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East Fremantle stalwart Wilson Onions has been a terrific worker for  the club for over half a century, and his contributions have been in many a shape or form.One of these was the signing of wingman Barry Biffin.The former outstanding Merredin junior had given the game away because of work commitments at the age of nineteen when Onions arranged for Old Easts to give him a run in the thirds. Playing senior football with Merredin Towns from the age of sixteen, Biffin had won the Sunday Times Medal as fairest and best in the Merredin Districts Football Association at eighteen, but a relief position with the R & I Bank had put his football career in limbo.A clearance was quickly organised, and Biffin lined up with East Fremantle thirds in 1960, playing ten games, including the grand final, which they lost to Perth. The first of his hundred and eight league appearances was at Fremantle Oval and he remembers it well. “I got a smack in the chops from Toddy,” he recalled. “Which was no big deal. But some wag in the crowd yelled out: “you oughta do that more often, Toddy,” to which my old man, who happened to be standing in close proximity of the heckler, took umbrage, and was intent on taking him around the back of the grandstand.”It took Barry some initial perseverance to break into the league side on a permanent basis, and when he was elected captain of the seconds side for 1962, he thought it wasn’t a good sign. But after just one run with the twos he was selected in the league side, and one wing was his from then on. A diminutive five foot seven, Biffin, a pacy player with an accurate, penetrating kick,  played in three grand finals, 1962, 64, and 65, and was part of a long overdue premiership flag for East Fremantle in 1965.More bank transfers precipitated Barry’s retirement from league football in 1968.“I was having strife getting to training, there wasn’t much money in it, so when Laurie Watson organised me a coaching job at Bolgart I took it,” he said. “When the bank obliged by sending me to Northam it made it a good decision.” A successful two years there, yielding a premiership and runner up, was the swan song for his football career, with a knee injury in his only appearance for Nungarin bringing down the final curtain. Retired from the bank these days, Barry has become more than a handy golfer, getting his handicap down to four, with his football allegiances shared between the Sharks and the Eagles. He and wife Bernice enjoy travel and their four grandchildren. Paul Seal was a player he found hard to counter, not only because of the ability he had, but the sheer class of the East Perth combination at the time. “The way they set the forward moves up from centre bounces was classic,” he said. East Fremantle stars Jack Clarke, Ken Holt, Ray Sorrell, Darryl Cormack, and Norm Rogers were his choice as best team mates.Barry also had a mention for Brian “Whale” Roberts.“Brian was a big bloke, and seemed to be able to down a beer without swallowing,” he recalled. “We went to Toby Watson’s farm one weekend, and I challenged him to a drinking contest. “Money for jam,” he thought, as I appeared to skull my drinks. It was a dark night and he couldn’t see that most of it my glasses’ contents were going over my shoulder.”“He never could fathom how he lost.”Barry also recalled the day he lost a contact lens at East Fremantle Oval.“I can truthfully say  that i was the only East Fremantle player ever to have the president (Tom Booth) down on his knees.” Barry Biffin was one of many top wingmen to wear the blue and white over the years, and he was a tenacious, tough, and consistent competitor.             

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