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In an era where players sometimes transcended the game itself Mark Jackson was a regular fixture in the controversy pages - funnily enough if the bloke had have knuckled down he would have been one of the finest forwards ever seen and dominated games every week. but it was just so sporadic and unreliable and a firecracker that inevitably blew up.Stan Magro succeeded Don Haddow as senior coach in 1987 on the back of his success in Reserves ranks. There was an immediate change in complexion of the League team as Mark Bairstow, Benny Vigona, Nicky Winmar, Warren Mosconi and Stephen Rowe had all departed. After playing 19 games in 1986, John Worsfold played five games as he mixed his time with the Bulldogs and West Coast.

Magro said his intent was for the club to be more than a place just to play football. He wanted to create a haven for players to develop skills but also develop attitudes to help players who would go on and play at a higher level, along with those who would continue to play WAFL. In his first season as senior coach, Magro enjoyed some early highs before a pro longed trough.

The Bulldogs won the pre-season competition and showed good signs by winning three games on the trot before losing a club with a relatively young squad, the Bulldogs looked to bolster their ranks by recruiting some seasoned performers. The most eye-catching was a blast from the past in Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson, whose sudden departure on the eve of the 1979 finals remains one of the great South controversies of the last six decades.

Jackson and Souths struck a deal which saw the volatile forward, who by this time had played with Richmond (Reserves), Melbourne, St Kilda and Geelong, fly from the Eastern States once a week to train and play on the weekend. “We were young and a bit raw, so I thought having a man out there with a bigger body would give the kids confidence and help them grow as footballers,” Magro said.

“It was made clear to Jacko that this wasn’t going to be about him, it was an opportunity to try and help the kids and give something back to the club.”

Despite the fact that Jackson enjoyed a productive strike rate of 45 goals in the first 10 games, Magro felt he wasn’t honouring the terms of the agreement and following a run-in with West Perth players and a few spectators at Leederville Oval midway through the season, the time had come to send him back to Melbourne permanently.

“It had become a case of him being self-centred which was what we didn’t want,” Magro said.
“So one night at training I said to Tony Ryan (chairman of selectors) that we were parting ways with Jacko that night and I was going to take him into my office and tell him.”

Not one to be intimidated, but mindful of Jackson’s volatile temperament, Magro sought a little insurance from Ryan, a 1970 hard-as-nails premiership ruckman. “I said if he tries to whack me I’d be doing my best and having a crack but if you hear a ruckus inside I want you to come in,” Magro said.

“As it was, when I told Jacko his days were up, he just rolled his eyes and accepted it.” Ryan followed the instructions from the coach but added: “I really don’t think there was any need for me to be involved because I reckon Slug (Magro) would have knocked him over anyway.”

Incidentally, as a dental prosthetist, Ryan had fitted Jackson with a set of dentures and also made him a metal set as a prop to wear in the Twentieth Century Fox series, The Highwayman, which Jackson appeared in alongside Sam L. Jones.

That West Perth game they speak of still remains the record for the highest winning margin in a home & away fixture, 210 points (not including the under age WW2 years). I remember Jacko trying to bash Craig Nelson and Dean Munns.

Well of course this was the first season of West Coast and a traumatic time for WAFL fans. About 15, 000 attended the first round of fixtures that season compared to 35, 000 for the comparative fixture in 1986. 311, 678 attended the qualifying rounds - more 600 K had done so in 1986. Looking back now those 1987 crowd numbers don't seem so bad.  

Even tougher season for South, who started brightly winning their opening 3 games. The Anzac Day round featured a derby at East Freo that drew more than 13, 000. That was South's first loss of the season and the start of a run that would see them go winless for the remainder of the season and even finish below cellar dwellers Perth!