John Brindley is a dyed in the wool Fremantle(and South Fremantle) man. The South Fremantle forward played a hundred and seventeen games with the red and whites, after being brought up a few Gero punt kicks away from Fremantle Oval. Born in Fremantle,he is a past secretary of the Fremantle Trotting Club, worked at a well respected Fremantle business, Howard Porter, and his sons played first grade cricket for Fremantle Cricket Club. “Representing the South Fremantle Football Club was the highlight of my career, and all I ever wanted to do,” he told us. “Playing with blokes like Todd, Gerovich, White, Hillier, Richards, Cassidy, Daly, Parentich, I could go on, were enough rewards for me.” A stylish, livewire half forward, who at five foot ten and twelve stone often punched outside his weight division at centre half forward, Brindley was an attacking player with good disposal, a reliable mark, and good goal sense. At fifteen a member of the Fremantle Cobbers team that won the 1953 State Premiership, when playing as a rover, he went on to be awarded fairest and best for Fremantle Ex Scholars in the under sixteens. The following season ,Brindley was selected for a combined Ex Scholars team for the annual match against Metropolitan Juniors, games which were often played as a prelude to a State game at Subiaco Oval. In this year, 1956, it was played at North Fremantle Oval. It was during his Ex Scholars days that he came under the coaching of Brian “Hooker” Collins, who played forty seven games with South Fremantle.  “Tenacity and the will to win were Brian's trademarks as a coach, and the genial big man made a huge impression on all who came in contact with him,” John said. “A perfect illustration of this was the preliminary final of 1955. Down by eight goals three with fifteen minutes left, we fought back for an almost impossible win over South Fremantle Ex Scholars.”The modest Brindley forgot to mention that four goals in four minutes from his boot were a big contribution. Tragedy was to strike Collins two years later, near Fitzroy Crossing. On a round Australia trip, the landrover he was driving was involved in a bad smash, and as a result he became a quadriplegic. In typical “Hooker” Collins style, he rebounded, and fought his way back to run a small business in Cantonment Street from his wheelchair, making a pilgrimage to Lourdes in attempt to beat  the inevitable, but the battle was finally lost in 1964. Tenacity and the will to win certainly exempified the life of Brian Collins.  Invited to Fremantle Oval in 1957, Brindley played in the pre season scratch matches, lining up with the reserves at the start of the season. Making his league debut on the bench against Swan Districts, ruckman Norm Smith sprinted from the ground with ten minutes left to enable the first gamer to have a run. As he ran onto the ground, into the forward line, the ball was booted Brindley's way, and a goal marked the nineteen year old's initial contact with a league football.  Hampered by a bad back, Brindley was restricted to nine games in 1957, but became a permanent member of the side the following season, mainly as a forward, often in the key centre half forward position. South Fremantle responded well to new coach John Todd in the first game of the 1959 season, a Derby, when his charges led East Fremantle, 7.3 to 0.13 at the first change, with Brindley among the best. Rain aided the Bulldog cause that day, and they wound up seventeen point winners.  The season went downhill after that, and the club finished out of the four in their jubilee year. Playing every game in 1960, and averaging a goal a match, Brindley started 1961 in good fashion, being selected to play on a wing in a State Probables v Possibles match. John was seldom troubled with injury during his career, but it was a pulled leg muscle that plagued him, and his State chances, that day. It was also the year that he had his first foray into coaching, taking over the reserves, who were beaten in the grand final.  After kicking thirty seven goals as a half forward in 1962, Brindley's work commitments were intensifying. “I was working in Perth, and by the time I arrived at Fremantle Oval on training nights it was dark, so my training was limited, which wasn't a good preparation for league football,” he said. Midway through the 1964 season, Brindley called it quits.  In 1965, John was appointed captain coach of Cuballing, in the Upper Great Southern League, where he joined another former South player in Ron Gabrielson, and in 1967  he coached South Fremantle's thirds.   It was in 1965 that John Brindley was appointed secretary at Fremantle Trotting Club, a position he held for seven years. He then joined the committee in 1973 and was appointed President of the Fremantle Trotting Club for the period 1984 to 1988.  In 1988, he became Chief Executive of the Western Australian Trotting Association, and it was in his term of office that the 1989 Perth Inter-Dominion Championships were held.     The Brindley sporting story doesn't end there. Sons Peter and Paul were outstanding first grade cricketers in the WACA pennant competition, and both were considered unlucky not to represent their State in first class competition. Peter, who played sixteen league games of football with South Fremantle and four at East Fremantle, captained the Western Australian cricket side at under sixteen, under nineteen, and under twenty three age levels, playing first grade for Fremantle, before captain coaching Melville and North Perth. Paul Brindley also played cricket for the State under twenty threes, and later captained University's first grade cricket team, after playing for Fremantle. Sean Brindley represented Western Australia at Veterans Touch Football. Peter, Paul, and Sean Brindley played football for CBC Old Boys, and the three were selected in the 1990's Legends team for CBC Football Club.  John regarded East Fremantle's Norm Rogers as the hardest to beat, while saying that Brian France was the best player he'd played on.   John Brindley is still busily involved in the business world, as a taxation consultant, and he and wife Dulcie enjoy spoiling their six grandchildren, after recently enjoying a world tour together.  A life member of the Fremantle Trotting Club,he is also a member for life of SFFC, and can be seen in fine vocal form at South games.  A Bulldog through and through, John Brindley  was a leading player in the late fifties and early sixties, his consistency a feature of his game. He is also highly regarded as an administrator with the WA Trotting Association.