{xtypo_dropcap}B{/xtypo_dropcap}arry Beecroft reckoned a battering from star Collingwood ruckman Len Thompson in his first league appearance in 1973 was bad enough but running into South Fremantle’s Basil Campbell in the opening minute of the 1981 WAFL grand final was decidedly worse.

“Just after the opening bounce down the ball came down, I took the mark going backwards as Basil was running forward,” he recalled. “That’s when the lights went out.”

“ I thought I’d been carted off straight away until I saw a video of the game. I was out there for about twenty minutes playing on remote and got a few possessions, too!”

That incident set the tone for one of the roughest and most spiteful grand finals ever seen in WA, Claremont holding their own in the fights and taking the premiership. The win was even more meritorious considering the absence for the majority of proceedings of ruckman/defender Beecroft, who two weeks previously had been best on ground in a second semi final win over Swan Districts. The grand final drew a crowd of over fifty thousand to Subiaco Oval, and none of them would have gone home disappointed with the game and the physical clashes they saw.

Beecroft made a huge impression during his two stints in Western Australia.

A product of Melbourne suburb Noble Park juniors, who competed in the South Metro Junior Football League, Beecroft was an outstanding junior, and was named in a recent SMJFL “All Star side.” The list of twenty two included names such as Judd, Ditterich, Capper, Hardeman, Heath Black, Ross Smith, Blake, Ted Richards, Maxfield, Rhys-Jones, Jobe Watson, Barry Mitchell, Dawes, Capper, Bruce, Vickery, Yeats, Brain, and Hansen.

Barry was also a promising cricketer, and was selected in the State Junior Cricket Squad as a fast bowler.

South Melbourne approached Beecroft while he was still attending High School, but he spent a year at Ormond Amateurs before actually fronting up with the Swans. Selected for the first game of the 1973 season, it proved to be a tough initiation, confronting Collingwood’s Len Thompson in front of the Victoria Park faithful. Thompson made sure the new boy received an appropriate welcome to league ranks, but Barry did enough to keep his place in the side for most of the year.

The presence of a bigger ruckman in the South side, Russell Cook, meant that Beecroft spent a lot of time in defence, which suited his marking and foot kicking skills. A hard working and running player, he was agile for his six foot four frame, and was used in most key positions on the field.

A regular fixture with South Melbourne in the mid seventies, Barry played only eight games in 1976 and after playing two games in 1977, went to Port Melbourne for the remainder of the year and also for the 1978 season, winning a premiership that year.

One Sunday morning in the summer of 1979, Claremont president Wal Maskiel and coach Graham Moss turned up at Beecroft’s doorstep with an offer to become a Tiger. After a flight over for a pre season match, Barry decided to make the move. “Best thing I ever did,” he commented.

Some say that his mind was made up soon after walking into the Claremont Football Club for the first time.

“It was a hot day, the place was full,” he said. “You couldn’t move for the procession of attractive women. I asked a local: “Is it always like this?” The reply was in the affirmative. “I’m coming here,” I said.”

Beecroft made an immediate impression on the WAFL scene. After playing fourteen games with the Tigers he was selected as a defender for Western Australia for the clash with South Australia at Subiaco Oval in a game in which the home side held a six point lead at half time but were left standing in the final term to lose by five goals.

Claremont lost to South Fremantle in the second semi final and East Fremantle in the preliminary final to go out in straight sets that season and lost the first semi final a year later.

But it was third time lucky for the Tigers and Beecroft in 1981, and his form didn’t go unnoticed on the Eastern Seaboard. Recruited by the relocated South Melbourne/ Sydney Swans, he made the move to the Harbour City for the Swans inaugural 1982 season, where he experienced the trials and tribulations of being part of an evolving club in a Rugby environment. “We had terrible facilities,” he said. “The change rooms were anything but flash, we often had to change behind the car. It was abysmal behind the scenes.”

After just one year at the new club, Barry returned to Claremont, where he spent three more years before retiring at the end of the 1985 season. “I had turned thirty, I wanted to concentrate on my job at Wesfarmers, where I was a senior executive, and my achilles had been hampering my game,” he said. Beecroft had chalked up a hundred and thirteen appearances with the Tigers, the fifty goals he collected along the way being a reminder of the big man’s value to the side, as he played the majority of games in defence.

“I had no intention of continuing playing after 1985, but Osborne Park approached me early in 1986.They caught me in a weak moment and I agreed to coach the side”.

Three years as captain-coach of Osborne Park returned two premierships before the achilles trouble finally ended Barry’s playing career. In 1986 the Saints defeated Kalamunda by thirty nine points and in 1987 accounted for Maddington by fifty eight points. The grand final victory was made more meritorious by the way the club had to survive the year with the state of the oval. The ground was closed for the entire season and all games were played on the adjacent baseball ground. Losing only one game all year showed what a good side it was.

After a short period out of the game, Beecroft later served as assistant coach to Graeme Melrose and then Phil Cronin at Swan Districts before being involved in coaching duties with the State 18’s program.

These days Barry is General Manager of Salmark Promotions, which is a strategic marketing and branding company centred around promotional and corporate merchandise. The company has built a successful business around a rare concept in the promotional merchandise industry: customer service. Driven by innovative ideas, their high level of customer service is immediate, one-to-one, creative and resourceful.

Married to Sara, Barry has two daughters, Lorilee and Margot,and a son, James, who played A Grade basketball with Kalamunda, and a hip replacement hasn’t affected his time at the gym or the beach. He had the fortune of playing with Graham Moss and the Krakouers, as well as Peter Bedford at South Melbourne, but also had the misfortune of playing one on one on Peter Hudson and Royce Hart. “You’d think you had them covered only to see them go floating past to grab a mark.”

Although forced from the ground and virtually taking no part in their 1981 premiership win, Barry Beecroft was a key component of the club’s achievement that season and was an outstanding player in several positions over a six year span.