cement top spot. Veteran Eagles' champion Chris Mainwaring, a club hero whose twilight years had been marred by serious injury, was returning for his two hundredth game. The Dockers, rebuilding under Drum, had given up any hope of making the final eight. All we wanted were bragging rights.

Western Derby #10 started like most others. West Coast dashed out of the blocks and had three goals on the board before Dockers' supporters were settled in their seats. Mine

was in the Subiaco Oval press box where I was filing on the match for The Australian . Sitting next to me was the West Australian's  football writer Gary Stocks, a rabid Eagles' supporter who, back in 1995, had bet a significant sum at fair odds that Freo wouldn't beat West Coast before the turn of the century. This was the last hometown clash of the 1990s and when West Coast raced ahead Stocksy was a very happy man.

Before long, though, Stocks and the majority of Eagles fans at what was a West Coast home game were feeling distinctly uncomfortable. But 18 July 1999 was neither Mother's nor Father's Day; it had an eerie, overcast feel that got you thinking strange forces might be operating in the world's most isolated city. The clouds were mainly grey, although occasionally the sun would smile through. The breeze couldn't make up its mind whether to gust or ebb, and several times during the afternoon sheets of rain would saturate Subiaco before disappearing as quickly as they came. It was a day of mysterious, shifting and competing forces: a day which hinted at uprising and revolution. It was the greatest day in the brief history of the Fremantle Football Club.

Just as Freo fans' thoughts turned to another dreary loss, the Dockers floored everyone with a fifteen-minute display of nigh-perfect football. I'm sure Damian Drum must occasionally dust off the video from his cupboard full of footy paraphernalia to ponder the inconsistencies and unfairness of life. Having conceded the first three goals, the Dockers proceeded to kick the next seven. Shaun McManus, a future captain

whose propensity to find the football was unfortunately matched by a tendency to gift it to the opposition, slotted a delightful left-footer from the boundary line. Brad Wira, a slight, unobtrusive nowhere-man, chipped in with two superb first-quarter goals. Tireless midfielder and football nomad Adrian Fletcher accumulated a dozen touches in as many minutes. The Eagles kicked a late goal before the siren, but the Dockers went to the first-quarter break twenty-three points up.

The sense of disbelief over Subiaco was palpable. Even at the best of times, West Coast fans are hardly the most voluble supporters, but the Fremantle blitz had them choking on their terrine. When the Eagles opened with the first goal, most of us assumed natural order would soon be restored. But the Dockers refused to buckle, extended their lead and might have wrapped up the game, had Clive Waterhouse not missed a sitter from twelve metres in front. Alas, West Coast landed a morale boosting major after the half-time siren, but Fremantle had maintained a four-goal buffer.

Things looked ominous after the Eagles weathered a Dockers' surge to creep to within thirteen points. Up in the press box, Stocks was a sweating, shouting, nervous wreck and I'd entirely abandoned the usual practice of writing while keeping an eye on game. Deadline, schmeadline. Western Derby #10 demanded your undiluted attention.

Two bursts of brilliance confirmed the suspicion that, finally, this would be Fremantle's day. Having previously

bungled a gimme, Clive took a mark and landed a steadying sixty-metre goal as only he can. Then, full-forward Tony Modra kicked the goal of the year to turn the game. Eagles full-back Ashley McIntosh, one of the quickest and strongest defenders in the AFL, was breathing down Modra's neck as he led wide and fast outside the fifty-metre zone. Somehow, Modra got a hand on the ball and flicked it behind him towards the boundary line. The Dockers' spearhead then stopped on a threepence and hared back to grab the footy. McIntosh wasn't fooled; he, too, turned and scampered after Modra, who gathered the ball right on the chalk. All this happened in less than two seconds, and McIntosh was about to lay a tackle when Modra managed to get his right foot to the ball. It never looked like missing. Modra's amazing goal, and his subsequent gleeful reaction, became the memorable moment of Western Derby #10. He kicked another soon after to extend Fremantle's lead to thirty points.

Now a five-goal lead can disappear in as many minutes in modern football — Lord knows, Freo supporters understood this better than anyone. But the Dockers' destiny was written in the overcast skies that day, and you just knew we weren't going to blow it. Even the umpires conspired to smile on Fremantle that afternoon by handing out a series of softish free-kicks; over the years, as the Dockers have been punished for their lowly, irrelevant status in the league, these have been as rare as back-to-back victories. The Eagles dropped their bundle — the sight of grumpy West Coast star Peter Matera

spitting the dummy only compounded the enjoyment for Fremantle supporters. The Dockers' players started celebrating ten minutes before the siren, and the experience was complete when Modra kicked his sixth goal just before the end. It stretched the final margin to a forty-seven-point trouncing.

Amid the euphoric scenes that accompanied Fremantle's grandest victory, Damian Drum could barely control himself. All the coach's instincts would have told him not to go over the top; that this was only one win in a long season and it was important to keep things in perspective. But like a cheeky schoolkid trying not to cackle in the classroom, Drummie couldn't wipe the dumb grin from his dial.

The story of what followed may be apocryphal, but I prefer to believe it's true. Having allowed the cameras and various hangers-on into the rooms for the ritual singing of the club song, Drum ordered everyone bar the players be removed. Convention would have the coach trying to calm the team, quelling the exuberance and employing words of wisdom to gently switch the focus to the next game. Instead, once the rooms had been cleared, Drummie apparently called the players together and yelled, 'Come on fellas, let's sing it again.' Freo, Way To Go ... Magnificent.

The following week, the Dockers almost pulled off the mystical and — at the time of writing, although not, I hope, at the time of reading — still unattainable Freo Trio — three wins on the trot. Having beaten St Kilda and West Coast in

successive weeks, Fremantle were bungling and wasteful in losing to Port Adelaide by just seven points. The Derby #10 hangover then kicked in, as the Dockers strung six miserable losses together to end Drum's first season in second last place with just five wins.

West Coast were waiting for us in Derby #11. Mick Malthouse had fled to Collingwood and, for a millisecond or so, it seemed the dreaded enemy might enjoy rejuvenation under dour Ken Judge — Mick-Lite. The Eagles thumped us by twenty goals early in 2000 in a horrible game which left Tony Modra seriously injured after an outrageous (and unpenalised) spear tackle by McIntosh.

But there was no rebirth for West Coast. The Eagles proceeded to struggle under Judge and, oh, how their spoilt supporters bitched and moaned. By the time Derby #12 arrived, both West Australian sides had won just seven of twenty games and long fallen out of finals contention. In theory, the rematch was a Seinfeld game — a game about nothing. In fact, the clash became the equivalent of a grand final for a State starved of success and inspiration, and unconvinced that Drum or Judge were equipped to provide either in the near future. The Round 21 rematch was eagerly anticipated by Western Australian football supporters — and they wouldn't be disappointed.

Clive set the scene for the memorable encounter with his indiscreet suggestion in a pre-match television interview that blood might be spilt in the battle for local ascendancy. Now

Waterhouse has many peculiar traits, but violence isn't one of them. Yet Clive's powers of clairvoyance were at work that day, since the opening siren hadn't yet sounded before the first blow was landed. Technically, the Eagles started it when annoying upstart ruckman Michael Gardiner started needling young Dockers' hero Matthew Pavlich. It quickly erupted into a swinging match, as it became obvious Drum had instructed his players to fight fire with gasoline. Veteran Dale Kickett landed some corkers as brawls broke out around the ground. For a game about nothing, an awful lot of players were becoming angry and/or injured.

Perchance, I'd been invited with the family to dine at the Chairman's lunch, and would later watch the game with Ross McLean and chief executive David Hatt. They were both extremely nervous, and hoping against hope the Dockers wouldn't embarrass themselves. 'Just as long as we're competitive,' was Hatt's mantra and, in retrospect, I reckon Drum was a goner had the Dockers been blown away that Sunday afternoon. The coach still had a year left on his contract, but the whispers had turned to mutterings as Freo hadn't seemed to have progressed far under Drummie's tutelage. The coach's future hung in the balance.

Fremantle won the early fights, but were clearly preoccupied with pugilistic pursuits, while West Coast landed the opening five goals of the game. It was shaping as a disaster, not least because Phil Matera — Peter's younger, shorter brother, and comfortably the most irksome player in the AFL

— was snapping goals out of his backside while whooping, hollering and generally giving Dockers' supporters the shits. Oddly, amidst all the punches being thrown and landed in the fiery opening, no one thought to target the irritating Eagles' ant. Spookily, Matera Jr's comeuppance would arrive later in the game.

The Dockers staged a mini-recovery to kick the next four goals, but an Eagles' rally earned the enemy a thirty-two-point half-time lead. West Coast burst out of the blocks and when Matera kicked his fifth, Fremantle trailed by forty-four points with Tony Modra on the bench injured. By now McLean and Hatt were doubtless performing mental calculations to work out how much Drum's involuntary redundancy payout would amount to.

Suddenly — wonderfully — Fremantle clicked. Clive was magnificent that day. He'd kicked a couple of trademark goals in the first half — one from sixty metres, the other the culmination of a sizzling run — to save Freo from oblivion. Then, seeming to thrive on not having to compete for space with Modra, Waterhouse turned it on. Clive booted three goals in the third quarter — the last a brilliant left-foot snap — to get the Dockers back into the game. All bar one Fremantle player had abandoned the senseless aggression strategy to concentrate on winning the football, and it was paying dividends. This left Dale Kickett free to land half a dozen brutal haymakers on Phillip Reid, another West Coast irritant, in an exchange which would later earn Kickett a nine-

week suspension. At the time, though, he was awarded a preposterous free-kick for Reid's retaliatory actions. It was that kind of afternoon.

The Dockers crept to within three goals at the last change, and halfway through the final term had drawn level courtesy of Clive's sixth goal. Another goal to Fremantle put us in front, before the Eagles regained the lead and, potentially, the momentum. Then, a bizarre collision helped turn the contest Freo's way. The ball had just been propelled towards the Eagles' fifty-metre zone and Matera Jr was steaming out from goal to try to gather it. At the same time, umpire Steven Hanley was running backwards to get to the next contest. Matera didn't spot Hanley and the umpire most certainly couldn't see the Eagles' ant. Consequently, they smashed into each other in a manner which looked to give Hanley a severe case of whiplash and Matera a bout of concussion. Happily, the umpire recovered as West Coast's most damaging goal kicker was escorted from the arena to miss the end of the game.

