The irrepressible Phil Bradmore was a favourite among West Perth supporters in the eighties.  He was a cult figure among Falcon fans, and  when he retired from league football after 139 games and still in his mid twenties it was a blow to them and the club, but accepted as a fact of life that many players recruited from Victoria eventually get the urge to go back.

But that wasn’t really the case with Bradmore.

When we tracked Phil down in an idyllic seaside hamlet in northern New South Wales, he told us that the decision to leave West Perth and WA after the 1988 season was one of the hardest decisions of his life. “ I didn’t really want to leave Western Australia,” he said.  “I hadn’t been married very long and I felt I had to do something for my future. It was when the Eagles were getting going, I hadn’t been picked up by them , and I could see that the local league would be changing in the future.  At the time I was a postie, which I enjoyed, but I wanted to go to Uni and become a teacher.”

 

“ I had been looking forward to playing under newly appointed coach George Michalczyk. It was then that Noel Mugavin, who had returned to Victoria, organised an offer from South Warrnambool offering to put me through University if I played footy for them. West Perth were unable to match it so in what was a tough life changing decision I decided that the offer was too good to refuse.”

“My time at West Perth and in Western Australia was a definite highlight of my football career” he added. “Playing under Dennis Cometti and with John Wynne and the rest of the West Perth boys was something special”

 

Phil Bradmore was actually a New South Welshman, playing his early football at North Shore in the Sydney competition.  He was targeted by Footscray, where he played fifteen league games before Graeme Pleydell and Ron Bewick enticed him to West Perth. 

 

It was when he arrived at Leederville and met the players on his first night at the club that he acquired the “Spock” nickname.  Bradmore gives rover Alan Watling the credit of naming him after the TV character and it stuck. 

He was a high marking, unselfish half forward with good handball skills and represented Western Australia, as well as lining up for New South Wales in the bi centennial Championships in 1988.  Phil  was a good kick  for goal.  “From thirty metres out,” he laughed.

 

Moved to defence  in the latter years of his West Perth  stay, he became a more than handy centre half back,  although his first love was centre half forward . In 1985 Bradmore was awarded the Breckler Medal for West Perth’s fairest and best player.

 

After he passed his teacher exams the Mildura club, in the Sunraysia League, offered  to find Bradmore a teaching position on the proviso that he coach their club.  Coaching, however, wasn’t Phil’s cup of tea being the layback character that he is, and he relinquished the role while staying on as a player, sharing in two flags in subsequent seasons.

 

Phil gave Michael Christian and Jon Dorotich the nod as his toughest opponents, while reserving his “best that I played with” tag for the diminutive Les Fong.

Phil Bradmore is now teaching in northern New South Wales and is happily married, for the second time, and with five kids, enjoying the seaside lifestyle.  He is still playing…not football but rugby ( “I had to learn the rules”)…although he didn’t say if he still had the number 16 on his back.

The unassuming, laid back style of Phil Bradmore on and off the field made him a character of the game, and he is remembered by a legion of West Perth fans as a star of the eighties.