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{xtypo_dropcap}C{/xtypo_dropcap}hat with Joe McKay and you quickly realise you are talking to someone who is passionate about football as a team game, with the rewards and satisfaction earned by participation much more important to him than any individual success.

 

It's hard to get any personal achievements out of the man who played one hundred and seventy games for South Fremantle, was a premiership player, a State centre half back/centre half forward, and a club fairest and best winner, but he'd prefer to talk about those he played with.

 

Joe McKay was always going to wear the red and white. A disciple of the great John Gerovich, wearing the number nine was also part of his dream, but he had to be content with nineteen. “Donny Haddow had nine, and you'd have needed a crowbar to remove it from his back,” laughed Joe, when we spoke with him recently.

 

A product of the Palmyra juniors, McKay was playing at centre half forward with CBC under eighteens when he suffered a five inch hairline fracture of the skull, which required a stay in Fremantle Hospital. “The stay had a bonus - Gero worked there,” Joe commented. But the injury was a serious one, bad enough for doctors to warn him against playing football again.

 

After a year off, McKay dropped into Fremantle Oval, where he was immediately confronted by league coach, Mal Atwell. “He was right into my face,” McKay said. “For a seventeen year old it was a bit disconcerting. Mal said: “Where the %*$# have you been?” After a few more adjectives he advised me to bring my gear along the next night, we were off to Lancelin for a training camp.”

 

It was there that I had my first taste of the comaraderie of a league football club. I was dubbed the “camp virgin” because of my age and Danny Civich was my self-appointed protector. Friendships I made and atittudes I learnt on that trip and the following years have stuck with me.”

 

McKay was placed on the league training list at the beginning of the 1973 season, but a thigh injury had unsettling consequences. “I had torn a thigh muscle at training, but no one believed me,” he said. “I went from the league list to the fourths, eventually seeking my own help about the injury, and it finally came good.”

 

McKay had a chequered 1973 season, going from the fourths to the colts then the reserves. In the reserves he was named best player in a losing side and was immediately dropped back to the thirds. “Mal was making a point,” Joe recalled. “I had no bad feelings about it, it was all part of the education. The following week was the last game of the year and he promoted me to the reserves again.”

 

At the start of the 1974 season, with Tom Grljusich and Ray Bauskis pencilled in for the key forward positions, McKay's future was up in the air. It was a pre season injury to Bauskis that opened the door to league football for McKay, and he lined up against East Perth's John Daniels. “John was a tough man, who would run through you if he could, although he had eyes for the ball” Joe remarked.

 

McKay's first three kicks in league football were goals, and, although an indication of his football ability, it wasn't a true reflection of his accuracy as a goalkicker. He quickly gained a reputation as a wayward shot for goal, and it was a factor that told against him when the State side was selected that year, Swan Districts spearhead Max George filling the full forward position. “I hated full forward,” Joe confessed. “I got the jitters in close. Kevin Miller tried coaching me, but to no avail. Centre half forward, further out, I was OK.”

 

A strong high mark, Joe McKay was a mobile player who was a great team man, had a long kick, and was a coach's dream because of his flexibility.

 

It was in 1975, under Colin Beard, that McKay was tried at centre half back, where his kicking suddenly became a strong weapon for South Fremantle, with his booming left footers out of defence a feature of his game. After a strong season,1975 ended in disappointment for the Bulldogs, with a record breaking grand final loss to West Perth. “It was a lowlight of my career,” Joe said. “and it's still hard to fathom how we played so badly.”

 

But McKay maintains that the years 1974, 5, and 6 under Colin Beard were his most memorable. “They were a great bunch of blokes, we truly played for each other. It was a pleasure to be part of the team those days,” he said. “I have seen references of players in a football team being compared to soldiers in wartime, and it's a comparison I completely agree with. You are part of a dedicated group, with each individual looking out for each other. It's the philosophy of teambuilding that I used in later life as a sporting coach.”

 

McKay was selected as a reserve for Western Australia in 1976, the year he won the A W Walker Medal as club fairest and best. In 1977 he played against South Australia in Adelaide, Victoria in Perth, and South Australia in Perth, all at centre half back, before lining up in the same position in the inaugural State of Origin game, against Victoria at Subiaco Oval. WA won by exactly one hundred points.

 

He was joined on the half back line on that occasion by South Fremantle teammate, Basil Campbell. “It was certainly reassuring, having Basil there,” he laughed. “I always recall my initial impression of Basil, at his first training run at Fremantle Oval, on joining the Bulldogs. We were doing a tackling routine, under a rugby coach, and I copped Bas. I had to be dug out of the ground, and after that I was most appreciative of the fact that I was on his side.”