The frantic final minutes of Derby #12 perfectly encapsulate the joy and frustration of supporting Fremantle. The Dockers had stretched their lead to nine points and, with three minutes left, looked to have secured the game. Enter Clive who, by now operating on dangerous levels of adrenalin, steamed towards the wing and gathered the ball close to the line. Instead of taking the sensible option and subtly ferrying it out of bounds, Clive tried to beat four or five opponents

and coughed the ball up. It was Waterhouse's only mistake of the game, but the Eagles swooped and youngster Darren Glass goaled to reduce the margin to three points.

Seconds later, Glass lined up from thirty metres and missed. The margin was down to two points when Brendan Fewster marked in the back pocket. With barely a minute remaining, it was obviously time for Fremantle to run down the clock by holding on to the ball and chipping backwards and sideways to free team-mates. Either that, or roost the thing sixty metres towards the boundary. But Fewster, an erratic, lumbering recruit from West Coast, chose an unlikely option. Surveying the terrain ahead, Fewster drilled a short pass to the nearest Eagles' player who desperately launched the ball back towards goal. Matera Sr got his hands on it in the forward pocket and snapped towards the square where Glass stood all alone. Astonishingly, the ball bounced around the young Eagle and trickled across the goal line to hit the post. Seconds later the siren sounded and the Dockers had won by a point.

The relief in the President's box was palpable as the Dockers secured an extraordinary victory. Drum emerged with his trademark dumb grin, and celebrated a victory that ensured Fremantle would finish above West Coast for the first time in the club's history. While there was much official hand wringing about the violence during Derby #12, the fans loved it. My excitable daughter, Matilda, was attending her first AFL game and took some disabusing of the notion that blood

and punches were just a routine part of the entertainment.

'You've got to understand history,' explained Drum afterwards. 'Our players feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been pushed around by the big boys up the road for too long.' But the Round 21 thriller was Fremantle's last win under Drummie. Rightly or wrongly, the coach would soon be history.

CHALK AND SMELLY CHEESE

If victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan, then the Fremantle Dockers are the redheaded stepchildren of the AFL. Collingwood are also winless and equal bottom, but at least the Magpies can console themselves with a tradition and history that includes the odd success. They also have President Eddie McGuire, who guarantees disproportionate saturation media coverage and, one suspects, an inside run for black and white fans on his unmissable Who Wants To Be A Millionaire show. (Come to think of it, the contestant who didn't know Blinky Bill was a koala bore all the hallmarks of a typical Collingwood member.)

Meanwhile, indignities pelt down on Dockers' disciples like giant Sydney hailstones. While our sworn cross-town foes, West Coast, are 5-0, we languish at 0-5. Chalk and smelly cheese. Yin and Yang. Brisbane, Port Adelaide and St Kilda all seem to be benefiting from a change in coach. Not only is Damian Drum still waiting for his first win, but here in the west his dumped predecessor, Gerard Neesham, writes a local newspaper column occasionally offering his old club helpful suggestions. A bit like Christopher Skase dishing out advice on how to cut costs and bump up profits at Channel Seven. Neesham, at least, presided over a handful of joyously un-

anticipated victories and numerous magnificently incompetent defeats.

Apart from round one's heartbreaking four-point loss after being seven goals down against the Eagles (one miserable kick that might have changed the course of AFL football), it's been a handful of common, garden-variety, proletarian defeats by the Dockers.

Infuriatingly, West Coast are becoming less hate-able. Grumpy Mick Malthouse has emerged as a closet greenie, and thoughtful and intelligent newspaper columnist. Mick's mantra 'Defence, Defence, Defence, Boundary' — has been slightly adjusted. It's now 'Defence, Defence, Defence, Down the Middle to the Fat Full-forward.' Malthouse is also smiling more and quoting Churchill. (Gratuitous tip for Damian Drum — when we eventually win, bring a long cigar to the post-match conference and intone: 'In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.' That ought to send Mick back to his book of quotes.)

So what to do when your season is all but over in April? At least Collingwood coaches and players get — in Million-Dollar-Eddie-speak — a) national press coverage; b) crowds; c) to regularly play on the MCG, and d) free tickets to the Footy Show. The Dockers score none of the above, although Neesham is always available if Drummie asks Ed for a lifeline and wants to phone a friend.

Fans, though, have our own lifeline to soothe us during these tough times: black humour. It comes easy at Freo. We can grin darkly about the Curse of the Captain that has haunted the three appointments since 1995. Ben Allan? Best and fairest in Hawthorn's 1991 premiership year. Crippled at Freo. Peter Mann? Formidable North

Melbourne half-back. Haunted by injury and poor form. Chris Bond? Nuggety and reliable Richmond tagger. Worst season of his career. We can take pride in players we've traded or those who managed to slip our net. Dual Norm Smith medallist Andrew McLeod. North premiership player Peter Bell. Winston Abraham. Jeff White. Gavin Mitchell. A three-goal burst by Gary Dhurrkay won a game for the Kangaroos this year. Kingsley Hunter may be sidelined with a serious knee injury, but given his impeccable pedigree — Fremantle under-achiever — Bulldogs coach Terry Wallace must be sorely tempted to take his chances and prop him up in a forward pocket.

Then there are Fremantle's mysterious healing powers. Tony Lockett may have been out all year, but he's up tomorrow for the clash with Freo. Nathan Buckley expects to return — you guessed it — for the game against the Dockers. Don't be surprised to find Gary Ablett lining up at full-forward when we play Geelong in Round 7.

With respect to Drummie, perhaps Fremantle should try a Sheedy-esque experiment and eliminate the coach. After all, we take our name from the Maritime Union, so why not adopt the principles of the Left? On second thoughts, we already are. Perhaps all those Dockers' turnovers are our way of sharing. Hopefully, black humour can cushion these dark days and steel us for sunnier times ahead. To borrow from Malthouse, sorry, Churchill: We shall fight them from the bleachers. And we shall never surrender.

-Weekend Australian, 1 May 1999.

9

Sadness: Annus Horrendus

When Dockers' supporters ponder the disaster that was 2001, they should blame neither the players nor the administration. They shouldn't blame the AFL or Damian Drum, or whichever god they employ to help them through the twenty-two home and away games. The blame for the Dockers' horrendous season and, somewhat surprisingly, first wooden spoon lies squarely with the Labor state government. Or, more precisely, West Australian Sports Minister Alan Carpenter.

At the end of 2001, and after four years as Perth Bureau Chief, The Australian's  editors successfully persuaded me to shift east. Originally, we were flirting with moving to Sydney. I'd spent six weeks covering the Olympics, when, traffic flowed smoothly, public transport was stunningly clean and efficient, and five million people — many wearing those appalling kitsch official Olympic volunteer outfits — walked around with permanent grins. Sydney was Utopia during the Games and the prospect of moving proved seriously seductive. Thankfully, before I was required to make a final career decision, I returned

to the city, which had quickly reverted to its natural state; permanent gridlock on the roads, an army of disgruntled commuters waiting for late trains, obscenely expensive rents, insanely inflated house prices.

Commonsense prevailed and we chose Canberra instead.

Anyone who has shifted interstate understands the stresses that accompany the move. Where will we live? How will the children adjust? Where will they go to school? How will we cope without friends and family? Can we possibly survive a summer without at least once a day diving into the Indian Ocean?

All these thoughts rankled with the Price family as we prepared to move, but nothing caused more concern for its patriarch than the prospect of not being able to watch the Dockers. For all their uselessness and dearth of success, this frustrating football team had got under my skin. Canberra meant no live games and virtually no free-to-air television coverage, since networks outside of Western Australia weren't remotely interested in disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of viewers by screening Dockers' matches. I was faintly consoled by the prospect of getting to Sydney and Melbourne for the occasional away game, and part of my agreement with work was the installation of pay TV in our new abode. Alas, on settling in we discovered the AFL's official pay network — C7 — wasn't available in the national capital. If this proved initially disappointing, in retrospect 2001 wasn't a bad year to miss out on watching Fremantle play.

Work wanted me to shift in mid-February but I cunningly

prevaricated and eventually booked flights for early April. I made all kinds of excuses, but they were mainly invented to disguise the fact that we were delaying our move until after the opening round of the footy season, when the Dockers were playing Carlton at Subiaco Oval.

This is where the Labor Party comes in. Earlier in the year Richard Court's coalition government had been thumped in the state election and Geoff Gallop was now Premier. Carpenter, an ex-journo and old confrère, was one of a handful of Labor front-benchers who appeared to possess half a brain and consequently became lumbered as Minister for Education, Aboriginal Affairs and Sport. Forget schools and our indigenous brethren; Carpenter's 'fun' portfolio put him in an excellent position to favour Fremantle and undermine the Eagles. Carpenter is a rabid Dockers' fan whose political career could have been instantly curtailed, had the Liberals been sly enough to accompany the usually lugubrious father-of-four to an Eagles' game. Not even Carpenter's relatively high profile as presenter of the ABC's 7.30 Report  could dim his nigh psychopathic hatred of West Coast and its fans; invariably, Carpenter spent a good portion of any Eagles game disabusing supporters — roughly two-thirds of the electorate — of their parentage and intelligence.

As it happened, I attended the opening game of the fateful 2001 season with the freshly installed Minister for Sport. We spent the pre-game period devising all sorts of ways to hobble West Coast; unfortunately my preferred strategy — a compre-

hensive state ban on the dreaded foe, supplemented by the reintroduction of capital punishment — is yet to be introduced by the Gallop Government.

For most of the game it appeared my valedictory attendance would be saluted with a rare triumph. Carlton had finished third the previous year, but the Blues were being walloped by Fremantle who went to the main break leading by five goals. It should have been much more, and might have been had the umpires deigned to abide by the rules when the ball entered the Dockers' forward fifty. Tony Modra kicked five goals that day, but could have doubled his tally were he not subject to two hours of grievous bodily harm by Carlton's superstar full-back Stephen Silvagni. Having scragged Modra all afternoon without penalty, Silvagni went forward late in the game and goaled from a ludicrously soft free-kick. Carlton eventually snatched the lead and held on by a point.

Why do I blame Carpenter? Because he spent the entire afternoon in a miserable fug, preaching despair at every turn. A hint of positivity from the fledgling minister might have made the difference, but even during Fremantle's rampaging first half, Carpenter predicted defeat. The fact that he was right is entirely irrelevant; I've since dubbed Carpenter the Minister for Negativity and hold him personally responsible for the horrors that later unfolded. Dockers' supporters have long pondered how 2001 might otherwise have turned out had we managed to defeat the Blues that sorry afternoon.

