Nicknamed ' Vass' to his teammates Paul Vasoli was one of the more recognisable players from the mid to late 70's until the mid 80's era with his distinctive moustache, workman like running style and trusty left foot.

Born on the 15th July 1956 in Jarrahdale Western Australia to Italian parents Vasoli was an unheralded but vital cog, in South Fremantle’s 1980 premiership success, defeating minor premiers Swan Districts by 58 points. This obvious career highlight came after a 32 game stint with original club Perth between 1975 and 79.

On that special day in September Paul recounts " being 10 goals up at half time is a bloody good way to win a Grand Final because in those days defending a ten goal lead was a hell of a lot easier than making it up!, whereas in today’s football no lead is insurmountable."

When pressed on the question that the South Fremantle team of that era underachieved, Vasoli agreed without argument. Although not playing with South in 1979, many players believed that was the one that got away, with South being the better side on the day, but for a series of incidents and mistakes in the last quarter that cost them, and were critical to the loss.

The infamous 1981 Grand Final loss to Claremont was another opportunity missed Vasoli believed, partially because of the number of behinds kicked in the second quarter. He described the brawl that erupted after the opening bounce, initiated by the Krakouers after Barry Beecroft was shirt fronted by Basil Campbell, as perhaps an overreaction because the hit was only a fraction late, but nothing horrendous for the day.

Finishing minor premiers in 1983, but going out in straight sets was another big disappointment for Vasoli, and he strongly believed they should have at least won two flags between 79 and 83, but added "had we made the GF in 83 Swans would probably have won because they were the superior side talent wise all over the ground, and had the added ingredient of revenge for 1980 to ignite them.

Apart from Maurice Rioli, Stephen Michael, Campbell, Benny Vigona, Brad Hardie, Noel Carter and Joe Mckay, Vasoli described South as a team of good honest league players, who did their job each week without being stars. Another reason they gelled so well was they spent a lot of time together off the field as well, and to this day still have 16 or 17 players from the 1980 premiership side meet regularly for get togethers, with a favourite being the annual Sweetcorn cup golf day played in Ambrose format and based around the 1980 premiership team, which was the brainchild of Ross Sweetman and Kevin Cornell. This day provides a lot of fun and banter between players who have a common bond, aided by a few soft drinks along the way.

The getting together of past players at South Fremantle is something Vasoli believes they do better than most clubs. Testimony to this he said was the planned reunion of the 1979 grand final teams of East Fremantle and South Fremantle before the 2009 Foundation day derby at East Fremantle oval. Even though Vasoli didn’t play with South in 1979 he was nevertheless invited. In the weeks leading into the day South had managed to gather 17 of the players to attend. When organiser, East Fremantle premiership player and coach Ken Judge realised he only had 7 or 8 confirmed attendees he had the phones working overtime and managed to get most of the side along after telling them "you blokes better turn up because the other mob has 17 confirmed.. and Browny!"

After the East Fremantle players were driven around the ground in cars, the South players said "forget that!, let’s all go around on the back of a truck". As the truck went past the East Freo members, Don Haddow was gesturing to them with up your signals etc, Vasoli thought to himself "geez he is going to incite an incident here" he said laughing, but they loved it and took it all in the derby spirit that was intended. Coming from Perth playing in Derbies didn’t have the same significance to Vasoli as some other players due to not growing up in the area, but nevertheless he loved derby day as invariably a big crowd would be in attendance.

Attending a function recently he recalled sitting on the same table as Toddy, Noel Carter, Tony Morley and recent Hall of Fame inductee Barry White, and after an evening of trading old stories Toddy lamented and said "this is the sad thing about the AFL players of today, who are so regimented with their routines etc they will not have any stories to tell about funny things happening off the field etc because they can't do anything "Toddy also said of bygone eras "players regularly gathered on Sunday mornings for training and he could tell they were still drunk from the night before and with stories to tell, but that was all part of it"

Recalling that just playing WAFL league football was a highlight, Paul related his very first initiation to senior football in his first game. It was May 3rd 1975 and Perth were away to West Perth at Leederville. Touted as flag favourites, after being Grand Finalists in 1974 but losing to Old East’s, Perth had a terrible start to the year, losing the first five games. In the sixth game of 1975 18 year old Vasoli was selected for his debut, lining up at half forward. He started on the bench however and with no interchange in those days he sat there for three quarters. At three quarter time and behind by 6 goals, which was a big margin in those days, Vasoli recalled " Ken Armstrong came up to me just before three quarter time and said "i am going to put you on for the last quarter and you can go into the centre" Vasoli adds " anyway at the first bounce to start the term im on the defensive side and Mel Whinnen is on the attacking side, we won the tap but Whinnen wins the ball and as he is coming towards me i thought you bloody ripper i am going to tackle this guy who is a legend of the game, but in the back of my mind all i could think of was growing up watching Whinnen on the World of sport show at 12 o'clock Sundays with Ross Elliot and others and Mel always being introduced as Mr Football the fairest man to play the game etc, and then as i went to tackle him I copped an elbow to the throat, as Whinnen barged his way through with ball underarm leaving me coughing for air in his wake, and me thinking, geez Mr Football the fairest man to play the game!? the dirty rotten mongrel" Vasoli joked. In later years when Vasoli has bumped into Whinnen the two have had a good laugh over that.