 

In the State of Origin clash, McKay had a few different opponents. “It was a bit difficult, fronting up for that one,” he recalled. “It was played after the grand final, and we hadn't made the finals, so it'd been a six week break.” Lining up on Mark McClure, “he ran me out to a flank,” he ended up on Don Scott. “It was a great experience, playing in that star studded side,” he said. “With the calibre of players around you, you always knew you could count on them.”

 

It had been a great year for McKay, made even more meritorious by the fact he had played all season with a torn cartilage, received in the opening game of the season against Perth.

 

In 1978, South were knocked out of premiership contention by East Perth in another grand final debacle by 112 points, with McKay winning the Dinny Heaney Medal as best player.

 

If the 1975 and 1978 were demoralising, what could be said about the 1979 Derby grand final loss? “Shattering,” in the words of Joe McKay.

 

These memories were erased the following year, when South Fremantle were triumphant over a talented Swan Districts, by a margin of fifty eight points, with McKay's shut down of Simon Beasley a huge factor, and a performance that was considered unlucky not to be rewarded with a Simpson Medal, although the recipient, Maurice Rioli, was a worthy winner. “I had a bloody migraine, which got worse in the last quarter, but there was no way I was getting off there,” he said. “I wasn't going to relax until our lead was more than the minutes remaining, and it was about the twenty minute mark that I started to feel better.”

 

Unbeknown to supporters, McKay had been suffering from increasing fitness problems in the period 1978 to 1982, with a whole range of injuries setting him back, including three stress fractures and a punctured lung. In 1982, coach Mal Brown used him as a pinch hitter, and, after representing Western Australia that year, he was named on the bench for a match against Claremont.

 

After Warren Ralph had racked up three goals, McKay was sent onto the Tigers spearhead, and contained him for the rest of the game. “We lost the game which made it almost impossible to make the finals. Mal Brown was furious and he told me I was to be rested for the next game as I was walking into the changerooms.  I knew then that it was time to retire with three games left in the season and it would give some of the younger players an opportunity, especially as I had just started a new business.” said McKay

 

Brown called me into his office on the Monday and said he did not want my retirement to be seen as a disagreement between coach and player so the media was advised that I was injured,” said Joe. “ There was nothing wrong with me and  I have since regretted agreeing with the media release.”

 

At the age of 26, McKay retired from football.

During his eight year career, he turned down ten approaches from Victorian clubs, with a signing for North Melbourne being the closest he got. “They were after a down the middle player, I ended up signing, but it fell through as they did not have any Form 4’s available.” he said.

Little did he know at the time, he was later to be thrust into the limelight of another sporting career.

My daughters played basketball, and, as a supporting Dad, I decided to learn all I could about their chosen sport,” he explained. “I ended up coach of the Willetton juniors, then took over the State under sixteen boys, who, in 2003, became the only Western Australian team to win a Gold Medal at an Australian Championship. One of the members of the side, Daniel Johnson, later played with the Melbourne Tigers, and representing Vic Country that year was Scott Pendlebury, currently starring in the AFL with Collingwood.”

 

McKay was then appointed coach of the new Eastern Suns side, at Kalamunda, for their inaugural season, who, after being on the brink of finals action, just missed. He left the Suns on his selection as coach of the Perth Lynx, in the Australian Women’s National Basketball League, a position he held for two and a half years, before resigning.

 

Joe said he initially found West Perth's Brian Adamson a handful, and also rated Subiaco's Ron Bayens (who later became a team mate), and tough East Fremantle defender, Eddie Donnes.

 

Sebastian Rioli was his choice as best he'd played with. “Sebastian was a trendsetter here, and a lot of people don't realise how he changed football here in a short career,” he said, while marvelling at the talent of Benny Vigona.

 

Formerly employed in the Australian Tax Office, Joe later went into Financial Planning, then became company secretary for Intierra, who specialise in resource intelligence for mining companies. Although a busy man, he only recently stopped playing social basketball(“too fat”) and enjoys the company of his three girls and seven grandchildren. He and wife Dianne enjoy travelling when the time and finance allow it.

 

South Fremantle have been blessed with some star centre half backs, including Scranno Jenkins, Cliff Hillier, Gerry Bahen, Tom Grjusich, Murray Macdonald, and Glen Jakovich, who was better known for his West Coast exploits, and the name of Joe McKay sits comfortably in that bracket. A favourite with supporters, he was a star of the seventies and early eighties

 

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