Cementing the Dockers' penchant for eccentricity,

Fremantle's hierarchy had employed a high profile assistant to ride shotgun with Drum. Ric Charlesworth was a world class hockey player and state cricketer, but the dour Olympic veteran had never kicked a footy in anger. Still, fresh from his success coaching the Hockeyroos to a gold medal in the Sydney Games, Charlesworth was employed to add professionalism, rigour and a new perspective to the coaching team. It was a brave but fruitless experiment.

In truth, the die was cast within seven minutes of the opening bounce. Peter Bell, by now one of the elite footballers in the AFL, had returned to Fremantle, after being prematurely discarded by Gerard Neesham. Bell came home with two North Melbourne premiership medals and a reputation as one of the game's most durable footballers; the tireless Korean-born rover had barely missed a match in four seasons. Sure enough, Bell hobbled off with a hamstring in the opening minutes of the Carlton match and missed the rest of the game. It was that sort of year.

Happily, Bell went on to win Fremantle's fairest and best in 2001, and has been a prolific possession winner and tremendous influence on the club since his return. Bell was installed as captain in 2002, and fortunately has been able to avoid the dreaded curse which uncannily afflicted all Fremantle's previous on-field leaders.

Inaugural captain Ben Allan, who would later play an unscripted cameo in the 2001 season, found himself gradually crippled by injury after arriving as a superstar from Hawthorn.

Allan was replaced by Peter Mann, an intelligent and talented footballer who won the club's fairest and best, and goal-kicking awards in our debut year. Mann had been the Kangaroos' first draft pick in 1990 and, by 1994, had established himself as a versatile contributor in an ominously talented side. A teenager under Gerard Neesham at Claremont, Mann was wooed back west by the inaugural Dockers' coach, much to North's chagrin. But the captain's curse kicked in almost as soon as Mann took over from Allan in 1997. He sustained a bad hand injury that year and never seemed to recover from a string of strains and niggles. Mann lost the captaincy when Drum arrived in 1999 and struggled to make the side under the new coach. By the time he'd been delisted at the end of the season, the Kangaroos had won two premierships. Mann, who would later become president of the AFL Players Association, must spend sleepless nights wondering why he ever returned home.

Renowned Richmond tagger Chris Bond was lured to Fremantle during Gerard Neesham's last year. The enthusiastic defender played well initially and was clearly one the more popular players in the side. When Drum arrived he appointed Bond captain, a decision which instantly caused the skipper's form to deteriorate. By Round 7, Bond had been dropped and by the season's end he'd clearly lost confidence, making routine mistakes and often heading straight for the bench after tossing the coin. At the end of 1999, Bond's future was the subject of intense media speculation, and Drum went to great lengths to publicly support his embattled skipper. But the captain's curse

had ensnared Bond, and he was de-listed by Drum in humiliating circumstances.

Perhaps it was in recognition of the curse; perhaps Drummie simply couldn't make up his mind. Whatever, the 2000 and 2001 seasons saw Adrian Fletcher and Shaun McManus appointed as co-captains. Fletcher had been magnificent in 1999. After stints with Geelong, St Kilda and Brisbane, the under-rated midfielder arrived at Fremantle in 1998, and was easily our best and most consistent player over four years. Were he not performing his trade in a purple and green jumper, Fletcher might have gone horribly close to winning the 1999 Brownlow medal. Hawthorn's Shane Crawford was a deserved victor, but umpires ignored Fletcher for the first eleven rounds, despite his average of twenty-seven possessions per game. The men-in-white must have felt embarrassed because Fletch romped home with fifteen votes to finish in the top ten. He was an obvious candidate for the co-captaincy.

To say Fletcher was struck by the curse is harsh, but probably fair. True, those stumpy legs weren't getting any younger and Fletch celebrated his two hundredth game during 2000. But he finished fifth in the fairest and best, and tenth the following year. When Chris Connolly succeeded Drum, Fletcher became the third successive Fremantle skipper to be de-listed.

McManus has long been the focus of strenuous debate amongst the Fremantle faithful. There's no questioning his tenacity and dedication; an inaugural Docker, McManus is pathologically devoted to the club, and has recovered from two

knee reconstructions during an accomplished AFL career. Yet the co-captain encapsulates everything that is frustrating about Fremantle. He is at once brave and prodigal, fearlessly venturing into combat territory to win the ball, only to regularly gift it to the opposition. For every devotee of the dishevelled blond wingman, you'll find another Dockers' supporter who derides him as 'McUseless'. If McManus wasn't obviously afflicted by the curse, we can safely say the captaincy fitted him like a cheap polyester suit.

Still, it was the Fletcher-McManus combination in charge, as the Dockers, masters of the dark art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, strung together what must rank as the most extraordinary losing streak in AFL history.

It wasn't that Fremantle were completely hopeless. As the Carlton performance indicated, Drum's men seemed capable of making a contest against the best of the other fifteen clubs. Yet, having been foiled by a single point on that opening day of the season, the Dockers went out of their way to concoct new and outlandish methods to lose football matches.

Against Collingwood in Round 2, the Dockers stormed home after an awful start, before running out of time and puff. Next week, on a stinking hot day at Subiaco, Fremantle allowed Hawthorn to get away, but drew within nine points at three-quarter time. Conventional wisdom had the home side thriving in the trying conditions to over-run the Hawks. Except the Dockers couldn't get close to kicking a goal in the last quarter and lost comfortably.

Round 4 was the Derby where, you guessed it, Fremantle made another slow start. But we'd caught the Eagles by three-quarter time and surely the incentive of breaking the 2001 duck would fuel a famous victory. Instead, West Coast kicked seven goals to win by four.

The following week, against Brisbane, produced a collapse for the ages. By now comfortably ensconced in Canberra, I'd finally worked out how to listen to Fremantle games over the Internet. The game was played at the Gabba and, for once, Freo leapt out of the blocks to lead by three goals at quarter-time. Ten minutes into the final quarter, and Fremantle was still fifteen points ahead; the long return flight between Brisbane and Perth looked like being a joyous one.

And then something quite extraordinary happened. Fremantle simply stopped playing. Listening over the Internet, it seemed there was only one mob out on the ground. Only Brisbane players were being mentioned and the Lions started to draw ahead. My computer went bung for a few minutes, and when the broadcast returned the Lions had kicked five unanswered goals. Brisbane would eventually kick a record thirteen last-quarter goals to win by forty-nine points. It was quite staggering and extremely embarrassing, since everyone agreed the Dockers had held the upper hand for most of the game.

As Drum's losing streak stretched to five, the whispers turned to murmurs. A week later the coach's critics — which, to be frank, numbered in the hundreds of thousands — didn't even bother lowering their voices. Unbelievably, the Dockers

produced a performance against Melbourne almost the mirror image of the Gabba debacle. But for inaccuracy, Fremantle should have buried the Demons by three-quarter time; we led 9.17 to 10.7. Then, Melbourne kicked eight unanswered goals to 'steal' victory by forty-five points. Six days after the Brisbane capitulation, history had repeated itself — and if neither loss was technically a tragedy, the Dockers were now a dead-set farce.

Six weeks into the final year of his contract, and the prospect of Drum lasting the season was roughly equivalent to the number of premiership points the Dockers had managed to accumulate in 2001. While the Brisbane collapse had occurred on the other side of the continent, the Melbourne surrender unfolded before an increasingly agitated home crowd. By now the pundits were running out of adjectives for the coach. Embattled, beleaguered, luckless, strife-torn, shell-shocked, imperilled; Drum was all of these and, if you listened to some of his more strident critics, quite a bit more. Something had to be done. So the Dockers called a meeting.

Amidst this catastrophe, Drum had made the following observation: 'This is an absolutely dog eat dog, dirty, hard, horrible competition that we are part of and you have to take your chances.' Which, in the main, is about right. Most of the other fifteen clubs could teach Robert Mugabe more than a little about ruthlessness. But the Dockers, god bless them, were still great big softies. Fremantle chairman Ross McLean called the board together and, as the meeting stretched into its sixth hour, it seemed Drum would be sacrificed. But at the end of it all, the

administration opted for inertia. McLean emerged to declare there was nothing to be gained by changing coaches mid-season (although it soon became apparent the decision was not unanimous.)

To be fair, McLean is a decent man who thought the honourable path was to fulfil the agreement between Drum and the club. And it wasn't as if the Dockers had degenerated into your stereotypical useless and dysfunctional cellar-dweller rabble. In four of the six games we'd lost, Fremantle were either even or in front at three-quarter time. In a way we'd become the Greg Norman of the AFL, able to string together three good quarters to get into contention, only to stumble at the final, crucial hurdle. Except that the Shark occasionally won and no one questioned his talent and flair. That near mythical question — can Drummie coach? — remained unanswered. And there were serious doubts, too, about the abilities of many of his players.

Fremantle responded to the crisis week with a creditable performance at Football Park where, again, the Dockers were in contention until Adelaide prevailed. Then something quite mystifying happened.

Fremantle entered the Round 8 home match against Geelong boasting the not especially impressive record of played seven, lost seven. The Cats were also struggling, but they'd won a couple of games and didn't deserve the humiliating insult dished out by bookmakers and pundits. Practically everyone tipped the Dockers to win. It was completely insane. Fremantle ran onto

Subiaco as raging favourites, and Geelong's reaction should not have been unexpected. Suitably miffed, the Cats kicked the first nine goals of the match and won comfortably. Played eight, lost eight.

Back in Canberra we'd long been anticipating Round 9, when Fremantle travelled to the Sydney Cricket Ground to play the Swans. But now the trip to the SCG had taken on an almost religious dimension, since I became convinced the Dockers were saving their first win for their only obvious supporter in Canberra. My son Jack's Fremantle jumper — quite possibly unique in the ACT — remained a topic of lively discussion at his local footy club. Those few who recognised it were astounded anyone had the gall to wear it. Others wondered whether it wasn't something his grandmother had knitted from an outdated pattern.

Jack and I drove the three hours to Sydney and wound up sitting with a couple of Swan-supporting mates in the Ladies Stand. We were the only obvious Dockers' fans on our side of the ground, and there were a handful behind the goals at either end. The game started horribly, with both sides fumbling and wasting the ball with frightening regularity. If anything, the second quarter was even worse and when the players left the ground at half-time, an eerie silence descended over the SCG. The crowd was universally befuddled; we knew we were watching something unique, but we weren't entirely sure what it was. Certainly not a game of football.

