The Perth Football Club were a dominant force in the Seventies. Under an innovative coaching regime led by Ken Armstrong and Frank Pyke, they won two flags and were runners up twice between 1974 and 78. Armstrong moulded together a champion team rather than a team of champions.  When taking  over as coach in 1974 filling the centre position was a priority, and he saw the answer in Geoff Watt, who had been playing on a half forward flank and wing during Barry Cable’s tenure. A no frills customer, Watt was a team oriented player and, blessed with the stamina to run all day, became a fine  centreman ,who was prominent in both premierships.  He also had a good turn of speed, and to reinforce this he held a time record for a club training run for twenty years. “I was lucky,” recalled the modest Geoff Watt . “ I had tough defenders such as Bob Shields, Brian Cook, Colin Lofts, Brian Quartermaine, Ken Inman, and Jeff Dickinson backing me up, with blokes like Steve Hargraves and Murray Couper in front of me.  Throw  in Wim Rosbender and Rob Wiley and a few other gooduns and I had an armchair ride.”“It was a very even side,” he added.Geoff  Watt  had been a late starter in league ranks, having played Amateurs for Carlisle before spending a fruitful season with Sunday League club, Wanneroo, where he took off the League fairest and best for 1971, after winning  Wanneroo’s trophy with a record tally. “I was twenty three, and I had been tossing up about trying out for a league club, when I got a call from Gordon Winter, a committeeman at Perth, asking if I’d like to come down to Lathlain,” he said.  He debuted for the Demons in 1972, playing on a half forward flank, later moving to a wing.   Geoff also recalls the nickname he got on arrival at Lathlain Park. “Fumbles,”he laughed. “I fumbled a few marks early on and the buggers didn’t miss a trick.” The advent of Armstrong in 1974 became a revelation for the Perth club and Geoff Watt.  “Ken Armstrong was a great coach, but that was just part of the man,” Geoff said. “He was also a mentor, a teacher, and a role model for the younger guys at the time. Many of them learnt a lot of life’s lessons from Ken.” After being an integral part of two premierships and two runners up in the following memorable seasons, Geoff Watt retired from league football at the end of the 1979 season, after 170 games over eight years with the Perth Football Club. The curtain hadn’t quite descended on Watt’s career, though.  A distress call from a mate who was coaching a struggling club saw the thirty one year old  turn out for half a dozen games with the Miling club the following year.    Geoff rates Subiaco’s Peter Featherby as the toughest he played on. “I reckoned I could run, but I couldn’t keep up with him,” he said, while rating Wiley, Cook, Hargrave, and Couper as the best he played with. An accountant, Geoff was a busy man at Burswood Accounting when we chatted with him, but  he told us he is a keen West Coast Eagles supporter, and enjoys nothing more than getting away to some far away destination with wife, Loretta.Geoff Watt’s decision to “give it a go” in 1972 was certainly vindicated, and he will be remembered as an integral part of a memorable Perth football combination.