When eighteen year old Graeme Bushell walked into Subiaco Oval in 1969 waiting to greet him were players of the ilk of  Peter Metropolos, George and Rob Young, Kevin Merifield, Brian Sarre, Cam Blakemore, Reg Hampson, Warren Marshall, Colin Williams, and Austin Robertson.  It was a club building up for a premiership tilt, which four years later would come to fruition. He made his league debut coming off the bench as a reserve against East Fremantle, clashing with Victorian recruit Neil Ferguson, who promptly gave the new kid a welcoming whack around the chops. In 1969 he was part of the Subiaco contingent that travelled to India for two exhibition games against East Perth.Graeme recalls the training camps under Haydn Bunton.“We’d often go to Araleun and there’d be a course we’d have to run, which took us along the water channel towards the dam. A few of the usual suspects would jump into the channel and wait until the group came back, then join in again.”  The Sunday morning get togethers were also enjoyable occasions, with the arbitrary keg under the old grandstand after training. “The older blokes knew what they were doing. They’d spear the keg so the spear was about two thirds of the way down. When the beer began to turn frothy some of the uneducated would head for home, thinking the keg was empty. Then the spear would be plunged to the bottom.” “It took us younger blokes a while to wake up to them.”A rover at Subiaco in 1972 would have faced a tough time just to get a run on the ball with Haydn Bunton in the side, but for Subiaco onballer Graeme Bushell it was his most enjoyable season of football.  “It was hard to break into the twenty, particularly as a rover, but I did that in 72, only to cop an ankle injury early the following season, and just when that  sorted itself out the groin went.”Bushell spent all of the 1972 season in Subiaco’s league side, but after missing most of 73 because of the ankle and groin, Bushell found it tough to regain his spot, and eventually retired in January, 1975. “We were doing pre season at King’s Park under new coach David Parkin, and midway through I thought: “I’ve had it, time to move on.” So I retired from league footy there and then.”Grandson of former Subiaco player Harry Bushell, who played for Western Australia in 1914,and was a trainer with the club when they won the 1924 premiership, Bushell had arrived at Subiaco from Bruce Rock, where he’d been playing in the senior side since the age of sixteen. It was Cam Blakemore’s father who tipped Subiaco off about the ability of the young bloke at Bruce Rock, which at the time was coached by former Claremont full back, Mort Kuhlman.Following his retirement, former Perth and Subiaco rover Barry Burgess wasted no time in ringing Bushell and several others with an offer to join him at Donnybrook, but the boots were off for good.  Bushell trained and drove pacers after quitting football, gaining his licence with help from former Swan Districts footballer turned trotting trainer, Barry Guidice. His best was Hunters Moon. He has switched to racing and breeding thoroughbreds in recent years, and has several likely types in work at the moment, as well as a couple in the Eastern States. Graeme retired from work in 2007 after selling his business he ran for eighteen years.  Brother of Brian Bushell, who was the winner of the Jack Clarke Medal as best and fairest in the WAFL colts competition in 1971, Graeme is married  with three daughters, two grandchildren, and two more on the way. He is a keen golfer at Karrinyup on an eleven handicap.  Graeme Bushell was really only at his best for one season during the six years he was at Subiaco, but displayed enough in that short period to suggest that with a bit more luck he could have achieved much more than he did. But the man himself is philosophical about that. “I was alongside Peter Featherby the day he had fifty four touches, played with Austin Robertson, George Young, Kevin Merifield, Keith Watt, Reg Hampson, Cam Blakemore, Peter Metropolis, Brian Sierakowski, Dennis Blair, Ross Gosden, Haydn Bunton, Ross Smith, and Brian Sarre, it can’t get much better than that.”