At least the scores were close — the Dockers went to half-

time just one point behind. Then, for about ten minutes, the Swans got their act together and kicked a handful of goals. Fremantle continued to play to a standard which would have embarrassed a primary school team. Then Sydney rediscovered their ineptness from the first half and when the siren sounded to put everyone out of their misery, the Swans had only won by three goals.

You had to be there to truly understand how appalling this game was. Bob Skilton has won three Brownlow medals and, as player, commentator and undisputed footy legend, has been around the game for the best part of half a century. Afterwards, Skilton shook his head in astonishment and declared the game to be the worst he'd ever seen. As I wrote in The Australian  at the time:

... [Skilton] didn't quite do it justice. This was a match so appalling as to make those of us who saw it feel soiled. Like all committed Fremantle supporters, I've witnessed no shortage of tragic, inept performances during our inglorious seven years. But what passed for a football match at the SCG defied description.

Occasionally a mistake-riddled game can be a rich source of humour. But good comedy requires a modicum of subtlety and timing; this was akin to being holed up at a party with a drunken boor reading from one of those 1001 Joke books.

It was bad enough in the crowd ... heaven knows what it was like being in the coaches' box.

Clearly, presiding over the unparalleled calamity at the SCG that day caused the coach to have a minor brain snap. For Drum emerged from his ninth straight loss of the season almost bubbling with enthusiasm.

'Skill's only one component of the game,' he said. 'I thought it was a fantastic effort from two really desperate teams.'

Drum might otherwise have survived the SCG curio; after all, it was less than three weeks since he'd emerged unscathed from the board's marathon meeting. But Drummie's post-match comments essentially killed off his coaching career. It's true that skill is only one component of a football match. Just as water is only one component of the ocean, and wings are but one component of an aircraft.

Three years under Drum had produced no discernible progress. The Dockers continued to make routine bumbling errors and the string of losses, coupled with the controversy surrounding the club had clearly demoralised the players. Drum's fifty-three games produced just thirteen wins, a record that screamed 'Sack Me'. Just as importantly for the long-suffering fans, few of Drummie's victories — apart, of course, from the two Derby victories — were especially inspirational. During two-and-a-half seasons we'd beaten just two top-eight sides under Drum; for all his faults, Neesham was always good for a joyous, out-of-the-box upset against an unsuspecting powerhouse-team.

As you'd expect, the denouement was hideously messy. By the Tuesday after the Sydney game, the Dockers' board had decided

to dispense with the coach. Problem was, they didn't have the heart to tell Drum. News of the coach's demise leaked to the media, and one of the more shameful episodes in Fremantle's brief but tumultuous history ended, with Drum being informed of his sacking by journalists while the television cameras were rolling.

Ross McLean admitted it had been an almighty cock-up. 'This has been a shabby way to treat an honourable person, who has carried himself with great dignity and courage in the most difficult circumstances,' the president conceded afterwards. Poor old Drummie was stoic, philosophical and refreshingly honest to the awful end. 'The hardest thing was stopping myself from crying,' he said after leaving an emotional final meeting with the players.

Ben Allan — who'd been unceremoniously sacked as an assistant when Drum took over from Neesham — agreed to preside over the remainder of a season which, unbelievably, kept getting worse. The Dockers were hammered in their next two games — so much for New Coach Bounce — and blew a three-quarter-time lead to lose to St Kilda in Round 12.

The following week, I flew to Melbourne to watch Fremantle play Essendon at Colonial Stadium. The game was such a mismatch bookies started taking bets on whether Bombers full-forward Matthew Lloyd might outscore Fremantle off his own boot. Yet for twenty minutes it was football heaven, as we blitzed the reigning premiers to kick the first four goals of the game. Natural order was eventually restored, but the winning margin — eight goals — wasn't a complete disaster. And we ended up beating Lloyd by ten goals to five.

A trio of fearful hidings followed and, if Allan still had a tether, there wasn't much of it left. The usually affable stopgap coach was struggling to maintain order, not least because of his uncommon honesty. Defeats were written off as 'shocking' and 'disgraceful'. The players 'don't have strong character.' This was all unquestionably accurate, but not especially useful for morale when proclaimed by the coach to a bunch of reporters. Allan also made a habit of referring to the team as 'they' rather than 'we', which again, while not an unnatural self-preserving instinct, didn't generate much esprit de corps.

Midway through July, and with seven rounds remaining, Tony Modra announced his retirement. The only bona fide superstar in the club's history had become disgruntled and quit in disgrace. He'd been on a weekend drinking bender and didn't bother turning up at training, sparking a 'please explain' from the club. Later, Modra would insist he'd already decided his career was finished and had begun premature celebrations. Whatever, the man whose popularity was said to match that of another reasonably auspicious Adelaide resident — Don Bradman — during his peak at the Crows bowed out of footy with barely a whimper. The fans loved Modra who, like Clive, could be a genuine match-winner on his day. Through all Fremantle's travails, many of which he witnessed from the goal square, Modra always kept his composure, even when routinely crucified by umpires who, instinctively, refused to dole out obvious free-kicks to players wearing purple and green. The marketers loved Modra, too, since Number 6 was comfortably

the most popular player with the kiddies. He deserved a much more dignified exit.

The Dockers 'celebrated' Modra's retirement by kicking one goal to Carlton's twelve in the first half of the following game. After a thumping by the Blues, the Dockers led Collingwood at three-quarter time, and the drought appeared on the verge of breaking. Alas, it was simply a mirage, shattered by the Magpies' eight last-quarter goals. Played 17, lost 17.

The following week, Fremantle returned to Colonial Stadium to play Hawthorn, who after several fallow years were emerging as a genuine final four contender. Seven Hawks, goals to the Dockers' two only underlined the home side's strength, and when Hawthorn's lead stretched to forty points, another odious defeat seemed assured. Then, incredibly, the spirit of Neesham returned. Listening on the radio, I was awfully tempted to turn the footy off, but for an inkling this game wasn't quite going to script. Admittedly, this is the same inkling that has sustained Dockers' fans throughout our history, an inkling which is almost always misplaced. Still, the Dockers crept to within five goals at half-time and trailed by a mere thirteen points at the final break. Was this to be another desperately frustrating close-but-no-cigar loss to go with the other dozen that year? Like heck. The Dockers stormed home to kick six goals and wallop Hawthorn by three. Peter Bell was fantastic, but it was the contributions of youngsters, such as Matthew Pavlich and Justin Longmuir, that pumped the breeze into Fremantle's spinnaker. The scenes of euphoric celebration

triggered by the breaking of the Dockers' duck rivalled those routinely witnessed on Grand Final day.

Three ensuing losses ensured Fremantle secured a first wooden spoon, but the season ended on a peculiarly high note when Adelaide visited Subiaco Oval and got slaughtered. The Crows were entrenched in the eight and widely expected to inflict some damage during the finals, but they were smashed by Fremantle on the way to an elimination final annihilation the following week. Ben Allan's abridged coaching career ended on a high, and while he'd managed to preside over a mere brace of wins from thirteen games, both were joyful, against-the-odds victories against vastly superior top-eight clubs. Aside from a few extra wrinkles and a couple of months of sleepless nights, Allan appeared to have survived his heinous coaching stint intact. When implored to serve, our inaugural captain had answered the call.

You might think the football gods had wreaked sufficient havoc on Fremantle, that after a cruelly humiliating season of chaos and despair, enough was enough. And you'd be wrong.

A secret AFL report surfaced declaring the Dockers' board 'dysfunctional' and chairman Ross McLean 'tired and distracted'. Unsurprisingly, since lowly Fremantle was more than one million dollars in the red and not exactly replete with members and sponsors, the AFL also found the club to be a financial basket-case. None of this came as a shock — your average supporter might have confirmed as much — but it looked especially harsh on official AFL letterhead.

Then, incomprehensibly, it emerged that the Dockers had paid the players too much during the 2001 season, and were in breach of the salary cap. How one of the worst-performed outfits in AFL history managed to earn more than the modern super-squads of Brisbane and Essendon remains a twenty-first century enigma. Two words — Daniel Metropolis — help explain part of the mystery. Metropolis was, at best, a modest contributor to an ordinary West Coast side when Damian Drum came knocking at the end of 1999. That the unheralded defender was offered roughly $700,000 to sign a three-year contract defies belief — in any other business the perpetrators of such a deal would be thrown in jail. That Metropolis was a rejected Eagle only multiplied the indignity. He played a meagre six games during 2001.

But wait, there's more. Chief executive David Hatt had announced his resignation mid-season and his replacement, Cameron Schwab, rushed to sign up handy Port Adelaide discard Fabian Francis. In theory, the distinguished mid-fielder might have made a useful addition to the Dockers' squad. It was only after Francis had shifted to Perth and signed with Freo that the Dockers' salary cap problems were revealed. Consequently, in arguably the greatest of Fremantle's many, many humiliations, the club was unable to include the despairing Francis on its list. While paid handsomely by the Dockers, Francis was forced to sit out the 2002 AFL season, keeping up his fitness playing for South Fremantle in the local competition. This was entirely unsatisfactory for everybody, and when Francis sustained a

serious knee injury during his third game with South, we could safely assume the old port town wasn't his favourite place on earth.

McLean's subsequent resignation meant the Dockers had lost a coach, chief executive and chairman in the space of a few months. Co-captain Adrian Fletcher was later de-listed, and Fremantle's sole 'marquee' player, Tony Modra, had quit in disgust. The Dockers had finished stone, motherless last, yet the already cash-strapped club was eventually fined almost $55,000 for salary cap breaches. Fremantle was also banned from participating in the pre-season draft.

Altogether, quite an achievement for a club which many thought had already hit rock-bottom a year or so before.

Drummie, bless his socks, shifted home to Victoria to take up a position as head coach with the Bendigo Diggers. After steering the VFL club to eighteen losses and a draw, Drum opted for a career in politics. It had been more than two years since Drum had coached a winning side by the time he stood for the Nationals party in the 2002 Victorian election. Fittingly, the new member scraped home in a cliff-hanger, to guarantee the Nationals maintained their official party status. Drum campaigned on family and community issues, and was rewarded with the deputy leadership in the Upper House. There is no truth to the rumour that National MPs have since shown an alarming tendency to vote for the wrong side, fumble bills and papers, and bump into each other in the parliamentary corridors.

No Dockers' supporter would begrudge this thoroughly decent and unpretentious man his share of long overdue success. Whether or not Elliott is able to recognise Drummie is now irrelevant, after the former Carlton chief's spectacular and generally unlamented fall from grace.

