There have been many great grand finals, and it’s a hard task to find a universal choice as the best, but the clash between East Perth and East Fremantle for premiership honours in 1958 would have to rank among them, not only for the closeness of the game but the quality  of those players who took part in it.It was a great era for West Australian football, and the Royals side of the late fifties, winners of three flags in four years, has been rated one of the best club sides of all time. With captain coach Jack Sheedy ineligible due to a suspension and Paul Seal KO’d in the first half, East Perth fought hard for its two point win, with the Simpson Medal going to defender Ned Bull, who played a great game in a resolute defence. A player who also contributed largely to the team’s success not only in the big game but all season, was wingman Brian Ray.  Solid on the ground and adept at winning the hard ball, with a good mark and disposal, he was the perfect foil for the brilliance of  Seal on a wing and Tommy Everett in the centre, but enjoyed a comparatively short career, struck down by a series of injuries at the peak of his career a year later. After a slashing season in 1959, when he played twice for Western Australia and was selected in the Daily News Team of the Year, Ray was struck down with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, missing a third East Perth premiership and was never the same player again, retiring from league football at the young age of twenty three half way through the 1960 season after just seventy five games.  “I flew over a South Australian ruckman and landed on the turf,” he recalled. “When I went to get up, I knew something was wrong.” A mis-kick at pre season training in 1960 causing a relapse of the injury was followed by a bout of pneumonia, then early in the season a clash with an opposition player resulted in a hospital stay. “I woke up in Royal Perth Hospital with an ear hanging on by a thread, concussion, and looking like the elephant man,” he said. “My doctor told me to give the game up, which I did.”Born in Collie, Ray’s family moved to Inglewood when he was three. “As an eleven year-old I used to peddle my bike along Carrington Street and watch the Maylands Cobbers train at Shearn Park, under  coach Lisle Bremner,” he recalled. “I would kick the ball back when it went out of the ground, and eventually I was asked if I’d like to join them. Although I became the regular nineteenth or twentieth man, I thought it was Christmas.”Just two years later the nineteenth man for the Maylands Cobbers was playing in Hobart with the State Schoolboys team, alongside future league players in Bill Towers(Perth), Les Mumme(Claremont), and Ray “Oscar” Howard(East Fremantle),  as well as cricketers Barry Shepherd, Len Pavy, and Keith Gillam.  At the age of fourteen he was in Wesley College’s first eighteen as a wingman or half-forward.It was at Wesley that Ray came under the coaching of the legendary Marcel “Nugget” Hilsz. “Hilsz was a great coach, a communicator,” he said. “He took me under his wing and convinced me that I could make it in league football. “Go to the WACA and play with Perth (Nugget’s former club),” he told me.” But East Perth had also spotted the young Ray, and Joe Walters, from the club’s Junior Development committee, organised for him to play in the centre for the seconds as a seventeen year old in 1954, effectively tying him to the Royals.      “It wasn’t an easy job fronting Nugget with the news,” Brian said “But such was the class of the bloke he immediately wished me all the best.”In 1955 the eighteen year old Ray was thrust straight into the fray in a pre season game. Pitted against star Tommy Everett in the centre, he acquitted himself well, but some niggling injury problems prevented him making his league debut until the West Perth game, where he lined up on a wing opposed to State player Brian Humphries. It was the only appearance with the top side for Ray that season.In 1956, restricted by University commitments and a few more injury layoffs, he had managed only six games before grand final day, when the Royals were to face South Fremantle. On the eve of the big game the word was that rover Reg Hall was under an injury cloud and unlikely to play. “When the side was put up on the board there was B. Ray on a half forward flank,” Brian said. “It was a tough game, I had State representatives Bob Cassidy and John Colgan to contend with, but we got over the line by thirteen points, and what a thrill it was.”1957 saw Brian Ray become firmly entrenched on a wing in the East Perth line up, and they looked the goods for consecutive flags when accounting for Perth by eighty six points in the second semi final, but suffered a shock loss to fourth placed East Fremantle in the big one.  Ray went on with it the following season when the Royals turned the tables on their arch rivals reserving his best performance for the grand final.Some five years after his retirement in 1960, Brian made a return to the action.“I was working as an engineer in Esperance and living in the Pier Hotel where Bill Colgan was mine host; Bill was also coach of the Esperance footy club,” he reminisced. “One Saturday night we imbibed a bit too much, and I said: “If you’re short on Sunday I’ll try and help out.” I reckon Bill made sure they were short, and so it was that I made a comeback with Esperance, qualifying for the finals by playing three games. The following year I ended up coaching the club, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed – experiencing the intricacies and challenges of coaching, something I’d previously taken for granted.”Many years later Ray was co-opted onto a committee established by the WA Football Commission studying the proposal for a second AFL side to be established in WA, with the brief of focusing mainly on its financial prospects.A civil engineer, he worked with the John Holland Group for many years in his earlier working life. This was followed by a fourteen year period as CEO of Whittakers Limited before he became a freelance consultant spending considerable time on forest products. Now happily retired, Ray enjoys caravanning with wife Maureen and spending a few hours a week golfing( he says scratchily) around Lake Karrinyup. They have a son, Michael, and a daughter, Jillian who both work overseas which calls for a little more travel. Ray also enjoys socialising with old footy team-mates who get-together regularly.Brian was also a handy cricketer, being a medium pace swing bowler mainly with the University Cricket Club second grade team, but played two games of A grade.He has a lot of admiration for the football abilities of John Todd, “catching him was like trying to catch a salmon,” and rated John Colgan as a tough opponent. “he was a tough, physical player.” His good mate Tom Everett was his nomination as best he’d played with, recalling one episode: “I spotted Tommy by himself one day on the flank and sent a kick his way. Unfortunately it was far too high, and the cavalry thundered into the poor bugger. I was sauntering sheepishly back to my wing position when along came Everett. “Got any more tricks?” he quipped.” At twenty three years of age, Brian Ray was on the threshold of becoming an East Perth great when he was forced to retire from the game. “Playing footy was one of my greatest joys, and I found it disappointing to give it up at an early age,” he said. As it was, Ray was part of one of the great combinations we have seen in Western Australian football, and was a player of skill and dedication who should be remembered in any history of the game.