When Daryl Gore made his league debut for East Fremantle as an eighteen year old in 1960, big things were forecast for the speedster. A leading school athlete, he was selected as a reserve for the clash with premiers of the two previous years, East Perth, but an injury to a team mate after half time saw him front East Perth and State wingman Tony Bellos, himself  no slouch in the pace department, and the youngster showed enough to become a permanent fixture in the league side.  That the promise was to be largely unfulfilled due to injury was one of the hard luck stories of our game. Gore had been identified early in his teens as a future East Fremantle player. In 1955 he was fullback for Mosman Park under sixteens, in Claremont's zone, where Denis Marshall, Ashley August, Geoff  Mann, Brian Ham, Steve Berringer, and John Thornton were also playing prior to becoming league footballers soon thereafter. The following year he was made captain. Then a move by his parents to Alfred Cove saw him in Melville colours, under the eyes of Vic French and Charlie Doig.  Gore was quickly transferred to the East Fremantle colts side, and was selected for the league team's tour of Tasmania and South Australia in 1959, at 17 the youngest player in the touring party.  Playing at centre half back in the reserves in 1960, he experienced an early setback when a nasty cut to the calf, per favour of a sharp boot stud, which resulted in a rare game stoppage for a boot inspection at quarter time, caused him to spend time on the sidelines. But the debut on a wing saw Gore firmly entrenched in the league side. The combination of Ray Sorrell in the middle and Daryl Cormack on the other side of the ground soon formed a dynamic centreline. With players like Cormack and John Morrissey starring at the time, East Fremantle coach Steve Marsh asked Gore if he'd give a half back flank a shot. “If you don't like it, you can go back to a wing,” Marsh promised. After doing well on Swan Districts forward Keith Watt in the first game, the transition proved a success, and Gore's name was in State selectors calculations for the Brisbane carnival.  Prior to the Fremantle Derby, Marsh was approached by the State selectors to put Gore back on the wing for the big clash, as they wanted to have a look at him, with a view to selection as a wingman, a request that Marsh flatly refused, given the importance of the game. As it turned out, the refusal by Marsh mattered little, a clash with South's John Gerovich putting Gore out of action with a broken ankle.  Daryl Gore was a member of East Fremantle's grand final combinations of 1962 and 63, both resulting in defeat at the hands of the rampaging Swan Districts.  Injury in 1964 saw him retire from league football at the young age of twenty two.  In 1965, Gore captain coached Bolgart, Laurie Watson's home town. “Laurie had five brothers playing with Bolgart,” Daryl joked. “ They were the exact opposite to Laurie. Laurie was a great footballer but a lousy fighter, they were great fighters but average footballers.” Appointed as captain coach of Sunday League club, Metropolitans, in 1966, Daryl tasted premiership success as a coach. “Metropolitans had some good players in their line up, including Norm McDiarmid(West Perth), John Tucker, Steve Arnold and Ron Oliver (Claremont), Mel Mason and Ted Richardson(East Fremantle), and Subiaco pair, Dan Murray and Ross Parry.   A couple of humorous anecdotes from Daryl suggest he may have been prone to mishaps with his choice of shorts. “Prior to driving to the game one day with wife Judy, I remembered I needed a button on the fly of my footy shorts,” he related. “As we were running late Judy said don’t worry I will sew it on in the car. She grabbed the white shorts out of my bag, and did a marvellous patch up job. As most women do when sewing on a button, she bit the cotton off with her teeth. Just  as we were about to run out onto the ground, Con Regan queried: “What’s that on your fly, Daryl?” On inspection, Judy had left a large dollop of lipstick on the fly next to the button!” I copped a few pointed remarks that day!” “On another occasion, I lost my shorts during a game in a chase for the ball, which was heading for the boundary. Putting my hands up to stop myself hurdling the fence,  a woman spectator  pouring a coffee suddenly looked up only to see me with the hot liquid all over my unprotected nether regions. Coffee went everywhere.”     He added: “The first lesson I learnt at East Fremantle was “never sit near a Regan at a players tea. You will starve.”  Gore later served on the WAFL Protests and Disputes Board for several seasons, and was on the interim board of the Fremantle Dockers,  prior to being an inaugural member and deputy chairman of the Dockers Board , a position he held for five years.   Ron Bewick(West Perth) and South Fremantle's John Colgan( “he'd be all over you like a rash”) were his toughest opponents. Incidently, Colgan was another hard luck story for the Brisbane carnival, also injured after being named vice captain of the side. Jack Clarke is Daryl's choice as best he'd played with, while John Todd gets his accolades as best player he'd seen.  A qualified accountant at 22, Daryl Gore was company secretary and a director of Australian Consolidated Minerals for thirteen years, who in the space of four years  opened four new mines in  Australia plus another in New Zealand. A sixth mine was being developed in Turkey when the company was taken over.  Retired these days, he is still very fit, with daily walks and golf twice weekly at Melville Glades. Judy and Daryl have a son Brendan and two daughters Erin and Vanessa plus six grandchildren, and are ardent travellers. He is still a keen Dockers fan.   Daryl Gore's league football career was far too short. An outstanding wingman and half back, a career cut short robbed him of the chance to become one of East Fremantle's great players. As it was, East Fremantle Oval hasn't seen many faster sprints along the flanks of Moss Street than those provided by Daryl Gore.