BIGGER THAN THE WORLD CUP

Why anyone is getting fussed about Sam Newman's todger appearing live on prime-time television Thursday night is beyond me. The controversial Footy Show host was wearing a Fremantle Football Club jumper at the time which, as any Dockers' fan can attest, tends to make even the stout of heart do inexplicable things. The outcome is often offensive — running into team-mates, flying for marks without raising your arms — if not pornographic. But it was surely only a matter of time before one of our players forgot to put his pants on, so Sam has done the Dockers a service. It topped off a magnificent week.

Regular readers will recall how this rectangle shifted from its home in Perth to Canberra at the start of the year, and I fear the cold weather may have started to addle the brain. As the season ploughed towards its horrible and hopeless conclusion, it seemed incomprehensible that Fremantle might manage to win a game. Adopting the kind of logic that seems to flourish around Parliament House, a few sad Freo consorts and I had rationalised this to be a good thing. If we were going to have a bad year, why not make it a benchmark shocker?

This, of course, was complete tosh. Tears were shed in the

national capital as Fremantle stormed home to beat Hawthorn last Saturday, and the emotional (if slightly embarrassing) homecoming afforded the players indicates the depth of support for the maligned Dockers. Never has our awful club song sounded so sweet and, if correspondence to this column is any indication, discordant renditions of 'Freo Heave Ho' were resonating around the globe.

Les in Paris spent the afternoon attempting to convince passers-by that the Dockers' victory was bigger than the World Cup. Fans in New Zealand and Tokyo have celebrated the breaking of the drought, but it was a missive from Jeanette in Melbourne that best summed up the loyalty and frustration of supporting Freo from afar.

Jeanette is a member of the Victorian-based cheer squad, and one of a score of Dockers' fans privileged to be in attendance last Saturday. You would think Fremantle supporters in Melbourne would routinely be regarded with sympathetic bemusement by opposing armies, yet Jeanette claims the small coterie of Freophiles regularly require protection in the stands and escorting from the ground. 'Why do winners not just enjoy being grinners?' she writes. 'Celebrate and leave us alone.' Apparently Collingwood and Western Bulldogs fans are relatively harmless, merely heaping abuse at the Dockers' squad from bounce down to bedtime. But Jeanette says the Freo mob fears for its safety when playing Essendon, since the Bombers' fans in the rafters indulge themselves by hailing money on the Dockers below.

Anyway, all that is history as Fremantle storms into tomorrow's match against the despised Eagles on a roll. Before last week's victory, the Dockers' previous win was the heart-stopping one-point triumph

in last year's blood-soaked demolition derby. So West Coast should be easy meat, which would set up a potentially historic encounter the following week between Brisbane and Fremantle at Subiaco Oval.

Now the odds for a Lions' victory would be shorter than Sam's old fella, but the Dockers have a surprisingly good record against Brisbane. It's now not impossible to conceive that Fremantle might, for the first time in the club's sorry history, win three games in a row. Imagine it — seventeen straight losses followed by that rarest of birds, a Freo Trio. Such a result would perfectly encapsulate the charm of supporting the Dockers. We can only dream.

-Weekend Australian, 11 August 2002.

10

Hope: Chris Connolly

September 25, 2000, was undoubtedly one of the greatest days in the couple of hundred years of Australian sporting history.

On a balmy night in Sydney, Cathy Freeman won the 400 metres Olympic medal. As a journalist covering the Games, I snared a seat right on the finish line, perhaps eight rows from the front. Had the official equipment broken down during a tight finish, my disposable-camera snaps could have determined the winner. That's how good my seat was; so good — and free — it was almost embarrassing. Almost, but not quite.

Cathy was the brightest star on that blindingly stellar night when every event contained a dramatic twist. Those fortunate enough to attend had wept and laughed and gaped and cheered and sprouted a squillion goose bumps. As a pile of other journalists and I were preparing to leave the Olympic Stadium the consensus was that there'd never be another night like this. We'd seen the ultimate. Nothing would come close. Caught up in the thrill of it all, I briefly concurred.

But it wasn't long, perhaps a couple of minutes, before doubts

set in. True, we'd never see another like Cathy's night. But could it really compare to Fremantle winning a premiership? Indeed, wouldn't the thrill of merely watching the Dockers running out onto the MCG on the last Saturday in September, after soaking up the excitement of Grand Final week, surpass what happened in Sydney that night? Even if we lost.

Naturally, I didn't share these thoughts with anyone as we left the Olympic Stadium. I'm not completely stupid. But as time passes I've calculated that a premiership, a Grand Final appearance and a preliminary final victory by the Dockers would all trump Cathy's night. Freeman slots in marginally ahead of a preliminary final loss. She shouldn't feel insulted; this is still high praise. Don't think I'm joking. These private mental calculations began on the bus trip from Homebush to the media centre. They've continued, on and off, ever since. I'm not especially proud of this. I'd agree with anyone who argues that it's a touch sordid, and more than a little unhinged, to obsess about an unheralded and essentially suburban rabble during a time of national, nay, global celebration.

Yet this is the effect the Dockers have on their supporters. For the Eagles, a premiership came ridiculously easily. West Coast started with a virtual State of Origin squad and required only a master coach to knock it into shape. During Fremantle's troubled infancy, it's been remarkably therapeutic to realise that no matter how badly the Dockers are travelling, our salad days lie ahead. Eagles' supporters might live to be one hundred and twenty, but they'll never again be able to boast a period of

dominance like the 1990s. West Coast peaked way too early. They're like a child prodigy who can rattle off Mozart's more complicated concertos at the age of five, only to lose three or four fingers in a nasty kitchen accident approaching puberty. Deep down, Eagles' fans realise the Malthouse years will never be matched — and it's killing them.

Brisbane, who have strung together a couple of premierships, struggled awfully for many years. Yet their pain can't really compare to Fremantle's. Queensland remains only marginally attuned to the charm of Australian football and, besides, the Lions emerged from the remnants of the Fitzroy Football Club in Melbourne. The Dockers were built from the ground up.

Port Adelaide entered the AFL after the Dockers, but the South Australian club morphed out of the powerful SAFL club which has won bucket-loads of local premierships. Sydney fans are also long-suffering, but for the majority of Swans' supporters the footy is a social occasion. Should we have a macchiato in Double Bay or a vodka and tonic at the SCG? Depends where the Swans are on the ladder. (And, of course, Sydney grew out of the relocated South Melbourne club.)

No, Fremantle is unique. St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs and Geelong have endured decades without winning a flag, but all have enjoyed periods of success. Admittedly they're a lot older than Fremantle, who, you'd hope, will be able to boast at least one premiership by the time we're as ancient as most Melbourne-based clubs. Not that anyone would have bet on that following the mayhem of 2001. While the new broom had

swept through the club, chief executive Cameron Schwab was already tainted by the Fabian Francis debacle. Back in those dark times, when the splinters from the wooden spoon were still painfully raw, it was difficult to remain enthusiastic about Fremantle's prospects. Indeed, with the AFL wagons circling, and supporters protesting about the cack-handed and undemocratic administration of Fremantle by the West Australian Football Commission, there were genuine concerns about whether or not the Dockers would be able to survive.

Happily, these had vanished by the start of summer. Naturally, replacing the coach would be Schwab's most important decision, and it boiled down to a race in two. Perversely, John Worsfold, Eagles hero and Fremantle's erstwhile public-enemy-number-one, appeared keen for the job. There would have been a terrific symmetry about Woosha, a South Fremantle boy, taking over the Dockers. West Coast, who'd played appalling and negative football under Ken Judge, and were lucky Fremantle's idiocy allowed their club to escape more stringent scrutiny and criticism, were also looking for a coach. For Fremantle to have snatched Worsfold would have dealt the ultimate insult to the beleaguered Eagles.

But the Dockers chose Chris Connolly, a friend of Schwab's and another well-credentialled rookie. Connolly came with good reviews from Hawthorn, where he'd been a highly regarded assistant. But for sceptics, his pedigree seemed suspiciously similar to Damian Drum's. Drummie had played sixty-five games with Geelong before winning praise as Rodney Eade's

offsider in Sydney. Connolly was a similarly unheralded player, whose eighty-seven-game career with Melbourne was cruelied by two knee reconstructions. With all the name coaches like Malthouse, Sheedy and Matthews sewn up, Connolly had been touted as the best assistant going around. But, as my usually sagacious, but unhealthily negative, mate Hooter noted, 'Name the last nobody to become a successful coach?' Good question.

Connolly, however, made a cracking start. He'd inherited a demoralised and dysfunctional outfit, yet within weeks the Dockers were being lauded for their nous and professionalism. Such improbable praise emanated from the end-of-season trade period, a week-long twilight zone when the clubs and coaches, having demanded loyalty and dedication from the players during the preceding twelve months, proceed to swap and dispense with footballers like bubblegum cards.

The only benefits from the awfulness of 2001 were a couple of sympathy draft picks for the Dockers. Armed with a pair of big betting chips, Schwab and Connolly sat down at the AFL poker table and left with a handful of trumps. Jeff Farmer, you might recall, was already etched into Fremantle folklore when, in a decision to rival Decca Records rejection of The Beatles, Gerard Neesham traded away the mercurial Aboriginal forward for Phil Gilbert before Fremantle had played a single game. Imagine having the keys to a new Mercedes but being persuaded to hand them in for a clapped out Leyland P76 and you get a sense of the enormity of that particular mistake.

Farmer, like Peter Bell before him, became the Dockers'

second high profile prodigal son to return to the fold. Except it was the club that proved prodigal, since it cost a small fortune to coax Farmer back home. Still, the Wizard was keen to be back and we were thrilled to have him.

Having lost one teenage sex-symbol — Tony Modra — it was imperative for the Dockers to find a replacement pin-up boy. Connolly had coached Trent Croad — a tall, dark, handsome, talented, athletic but erratic Hawthorn key position player — and, after a week of wheeling and dealing, managed to secure the chick-magnet's signature. Croad's transcontinental transfer was a tale for the ages. Having entered hospital for hand surgery as a Hawk, the youngster awoke from his anaesthetic to find himself a Docker. They make B-grade horror movies about this sort of thing with titles such as Buried Alive IV . Certainly, Croad's experience under the ether should deter young people from taking drugs.

If Farmer and Croad were the star recruits, Schwab and Connolly unearthed several other gems. Luke McPharlin had played just one Colts match with East Fremantle before being snapped up by Hawthorn, but became one of the first AFL players afflicted by the mysterious osteitis pubis injury. After three tentative years, Hawthorn were hoping to get some return for their investment when Connolly swooped. His old club wasn't happy.