Reflecting on his days at Perth after to coming from Kelmscott in the Sunday league via Ray Lawrence, Paul said it was a very tough side to break into and after 32 games in five years, being told by Armstrong at the start of 1979 he wasn’t going to make the grade and through lack of opportunity, it was a mutual agreement to move on. Vasoli then travelled to Europe, mucked around and returned to Kelmscott for the remainder of 1979 before trying his luck down at the Port. He still however catches up occasionally with a few Perth players from that time.

Fast forward to 9th November 1985 and after 124 games, including the 1980 premiership with South Fremantle, Vasoli was given permission to train at Swans who were looking to recruit a hard running midfielder to compliment their side in return for promising South Bunbury junior Brad McDougall. A brief row broke out between Swans and South over the transfer, with Swans wanting a straight swap. But the WAFL intervened and ordered South to pay Swans $15,000 for McDougall and Swans pay South $8000 for Vasoli.

Making his debut for Swans on March 31st 1986 v East Perth at Perth oval, Vasoli contributed two goals in a solid performance first up. After winning the best player award the next week and another two or three good efforts after that, Vasoli found himself dropped to the reserves for rd 6 against his old club South at Fremantle oval. After questioning Todd over his reasons for dropping him and not being satisfied with his response, Vasoli decided he could not face going to Freo and playing his old club in the seconds, and therefore pulled the pin on a 161 game WAFL league career. Perhaps the writing was on the wall earlier in the year after poor form in the scratch matches which prompted a phone call from Brownie, (Perth’s coach ,) who had heard Toddy wasn't happy with him and invited him back to Perth. But Vasoli declined as he had already committed to Swans. With the benefit of hindsight Vasoli wished things were handled a little differently back then, but history shows at the age of 31 his league career was finished.

After returning to play Sunday league with Kelmscott, Vasoli turned his hand to coaching and took the reins of Kelmscott in seasons 1989/90/91 finishing runners-up in 1990 to a star studded Osborne Park coached by ex-Swan Districts player Ed Blackaby and getting to a preliminary final in 1991. In 1992 he returned to Fremantle oval to coach the reserves for the next three seasons, guiding them to a premiership in 1992 and assisting the league side to runners-up v East Fremantle that same year.

Vasoli sights Malcolm Brown as the biggest influence on his career, even though he jokingly says "Brownie used to abuse me regularly about my Italian heritage" and today both laugh and lament the fact he would not get away with it in today's football. Although some of the fiercest sprays he ever witnessed, were from John Todd in his brief five game career at Swans.

He found the best players he played with included Maurice Rioli, Stephen Michael "the most fierce competitor", Basil Campbell "could have been anything had he not buggered his knee", Benny Vigona " the best on both sides of his body" and Noel Carter.

The best he played against included Brian Peake, Gerard Neesham " who i rated highly" , Mike Smith of Swans, the Krakouers and Phil Narkle. Growing up a Subiaco supporter he managed to see in the 1973 drought breaking premiership success, before embarking on his WAFL career with Perth. His idols included Keith Slater, Austin Robertson, and the late Cam Blakemore.

Vasoli regularly attends Fremantle games with his son, and finds himself at 7 or 8 WAFL games a year, not all of them involving South however. The most recent being West Perth v Peel at Joondalup to watch his cousins son, Toby Gianatti, make his league debut for Peel.

On today's football Vasoli confesses to disliking it when teams play a quarter of the field and overuse the press, which becomes boring after a while, although he does appreciate the hardness of the game and accepts it is exciting when the ball does come out into the open and teams run the footy. He also likes the fact that a game is never over nowadays even if your behind 7 or 8 goals. He does worry however that although looking rosy at the elite level financially, and with unprecedented interest levels , the demise of grassroots senior footy such as the Sunday league and several country teams is disappointing and should be addressed.

Married to wife Colleen they have a son Mathew and two daughters Gemma and Carla who both play netball. These days Paul divides his time between running busy packaging company Perth Pak with business partner Steve, along with maintaining his long association with superules team the Southern Saints. He also coaches his sons team the Coolbinia bombers 17`s who play out of East Perth's zone, and he likes the occasional game of squash.

After 161 games of WAFL league football, in arguably one of the toughest era`s of all,` The Vass` certainly left his mark on the Bulldogs faithful.