The 1966 WAFL grand final has become part of football folklore.

Nineteen year old East Perth centreman/half forward Mark O’Donoghue, in the side after a handful of league games, was flattened moments after the opening bounce. The clash set the scene for a fiery encounter, with the youngster’s team mates and the crowd of 46,763 becoming immediately involved.

Half a centurys later, O’Donoghue holds no grudges about his early exit.

“That’s football,” he commented. “I got cleaned up going for the ball. To set the story right, I wasn’t carted off, as some versions of the event say. I walked off the ground under my own steam, but it was the end of the grand final that year for me.”

The Demons sixteen point win was to be the beginning of a hat trick of premierships for the club, but for East Perth the frustration of four consecutive losing grand finals awaited.

Ironically, O’Donoghue had played most of his junior football with Kensington in the Perth area, an uncle, Roy O’Donoghue having made over a hundred appearances with the Demons. But the blue and black influence was always strong. His father, Bert O’Donoghue, was a long standing committeeman at East Perth, and would cart young Mark around to games every Saturday afternoon. It’s a popular story that Bert O’Donoghue took over the licence of the old Shaftesbury Hotel in Northbridge so that the boy would be eligible to play with East Perth Football Club.

Mark blossomed as a player at East Perth under eighteens, where he teamed up with young ruckman Ian McCulloch, and won the competition fairest and best award. In 1965 he was a member of the Royals thirds side, under the coaching of Ray Pages-Oliver, and captained the side in 1966,before making his league debut later that year. Lining up against East Fremantle, in a sneak preview of what was to come on grand final day, he made acquaintance with Norm Rogers. “I ran into his arm early on, and it was like hitting a tree trunk,” he recalled.

Five foot eight and lightly built, O’Donoghue was a natural centreman, and filled that role with aplomb for East Perth, despite the presence in the side of another more than capable midfielder, Syd Jackson.   “I would be pitted against Syd in scratch matches, and went pretty well against him.  We’d have some tough stouches,” he said. It gave the Royals the luxury of running Jackson off a half forward flank, where he was a matchwinner.

The effects of several injuries and difficulties with juggling work and training forced Mark to make a shock exit from league football at the age of twenty three, having notched up seventy two games.

It was then that his football career took an unusual twist.

“Out of the blue, I was invited to try out with Subiaco City, in the WA Soccer League,” Mark said. “I had played a bit at school, where one of my mates was John Van Oosten, but that was it. They gave me a pair of gloves and stood me in front of the opposition’s net.”    

 O’Donoghue made the transition in sensational style.

“An interesting success in Rothmans Medal voting in 1972 was that of Subiaco City’s goalkeeper, Mark O’Donoghue, the former East Perth Australian Rules footballer, who was in only his second year as a soccer player. He polled seventeen votes and filled fifth place.”

(from WA Soccer’s 1972 report.)

When Subiaco were relegated to a lower division, O’Donoghue received an offer from Inglewood-Kiev. “I had some great years there,” he said. Recalling a moment of fame in the round ball game, he told of the penalty shoot out against Azzurri. “I saved a Bruno Marocchi bullet, it was the only penalty shot I ever got hold of,” he laughed. “Bugger me, David Andrews, the media man, had captured it on camera, and it was on TV during the week. I was never able to get a copy.” 

Six years after turning his back on Aussie Rules, O’Donoghue was invited back to East Perth by coach Ray Giblett. After several months training he showed he’d lost none of his class with a dominant display in the reserves, but a torn hamstring suffered at training the following week put paid to comeback plans.  

These days Mark O’Donoghue is working with his son, Sean, at their business, Windsor Ceilings, specialising in walls, ceilings, and external facia. They are in Hawtin Road, Forrestfield, and Mark would love a yarn with a footy fan over a coffee if you’re out that way. He is happily ensconced in a two and a half acre property fending off his highly active grandkids, and is finding them equally as hard to handle as Atwell or Rogers.

“The day at Fremantle Oval when Brownie got pelted with billiard balls,” was one of Mark’s many memories of his football days, plus the humour of John Watts, and the good times with great people at East Perth. While regarding “Polly” Farmer as best he’d seen, of those he played with Derek Chadwick took pride of place, with tough opponents being Perth’s Pat Dalton and Ross Milson and Swan Districts midfielder Peter Manning.

Mark O’Donoghue’s league football career was unfortunately confined to five years, with arguably his best yet to come. He was undoubtedly a talented player, one of many fine midfield players to wear the blue and black over the years, and those who were fortunate enough to see him in action will agree that the game was robbed of a future star when he left it at the age of twenty three. His ability to play at the highest local level in another code underlined his talent.