Troy Simmonds' claim to fame was to be unfairly pole-axed above the shoulders by Michael Long in Melbourne's grand final loss to Essendon the previous year. But Simmonds was also a

young, athletic and high-leaping ruckman, and a very handy pick-up for the Dockers.

Connolly landed some terrific kids, too. Graham Polak was the first West Australian chosen in the 2001 draft. Adam McPhee was a blond-headed tough-nut from Victoria. Paul Medhurst looked not much bigger than a rover, yet had topped the goal-kicking list in the WAFL playing for Claremont.

On paper, it was a terrific start to Connolly's reign at Fremantle. Suddenly pundits were using terms like 'shrewd', 'professional' and 'Dockers' in the same sentence. On grass, especially the home-grown stuff they lay at Subiaco Oval, it wasn't bad either. The Dockers won nine games in 2002, all of them in front of buoyant and burgeoning home crowds. An opinion piece posted on the AFL's official website at the end of the 2002 season gives you a fair idea of Connolly's success in his debut year. Remembering that the new coach had inherited a basket case less than twelve months before, here's what columnist Paul Gough was saying a month after the grand final:

Put simply anything less than at least a debut finals appearance will be seen by many as a failure for Fremantle next year as it is time the Dockers delivered the goods on the field and proved to the rest of the competition they can be a genuine force in the AFL.

Now remember Ted Hopkins' ill-fated predictions a month into the Dockers' debut season — 'This is pure and classy footy

played in the style of great Victorian-based teams of bygone days blah, blah, blah'? And Gerard Healy's well-meaning email midway through the Drum years — 'I suspect they are not far from being a genuine contender ... look forward to seeing your articles deal with their success yada, yada, yada'? After several false dawns, Dockers' supporters with wiser heads remain eternally sceptical.

But it's true that under Connolly, some of the joie de vivre experienced during the Neesham years has returned to the club. The new coach is a sanguine, upbeat, optimistic type with a wry sense of humour. As a largely anonymous outsider, Connolly was never going to get an extended honeymoon period had Fremantle failed to improve significantly on the disaster of 2001. Yet the newcomer quickly tapped in to the uniqueness of the Dockers and their supporters, and proceeded to build on the club's strong community spirit and streak of irreverence.

It helped, of course, that the Dockers started winning. A respectable loss to West Coast in Round 1 was followed by a thrilling comeback victory over St Kilda, with youngster Ben Cunningham sealing victory with the last kick of the game. When in Round 6 the Dockers smashed Essendon, Connolly's side had emerged as a seriously formidable unit within the confines of Subiaco Oval.

A couple of weeks later, Farmer steered the Dockers to a famously nerve-wracking win over his old club. Melbourne led by seven points with a minute to play when the Wizard snapped at goal. It looked a bit dodgy and may have sailed over the post,

but the umpire raised two flags. The Demons won the ball out of the centre and seemed likely to hold on for victory, until Fremantle regained possession and bombed the thing forward. With one second on the clock, Farmer grabbed it and was pushed squarely in the back by his old housemate, Melbourne captain David Neitz. The siren sounded, the Wizard nailed it and pandemonium broke out.

By now Foxtel had won the AFL's pay television rights, and in Canberra we were receiving every Dockers' game live. Away games proved frustrating; Fremantle could easily have crept into the final eight had we snatched a couple of away victories against ordinary sides. But, after the horror of 2001, nobody could complain about Connolly's revitalised Dockers, nor seriously argue that the side weren't genuinely improving.

And the coach was a hoot. Collingwood travelled to Perth in Round 12, prompting Connolly to describe Magpies and ex-Eagles coach Mick Malthouse as Darth Vader at a pre-game media conference. The quip made instant news and helped promote the game, drawing the biggest Fremantle home crowd for a non-Derby at Subiaco. Connolly rang Malthouse immediately after the press conference to let his rival in on the marketing ploy. Mick appreciated the call and played along with the rivalry. The Dockers won convincingly, yet Malthouse left the ground wearing a wry smile — unheard of during his Eagles reign. Mick later admitted he was in awe of the scene — 33,000 rabid Dockers' fans celebrating their club's victory, with Connolly trotting around the boundary line waving an

inflatable anchor. Fremantle had come a long way since Mick's departure.

A mid-season slump blew any chance of Fremantle making the finals. We travelled to Sydney again to see the Dockers smashed at the SCG, then two weeks later Fremantle came to Canberra to lose by a miserable point, having led all day against the more fancied Kangaroos. It was a heartbreaking loss, especially given the distance travelled, but anyone who watched Connolly deliver a humble, humorous and upbeat speech at the after-match function knew the club was moving forward. We beat the Eagles the following week and eventually finished twelfth.

Publicly, at least, Connolly never shifted from his goal of getting Fremantle to gradually improve en route to making the finals in 2004. Malthouse's achievements at Collingwood, where he somehow managed to steer a bunch of largely unfancied footballers into the 2002 Grand Final, gave most clubs reasons to be cheerful. The 2003 Dockers don't seem much worse than Mick's Magpies. Connolly is still learning, but by midway through his first year as senior coach it was clear he and Fremantle made a perfect match.

In the latter half of the season, Connolly held a public training session on the South Terrace cappuccino strip. It was such a simple and obvious public relations ploy, you wondered why it hadn't happened years ago (possibly because the skills of the players have been so erratic, the club couldn't afford the insurance against smashing awnings and breaking shop windows). Thousands of supporters gathered in the main street

to support these training sessions, and it wasn't long before Cameron Schwab was taking phone calls from other AFL clubs intent on pilfering the idea.

Critically, Connolly managed to re-sign a couple of key youngsters at the end of 2002. Matthew Pavlich and Paul Hasleby were both out of contract, and losing one or both — à la Jeff White — would have been devastating for Fremantle. With expensive stars like Bell and Farmer putting pressure on the salary cap, the two young Dockers were prime targets for rival clubs wielding big cheque books. Yet both Pavlich and Hasleby were persuaded to forgo larger stipends and remain at Fremantle. This was a tremendous vote of confidence in the club and a huge boost for supporters. Justin Longmuir signed on as well, and the club pulled off a stunning coup, persuading homesick Brisbane premiership player Des Headland to sign with the Dockers. Fremantle farewelled talented youngsters Leigh Brown and Adam McPhee to secure Headland, but as pre-season training began, it was difficult to argue with Paul Gough's assessment that the Dockers were emerging as the real deal. (It didn't hurt that Daniel Metropolis was persuaded to take a large pay-out and quit a year early, rather than soak up $270,000 of the club's salary cap from the sidelines.) Quite an extraordinary turnaround in barely twelve months.

How will Fremantle and its supporters deal with success, should it smile upon us? With an equal measure of great excitement and good grace, you'd reckon. The mere prospect of the Dockers

playing in a final — any final — prompts a Cathy Freeman-esque stampede of goose bumps up my spine. As the old song goes, we've been down so long it feels like up. Gerard Healy was right, success will require adjustment.

Indeed, when Fremantle are being routinely touted as top-four contender, and pundits spend column inches musing about whether Pavlich or Headland will win the Brownlow medal, we'll all retain a certain nostalgic regard for these days of woe. For, as this book has tried to argue, victory has never been central to the Dockers' charm. This is axiomatic. For prolonged periods during our first eight years we have failed often, and often failed spectacularly. Yet, even during the club's darkest, dimmest days, we have rarely complained or bitched or moaned. We've just got on with it, appreciating the odd victory, finding shards of inspiration in the debris of loss, and taking solace in the certainty that better days lie ahead.

True Dockers supporters — and there are tens of thousands of us — suffer few regrets about the indignities that have befallen us since 1995. On balance, there's been more euphoria than sadness. Following Fremantle has been comical and character building. The Dockers have stuffed up grandly, yet fronted each week to do their best. We have won a score of heady, famous victories. We have lost ugly and often. We have been laughed at and lied to, ignored and maltreated. We know that, in theory, everyone in the AFL is equal. Except some are more equal than others, and Fremantle is the least equal of all. While this is often irksome, we never waste time getting too

depressed. Indeed, we savour the prospect of constantly kicking against the pricks.

The Dockers lost seventy percent of games played between 1995 and 2002, yet the magnificent memories far outweigh the disappointment of serial defeat.

I love it that Fremantle forked out more money than the AFL to ensure Fitzroy's departure from the competition at the end of 1996 was poignant and dignified. The Dockers were barely two years old, struggling on and off the field, and without a zack to scratch themselves. Yet we empathised with the pain and suffering of the Lions and went out of our way to comfort officials and supporters. It remains arguably our finest moment.

I love it that Fremantle has botched the sacking of its first two coaches, mainly through erring on the side of decency. In hindsight, Gerard Neesham probably should have been replaced by his then assistant, Neal Daniher, at the end of 1997. Certainly, Damian Drum was seriously damaged goods when a crisis meeting of the board couldn't reach a decision after six straight losses in 2001. Yet if mistakes were made, they grew from a lack of ruthlessness, a willingness to give servants of the club the benefit of the doubt and an admittedly old-fashioned belief that if you make somebody a promise you should do your best to keep it.

I loved beating the Eagles for the first time in 1999, and wouldn't have thought anything could have come close to that inaugural triumph, until the one-point victory in the thrilling Demolition Derby bloodbath the following year.

I've loved hearing all three Dockers' coaches regularly remind everyone that football is only a game, and that for all the excitement and disappointment, hype and commerce, it should be treated as such. Perhaps this sort of equanimity is a requirement in the top job, otherwise Fremantle coaches would find themselves being wheeled off to the local psychiatric ward. But it also happens to be true.

I love Shane Parker. Our vice-captain and key defender is the first person to play a hundred and fifty games with Fremantle, and you could count on one hand the number of times he's been beaten. Yet Parker is arguably the best anonymous footballer in the land. Barely known and hardly appreciated outside Perth, Parker would be an All-Australian if he played for a glamour club. Yet Parker, a deeply religious man, neither complains nor craves attention. He plays and beats shorts and talls, quicks and not-so-quicks. As a veteran Dockers' back man, Shane has come under more unfriendly fire than a Palestinian apartment block. He has never buckled, nor given the impression he'd rather be anywhere else. Yet, Shane has transcended the ridicule, criticism and pressure associated with pulling on a purple and green jumper for a living to cement a place in the hearts of all dedicated Dockers fans. Parker's quiet dignity glistens in a sport replete with boorish show-offs and attention seekers. Nobody in the competition deserves a taste of success more than our beloved number 23.

I love Clive — but you already know that.

