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Barron has the ball...sends a wobbly punt into the forward line..the pack sets..and it's a WA mark!! Thirty yards out, and it's Fanchi, in front of the pack, still clasping the Chesson to his chest.”

 And it's a goal!!. WA hit the front for a big Carnival win over Victoria!!”

Brisbane, July, 1961. It was the moment that Joe Fanchi entered Western Australian football folklore.

The Black Swans needed just over a goal margin against Victoria to win the Australian Football Carnival on percentage when Fanchi extended a three point lead to nine in time on, giving them the overall Carnival lead by the slimmest of percentage points.

Of course the histrionics weren't just with Fanchi, there were twenty heroes for WA that day, but it was a big day for the twenty two year old West Perth rover. “I had only come onto the ground at three quarter time,replacing John Todd, who had played for three quarters on one leg, getting over the Vic champ and eventual Tassie Medallist, Brian Dixon, and I was lucky enough to figure in a couple of goals,” Joe recalled.

But life was never to be the same for “Golden Boot” Joe Fanchi again.

A product of the Goldfields, Fanchi didn't start playing the game until he was sixteen. Originally lining up with the newly formed Christian Brothers College team, where he became captain, he later played at Mines Rovers, where, as an eighteen year old, he was runner up for the League fairest and best award, and represented the Goldfields the following year in a game against Swan Districts, in which they drew.

The Fanchi household was a popular destination for WANFL club officials thereafter, but it was West Perth secretary Les Day who won the day. “I wanted to go to a reasonably good side, and West Perth fitted the bill, we also had a family house in Mt Lawley, which wasn't too far away from Leederville,” he said.

I walked into the West Perth club on April 1, 1959, and the season started the following week. A country boy, I attended the first players tea looking for the pies and beer. Much to my chagrin, out came the salads and soft drink.”

After just a week's training, I found myself at centre half forward against Perth, playing on Bill Towers, with a nineteen year old Brian France, making his debut also, on a flank. Bill got three Sandover votes that day.”

The five foot ten Fanchi's key position flirtation over, he went to the seconds, resuming in the league side in the second round, and came back a fitter and better player. In 1960, under new mentor Arthur Olliver, Fanchi hit his straps, complementing ruckmen Brian “Blue”Foley and Roy “Lizard” Porter to a nicety. “Geoff Christian was our fitness coach in 1960,” Fanchi said. “And he had us working our backsides off. He had a dossier on every player, and by midway through the season, we were pretty bloody fit.”

It was a big year for the second seasoner from the bush, making the State side for the first time, against Victoria at Subiaco, and playing a leading role in a memorable premiership win over the favourites, East Perth. The stockily built Fanchi was no speed machine, but his ability to get the hard ball, coupled with the understanding he was able to achieve with his ruckmen, made him one of the leaders of his craft in the WANFL. An exemplary exponent of the dropkick, especially the art of stabpassing, Joe was a reliable kick for goal, and a good mark under pressure.

Fanchi continued to impress in 1961, and was selected in the State side for the Brisbane carnival. Despite his good form, he couldn't win any favours from the umpires, failing to poll a solitary vote for the Sandover Medal. “I kicked nine goals one day as a rover against Claremont, a game we won easily, and I never got a vote, ” he said. Fortunately for Joe, the West Perth adjudicators were far more generous, and he won West Perth's fairest and best award as well as the club's leading goalkicker trophy.

In 1965, the advent of Victorian State rover, Bob Spargo, as coach, loomed as a cloud on the horizon for Fanchi. “We were both of the same ilk as rovers go, and I could see the writing on the wall,” he said. “At the end of the 1965 season, Bob put it to me that there was room for only one of us at West Perth.With him the coach, I didn't need to be a brain surgeon to work out the implications.”

The part of it that was hard to stomach was that the club wouldn't hear of a clearance to another WA League club. At the age of twenty six I had nowhere to go. A possibility of an Essendon spot was on the cards at one stage, but the experience they had suffered with the transfers of Alex Epis and Col Hebbard, where clearance wrangles with West Perth had caused the two to miss over a season each was something they didn't want a repeat of.”

Fanchi finally opted for a country coaching career, which, in retrospect, was successful, but it was a blight on our game that a player of his ability was lost to WANFL football. Ironically, Spargo returned to Victoria after the 1967 season.

In 1966, Upper Great Southern Football League club,Wickepin, who had just won their first premiership under the guidance of former West Perth player, Ron Bewick, appointed Joe as playing coach. Runners up in his first year at the helm, the young side, with players of the future such as Greg Astbury and Keith and Ron Miller, took out the flag in 1967. Moving to Wanneroo, Fanchi took charge of a battling side in 1968, but with the recruitment of players such as Ian McCulloch, Joe became the Mayor of Wanneroo for a week after the side won their first ever Sunday League flag the following year.

A leg injury sent Fanchi into retirement as a player after that success, but he continued on as a non playing coach until 1973.

As one career ended another was born. A phone call from radio station 6PM began a decade in the media for Joe Fanchi, and he initially joined Ross Elliott(later replaced by Tim Flynn), John Watts, and Tom Everett for their Friday Footy Shows in clubs and pubs throughout the metropolitan area.

Joe regards the State side of sixty one as the best he'd played with and the best he'd seen. But he has a bit of a leaning on a skill basis to John Gerovich. “ He was an amazing player. He could take a screamer off two steps. I recall one day at Leederville, when Gero was overheard saying to West Perth's Victorian full back, John Towner, “I'll show you Vics how to play football.” He duly climbed all over him all day, taking mark after mark. At half time, John had sprig marks all over his back. John complained: “How the hell can I beat the bloke when I've got hold of his arm and he's still flying over my head.”

I couldn't help applauding some of the grabs he took.”

He was also an admirer of the two top ruckmen he roved to, Farmer and Foley. “When I played with “Blue” I would tell him where I wanted him to direct his knocks, but on my first pairing with “Polly” in the State side, he quickly shut me up and let me know that he'd be the one telling me where he wanted me,” Joe laughed. “In one of my first bursts on the ball after coming on in the Brisbane game, Polly sent down a big thirty yard knock to where I was running, but the master, Ron Barassi, was a wake up, and was waiting for me with elbow raised. It was a painful greeting, but the free was worth it.”

Hardest to beat were Reg Hampson and Les Mumme. “Les and I became not only great rivals but good friends,” he said. “With Haydn Bunton around, there was only one roving spot left in the State eighteen and it was often a toss up between Les and myself. On one State trip Les was in the side in front of me and had suffered burns to one of his hands in a work accident. With his selection hanging on a pre game inspection of the burnt hand, he got me to bandage up his good hand, which worked a treat. They didn't even look at the unbandaged crook hand but found the other one OK and he played. The irony of that is that if he'd been ruled out, I'd have got a run.”

But it was the comaraderie that was a great thing in those days.”

An estate agent, Joe is “almost” retired these days, spending most of his time with wife Marion, as well as their three boys and five grandchildren, with an interest in football and cricket, but content with the quiet life.

Joe Fanchi is remembered for a winning goal in a winning carnival side, but he was a great player in his own right. West Perth have had some top rovers over the years, and Fanchi would be up there with the best of them. Although finishing his league career on a sad note, he continued to serve the game well as a successful coach and entertaining radio personality.

Then of course there was the Mayor's job at Wanneroo!

 

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