East Fremantle star Ken Holt had the enviable record of playing finals football in every season of his nine year career. Debuting in 1954, he missed the 1958 and  59 seasons. “I wanted to make some money to buy a house so I worked on Saturdays as a bookie’s clerk,” he recalled. He then returned to the action in 1960, playing in the State side at the 1961 Brisbane Carnival, and retired after the 1965 season at the age of thirty one. East Fremantle were permanent finalists in those years, with premierships in 1957 and 65.Formerly a South Fremantle supporter, his father, Bill, being a life member and having played a hundred games for the Bulldogs, Ken Holt played his junior football with East Fremantle Cobbers in the Temperance League and Fremantle Ex Scholars, gaining selection in the State Schoolboys team that went undefeated at the 1948 Brisbane Carnival. “I played in two Brisbane Carnivals, one in 1948 with the schoolboys, the other in 1961, and we won both,” he said. The Brisbane Schoolboy Carnival was notable for the confiscation of water pistols on the south bound Brisbane- Sydney Express, and the eight day train trip from Perth to Sydney, involving five trains and eight days. The WA team became the first Australian Rules football team to fly when they took the Super Constellation from Sydney to Brisbane. Holt made his league debut with East Fremantle in the first round of the 1954 season, at full forward. He headed the club goalkicking that year with sixty majors, and repeated the feat in 1956 off a half forward flank.  A pacy and elusive six footer, his torpedo punt was a reliable source of goals for Old Easts. Holt’s flexibility enabled him to be used in many positions, and he joked that the only position he never played  was the wing, where he reckoned he should have been.    As a half forward he was one of the most damaging in the competition, heading the goalkicking for a third time in 1961, the year he received belated recognition from the State selectors. Leg injuries and a crook back caused his retirement in 1965, after two hundred and two games. “I was too old and out of steam,” he joked. He later coached the seconds and thirds.  Ken Holt was also a first grade cricketer, opening the batting for Fremantle between 1952 and 56. “I batted one day with Bobby Simpson, making ten while the bloke at the other end got a hundred. He later went crook when I got myself out.”These days it’s the Royal Fremantle Golf Course that demands Ken’s  time and concentration.  Formerly a clerk at Westrail, he is now happy in a well earned retirement. He had plenty to say about the qualities of the centre half backs he made acquaintances with over his career, with Neville Beard(Perth), Brian France(West Perth), Charlie Walker(East Perth), and Swan Districts pair Fred Castledine and Tim Barker all tough opponents, while Con Regan, Norm Rogers, Jack Clarke, and Percy Johnson were great players at East Fremantle.   Ken Holt was one of many good players of the fifties and sixties, a player who deserved more State appearances than he had, and his name is held in high regard at East Fremantle.