I love it that Neesham was prepared to gamble on the

precocious talent of indigenous footballers. Scott Chisholm, Dale Kickett, Gary Dhurrkay, Winston Abraham and Steven Koops were all recruited by Neesham, and they, and numerous other Aboriginal players, have provided countless moments of sunlight — and episodes of rare comedy — to leaven the gloom of underachievement.

I love it that during our first couple of seasons, the Dockers eschewed the traditional giant banner and instead ran out on the ground through a silly tube carrying the sponsor's name. I love the pre-match anchor-raising ceremony, and I used to love Grinder, the stupid-looking mascot, who looked like a felon and grinned like an idiot.

I loved watching Matthew 'Spider' Burton loping around the ground in a Dockers' jumper and never begrudged watching him improve out of sight — to the point of actually taking contested marks — on being traded to North Melbourne. (All right, I begrudged it a little.) I loved it when Andrew Wills' eyes bulged beneath his bald pate as he grabbed the ball and embarked on an uncharted, kamikaze run towards goal.

I loved turning up to a match during the Neesham years and sharing that intangible, but undeniable, feeling with fellow supporters that THIS WAS OUR DAY. Against all odds the Dockers would be outplaying a far more fancied opponent who had arrived at Subiaco confident of victory. Then Neesham's army of ants would click, and you'd sense the panic permeating the opposition. Occasionally we'd even win, and the visitors would stagger from the ground looking like Brian Lara after the

brilliant West Indies batsman was clean bowled by female cricketer Zoë Goss during a televised charity match. This cannot be happening.

I love it that Dale Kickett, considered by many a washed up has-been rejected by four other AFL clubs, wound up a widely respected legend after playing 135 games with Fremantle.

I love it that he belted Phil Read in the Demolition Derby, even though Kickett himself was deeply embarrassed by the brawl and subsequent nine-week suspension. I love that he quit in the middle of 2002, admitting he feared becoming bitter at missing selection in the young and rejuvenated team. 'I don't ever want to be remembered at this club for being like that,' he confided to the coach. Naturally, Chris Connolly ensured Kickett played the extra game to chalk up 200 senior matches and AFL life membership. I loved that, too.

I loved it that Tony Modra never once remonstrated with the umpires, despite being crucified on a weekly basis during his three years with the Dockers. The mercurial full-forward won acclaim and fortune at Adelaide, but he earned deep respect for his behaviour at Fremantle.

I loved Adrian Fletcher's tireless dedication to his fourth club, and felt sad he wasn't part of the Connolly-Schwab revival. I love Paul Medhurst's Eddie Munster haircut, and Steven Koops' knack of taking half a dozen mark-of-the-year contenders each season.

I've loved the post mortem phone calls between friends, luxuriating in the weekly mishaps and trying to outdo each

other with black humour. I've also appreciated the overwhelmingly encouraging correspondence from readers, who tend to marvel at my ability to sneak Fremantle into the national newspaper under the thinnest of guises.

As success beckons, Dockers fans will never forget these eight years spent bathing in underachievement. Abraham Lincoln once remarked: 'My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.' In which case the famous American president might have harboured serious concerns for the legion of Fremantle fans who have survived, and even secretly enjoyed, our litany of catastrophes.

IMAGINE

Dear  Matthew Pavlich,

Stalin once described gratitude as a sickness suffered by dogs. But I'm pretty sure if Uncle Joe were still around he'd be an Eagles' supporter. Or a rugby league administrator. Or both. So, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Naturally, your decision to eschew more money and re-sign with Fremantle received underwhelming coverage east of Eucla. Your gracious press conference was, as far as I could tell, ignored by the Melbourne newspapers. Admittedly, there were other stories around. It's a shame because loyalty, character and commitment are rare and worth trumpeting, especially when found in a man-boy who can play back or forward and kick seventy metres. If Essendon's trading of Damien Hardwick last year wasn't the death knell of loyalty in the AFL, Terry Wallace's abandonment of the Bulldogs sounded The Last Post. It's now just another commodity, to be lauded and/or traded when convenient.

Wayne Carey's shift to Adelaide overshadowed your decision not to return home. Carey's is a cautionary tale, Matthew. Although you're not yet in his league as a player, we'd back you not to bugger up life like the King.

Ordinary people can't imagine money being a factor for a kid whose wage is twice the PM's. Still, you're not ordinary and, if the mail's right, you rejected more than $100,000 a year to move. Your family is large and close and living in Adelaide. Being selected by the Dockers as No. 4 draft pick must have been like winning the lottery, only to lose the ticket. At seventeen, you emerged as a key player in a dud team, a completely unreasonable burden. But you've never shirked a contest. There are no guarantees in life, Matthew, but, had you signed with Port, they'd almost certainly have delivered you a premiership — or vice versa. The Dockers are improving but a flag seems an eon away.

Imagine if we can get there, Matthew. You'll probably be captain and your mates Hasleby and Brown will still be playing. Medhurst's bouffant may have settled by then, and hopefully Shane Parker might still be hobbling off a half-back flank. As we all know, Shane would have been an All-Australian playing anywhere else, but no one signs with Fremantle for glory.

Yet there's something unique about the Dockers, Matthew. We're irreverent and unpredictable, and still a bit pre-pubescent. Nor are we quite as ruthless as other clubs, which is probably to our detriment. But Chris Connolly is a terrific bloke with a sense of humour and perspective. He can also coach a bit, which makes a nice change.

There will be dark times ahead because Freo are young and still learning. And if Port wins a flag you'll suffer all sorts of doubts, which is natural. But you've done us a great service by following your heart and not your wallet or family.

There's an eleven-year-old boy in Canberra whose face lit up when he learned Pav' was staying put. Multiply that by tens of thousands.Enjoy the last game and have a terrific break. You deserve it. One more time ... thank you.Sincerely,All Fremantle Dockers supporters.Weekend Australian, 31 August 2002.

Postscript 2003

If you've trawled this far, you'll recall the, admittedly, self- centred and, almost certainly deluded, fear that my column in The Australian casts some sort of jinx over the Fremantle Dockers.

Well, as the early part of 2003 unfolded, I had the horrible and symmetrical thought that this book might wield a similar, if more concentrated power. The Dockers have suffered a comprehensive but frustrating loss in the Western Derby. West Coast won convincingly, even though Fremantle squandered plenty of chances to score, and any fair observer wouldn't be able to discern much difference in talent between the two sides. Of course, I'm a patently unfair observer, and to my untrained eye the Dockers possess the cattle and other livestock to stampede the dreaded Eagles. This didn't happen.

Way To Go has been brutally unkind to Phil Matera, the West Coast ant who got his comeuppance courtesy of an errant umpire in the famous Demolition Derby. Matera Jr has responded to this unwanted attention by having a stellar start to 2003 and featuring in the upper reaches of the goal kicking list. Thank you Phil.

In my dreams, Richmond - psycho, madcap, infuriating

Richmond who never, ever win except when you tip against them - would by now have replaced Fremantle as the black sheep of the AFL. Inexplicably, the Richmond rabble won four straight games and at the time of writing resides a tad below mighty Brisbane at the top of the AFL ladder. Nor has politics escaped the Dockers' curse. Fremantle fan Kim Beazley has had a service and oil change and seems destined to challenge Simon Crean for the Labor leadership, throwing the federal Opposition into complete disarray. By the time you read this the big fella might even have regained his old job. Certainly, federal Labor has been playing like the Dockers under Damian Drum. Ah, Drummie. You'll recall when we last left him, the ex- Dockers' coach had successfully shifted from football to politics after a cliff-hanging victory in the 2002 Victorian election. The new Member for North Western Province thought he'd won himself a cosy eight year term in parliament.

Alas, the Bracks government is moving to halve upper house terms, and earlier this year Drummie caused a minor furore when he publicly complained about the change. Drum's argument was a masterpiece of artless honesty. He told parliament of the mental processes in leaving one 'successful' career for another.'You think about the finance, the superannuation, or the car you will get. Does the job involve a mobile phone? The job you are in may have excellent finance ... you may have flexible hours. You have to weigh up the pros and cons. That is what I did ... I do not hesitate in saying the eight-year term in this

house was an unbelievably attractive part of my decision to enter politics.'Drummie's Churchillian oration on parliamentary lurks and perks earned a sharp rebuke from government MPs and newspaper editorialists. It wasn't all bad. Fremantle's first two victories' against Sydney and the Kangaroos' were stirring, convincing and - naturally - at home. Clive returned from injury for the latter win, and promptly took screamers and kicked unfeasible goals. Against West Coast, our beloved No. 26 missed a handful of sitters which might have turned the match. T'was ever thus.

We can safely declare Peter Bell to be immune from the Captain's Curse. The Dockers captain has been terrific this year, leading from the front, and exhibiting the type of heart and courage that belies his midget frame. Which is quite enough waxing about Bell, since it's just struck me that between my writing this and you reading it, he might have developed SARS or a crippling knee injury or both. In which case, the Way To Go jinx is official and you have my permission to burn this book. Dockers' fans - who, despite what Mick Malthouse suggests in the foreword, remain a cut above the rest - were becoming restless.

Chris Connolly had been employing something called the rotation system, which seems specifically designed to cause maximum trauma and stress to elderly officials patrolling the interchange section of the boundary line. Fremantle led the competition in interchange moves, which occasionally meant four of our best and most expensive players were left cooling

their heels on the bench. Since 99.99 percent of punters have never coached an AFL side, and 99.99 percent of that 99.99 percent adhere to the theory that, wherever possible, you keep your best 18 players on the park, there were rumblings in the ranks. The Dockers, you'll remember, have been famed for breeding young men - such as Bell, Jeff White and Winston Abraham - who played their best football for other clubs. Two thousand and three opened with a frustrating twist to this. Star recruits Des Headland, Jeff Farmer and especially Trent Croad were very ordinary through the early part of the season, lending weight to the theory that pulling on a purple and green jumper had roughly the same effect as a Number 2 cut on Samson.

As Way To Go was being fine tuned for the printers word came through that Chris Connolly had announced to reporters: 'Fremantle is the most disrespected team in the competition ... and we deserve it.' There was much public agonising and Croad, especially, came under enormous pressure to perform.And then we smashed Essendon at home and annihilated the Western Bulldogs in Melbourne to record back-to-back victories for the first time in three years.

At the time of writing the Dockers are in seventh position and, had we kicked a couple of extra goals against the Bulldogs, we'd be fifth. (And Rove McManus, comedian, Fremantle's number one ticket holder and Shaun's marginally more famous cousin, has just won the Gold Logie for Australia's most popular television entertainer. Our woolly haired ex-skipper had been comfortably best-on-ground

earlier in the day during the demolition of the Bulldogs). Hopefully the hiatus between printing and publication has produced a string of euphoric, nay, historic victories; in order, a previously unheard of Freo Trio followed by a Port Quartet, then a Fremantle Pentangle.

In which case this book has been perfectly timed to serve as an unofficial 'fullstop' to the dark chapters of the club's early existence. And even if the Dockers have struggled in the interim, supporters can console ourselves with the unfairness of it all. Figures released this year show Fremantle pays its main coaches a total of $542,500.

This is more than $200,000 below the nearest club, and nearly $700,000 less than Mick and his mob are paid at Collingwood. And while Fremantle received roughly $55,000 from merchandising last year, Essendon scooped almost $2 million. It's no use getting angry. Better to buy a membership, purchase a scarf and pay heed to Rudyard Kipling's advice about treating those two famous 'impostors', Triumph and Disaster, just the same.

Admittedly, we've spent rather too many unforgiving minutes acquainting ourselves with Disaster, and would quite like some practice exercising restraint and magnanimity when Triumph turns up in the purple and green.

NOTHING BETTER IN THIS WORLD

This column travelled to Melbourne last weekend where it saw amazing things. For a start, I bumped into an AFL footballer in a bookshop. No, it wasn't Erotica XXX Plus (there were only rugby league types around while I was there). This was a serious place with proper books and the footballer was Collingwood's James Clement. James, you'll recall, couldn't get a regular game for Fremantle yet is now one of the stars of Mick Malthouse's stingy defence. T'was ever thus. I asked if he missed Perth. Given the crowd Fremantle attracts to games is close to what the Magpies get to training these days, this was possibly the silliest question James has ever been asked. He was polite, though, and while he won't be racing back home, he wishes the Dockers well.

The previous night he'd played a terrific game in Collingwood's landmark win over Brisbane. As you'd expect, there is always a deluxe seat reserved at Colonial Stadium for an A-list sports columnist. Remarkably, though, this rectangle also managed to con a ticket. In the flash Medallion Club, no less, where each seat has its own television. Sports fans, this was footy heaven. While casting an occasional glance over the top-of-the-table clash unravelling below, I was able

to closely monitor the Dockers in their crucial game against Melbourne. I suspect those around me - all members of the Collingwood Army - thought I was a slow learner since my cheering was way out of sync. Still, the fans were very polite (admittedly there is a rudimentary IQ and hygiene test to enter Club Med, so ninety-eight percent of the Collingwood Army are refused entry). On quarter-time I rang a mate, who was attending a wedding, with the good oil. I'm here, I'm wired and I'll keep you posted on Freo's progress. He in turn delivered some devastating news. A mutual friend had suffered a massive heart attack. He was still alive but in a critical condition.

The next twenty-four hours would decide his fate.Suddenly a gloomy cloud had descended over footy heaven. I shared the news with Lady Rectangle and we retired to the plush restaurant to talk it through. In these situations you can yak all night, but there was nothing we could do so I returned to watch the footy. As many have argued, the Pies versus Lions game was one of the best of the season, and though it was a cracker I'd argue differently.The Dockers match lagged behind, and as euphoric Collingwood Army troops left Colonial, a lone and pathetic figure remained in the stands.

Cruelly, the Subiaco Oval feed was cut from my seat with four minutes to play and the Dockers seven points behind.I flew into the Medallion Club where a crowd of Melbourne fans had gathered around a television. Anyone who's navigated this far knows what happened next. Jeff Farmer kicked a contentious goal to

get us back in the match. Then, with a solitary second to play, Farmer received a free and went on to land the magnificent victory goal against his old club.

Let me take this opportunity to apologise to Medallion Club patrons for my behaviour - only several hours later did Lady R stop disowning me. But as we left the ground, I was struck by two things. Life is short and we best take full advantage of it. (Thankfully our ill friend is on the mend.)

And there is nothing better in this world than seeing your team get up after the siren.

-Weekend Australian, 25 May 2002.

Epilogue

This book opened with my favourite Fremantle moment; Gary Dhurrkay's madcap antics in defence during that 1997 victory against the Western Bulldogs. You'll recall how Dhurrkay gained possession in the back pocket, weighed his options and then cannoned straight into an opponent, wrong-footing the unprepared defender and eventually ambling away unchecked. I was fairly sure, but not certain, that the bemused Bulldog was Paul Dimattina. So was my mate Hooter, who was standing next to me at the game that day.

To double check, I posted a message on the wonderful unofficial Fremantle supporters' website, dockerland.com. A testimony to all that is admirable and slightly batty about Freo fans, what dockerland.com devotees don't know about their beloved club hasn't yet happened. Curiously, no one remembered my priceless moment, even the site's resident Dhurrkay-phile. This was deeply perplexing, since both Hooter and I had spent years chuckling over the infamous reverse shirtfront.

Further doubts arose when a Fremantle official contacted me. The club had seen my request and quickly spooled through their tape of the game. They'd found no such incident involving Dhurrkay, but would forward me a copy of the match so I could look for myself. When the video finally arrived, I was seriously nervous. What if this hilarious incident - which Hooter and I both vividly remembered - never happened? For a start, I'd have to rewrite the introduction. Not to mention make an appointment with a psychologist. Happily, I'm not completely potty. I shoved the tape into the machine and fast-forwarded to the second quarter.

Sure enough, Dhurrkay collects the ball in his defensive fifty and, yep, it's Dimattina who's trying to block his path forward. The eccentric Aboriginal player sums up his options, then dashes straight at his nonplussed opponent, exactly as we'd remembered. Except then my Fremantle fairytale goes slightly off the rails. In my mind's eye, Dhurrkay bounces off the befuddled Dimattina and surges forward. This didn't actually happen. Unfortunately, the videotape contains fairly compelling evidence that the initially stunned Dimattina composes himself and lays a tackle on Dhurrkay, who literally throws the ball away.

Up in the commentary box, Dennis Cometti is trying to suppress laughter while yelling, 'THAT'S GOT TO BE HOLDING THE BALL.' Uncharacteristically, the umpires fail to penalise Fremantle and the Sherrin is somehow scrambled out of the danger zone.

What does this reality check reveal? Perhaps that this type of selective memory is common to all Fremantle supporters; that to help us cope with the grim realities of failure, we've filtered most of our traumatic football experiences through a green and purple prism. Or perhaps I'm just a singular goose who's made everything in this book up. Surely not.

Acknowledgements

You'd think a book like this - essentially the ramblings of a singular troubled mind - wouldn't require input from anybody but its deluded author. And you'd be wrong. Way To Go: Sadness, Euphoria and The Fremantle Dockers  owes its existence to many others, some who'll doubtless feel rather put out when they discover they're even vaguely responsible for such silliness.

My thanks to Hooter, Carps, Southy, Paul and other smart-arse footy fans who revel in the challenge of turning Fremantle's latest triumph or misfortune into a pithy one- liner; to Thommo, Barra, Skeeter, Duff, Goss, Haggers and others in the West Australian football media who happily tolerated a fool in their midst; and to George Grljusich, legend.

To Campbell Reid, ex-editor of The Australian turned chief mischief maker at Sydney's Daily Telegraph , for having the temerity to suggest the Perth bureau chief might like to contribute to a revamped sports section in the Weekend Australian ; to a host of senior editorial types and sub-editors at The Australian and News Ltd  who have continued to run and support my Left Field  column for nearly six years despite,

I suspect, their better instincts - they include David Armstrong, Scott Coomber, Billy Rule, Colin Gibson, Gary Ferris, Louise Evans, Neil Breen, Chris Stedman, David Tanner, Michael Stutchbury, Chris Mitchell, John Hartigan, David Fagan and Peter Wilson; to Michael Harvey at the Herald Sun  - apart from regularly road-testing my column, Harvs didn't help much, but I'm guessing being mentioned in the book will be sufficient to tip a fierce Fitzroy loyalist, and lukewarm Brisbane supporter, into the Dockers camp; to Patrick, Dennis, Kerro, Michelle, Sid, Steve and the rest of the gang in The Australian's  Canberra bureau, they do all the real work, allowing me time each week to bang on about Fremantle - ditto Natalie, Roger, Colleen, Belinda and Corinne and co in Perth.

To Les Everett at the Fremantle Herald , fellow dark humourist and Dockers encyclopedia; to David Zampatti for video assistance and voluntary fact checking, and Dave Tasker for enthusiasm and assistance during his stint at the Dockers; to Shane Richmond and devotees to his wonderfully passionate and irreverent dockerland.com website. Log on now.

To the hundreds of correspondents who have felt compelled to respond to my column over the years. They sustain me.

To Clive Newman at Fremantle Arts Centre Press  for his patience and encouragement during the two and a half years it took to turn an idea into a book, and to Ray Coffey for helping knock the thing into shape.

To Mick and Nanette Malthouse, it's been a privilege and an eye-opener working with and getting to know the coach and his family these past five years. Mick's good nature and wicked sense of humour belie all the unkind things people said about him for too long. Especially the author.

To Gerard Neesham and Damian Drum. They served under demanding circumstances and were never less than civil to this correspondent, even when he didn't deserve it.

To every player, past and present, who's pulled the anchor over his beating chest. They make life worth living for tens of thousands of Dockers supporters.

To West Coast CEO Trevor Nesbitt and his predecessor, Brian Cook. Despite much provocation, neither Eagles' boss has ever been anything but friendly and polite to the author over the years. Both have deeply flawed pedigrees but ... whisper it ... they're terrific blokes.

To David Hatt and Ross McLean, whose sense of humour and perspective will doubtless be tested by this book; to Chris Connolly and Cameron Schwab who can expect to star in the sequel to this book; working title: HEAVE HO - A Purple and Green Premiership.

And, most importantly, to Susie, Jack, Matilda and Harry. Especially Susie. There, darl, it's finally finished.

First published 2003 by FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE PRESS 25 Quarry Street, Fremantle (PO Box 158, North Fremantle 6159) Western Australia. www.facp.iinet.net.au

Copyright @ Matt Price, 2003.

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

Enquiries should be made to the publisher.Consultant Editor Ray Coffey. Cover Designer Marion Duke. Typeset by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Printed by Griffin Press. Photographs courtesy The Sunday Times, Perth.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data

Price, Matt, 1961- .

Way to go: sadness, euphoria and the footy fan.

ISBN 1 920731 96 2.