There have been many country players to leave the WANFL scene when seemingly on the brink of a long league career, and none more so than East Perth ruckman John Turner.At the age of twenty three, the Pemberton recruit had stepped into the big boots of “Polly” Farmer, leading the Royals ruck, and was one of the reasons the side made the finals, his loss through a broken cheekbone in the second last qualifying round a contributing factor to their first semi final loss. The high leaping, six foot three Turner had learnt well from Farmer’s tuition, and good judges were forecasting a State guernsey in the not too distant future.Turner’s return to the South West farm at the end of the 1993 season was greeted with shock and disappointment from the East Perth club and it’s supporters.     “I have had many regrets about the decision over the years, but I really had no choice,” he said. “My father advised me that he was quitting the farm, and if I didn’t want to run it he’d sell it. I had recently married, there wasn’t a living to be made at football, so it was the farm.”The achievements of John Turner in subsequent years would underline the loss the East Perth Football Club suffered.As a player he won seven Lower South West Football League fairest and best awards, and his coaching resume shows six senior premierships and one colts flag at Southerners and Manjimup Tigers, plus two B Grade flags at the helm of Lower South West in the annual Country Week Competition in Perth.     Born in Hampshire, England, John Turner was brought up on soccer until arriving in Australia at the age of nine, his father having purchased a farm at West Manjimup with the aim of providing his family with a better future. Among the first of the young Turner’s new friends were Ray Giblett and Bob Graham, both of whom were many years later to become team mates at East Perth. “I remember an early encounter with Ray, when he picked on the new kid in town, and I belted him at the bus stop,” John laughed.As a fourteen year old, Turner learnt his football in the under eighteen competition with Manjimup Imperials before the family farm was sold and another bought at Pemberton. Playing ten games in the B grade side with Pemberton in 1956, John missed the whole of the 1957 season through work commitments before hitting the scene with a bang in 1958, when he was selected in the Warren Association combined side. Fellow Pemberton footballer Doug Bamess, who had been at East Fremantle with Jack Sheedy, referred him to the then East Perth coach, who invited Turner to try out with the Royals in a pre season match the following season. The new recruit was well aware of his league chances, with Farmer, Kennedy, Powell, Rowles, Walker, Hunt, and others starring in a dominant East Perth side, and happily played in the Colts side in 1959, with a trip to Adelaide yielding a best on ground trophy following the encounter with a combined Port Augusta team. In 1960 the chance of a well paid job saw Turner stand out from the game. “I had Ray Giblett signed up as well, but East Perth offered him a trip with the club to Broken Hill, so he changed his mind,” John  recalled.Debuting in 1961 against South Fremantle, Turner played eleven league games before returning to Southerners the following season, and was in outstanding form. Appointed coach of the league and reserves sides, he gave a glimpse of his future achievements when the club, last the previous year, went through the season undefeated, but went down to Jardee in the grand final. The League Fairest and Best award underlined the outstanding season he had.    The loss of Farmer sent the Royals in search of  a worthy replacement, and Turner answered the call, enjoying a good year at Perth Oval before his premature retirement from league football after just thirty three games.To say that John exploded onto the coaching ranks in the Lower South West Football League would be an under statement. He coached Southerners to their first premiership as a combined club in the league in 1964, followed by further flags in 1965, 67, 69, and 71. “The best side we ever had was in 1969,” Turner claimed. “We provided the League with a dozen of the side that beat the hot favourites South West by two goals at Brunswick.” An illustration of the coaching nous of Turner was the 1971 grand final against Manjimup Tigers, when he alternated in the centre with his co ruckman. Turner stood down as coach after the 1974 season, but there was to be no rest. He became club President and took charge of the colts side, guiding the youngsters to a flag. A life member of Pemberton Football Club, Turner almost got himself kicked out of town when he accepted a coaching offer from the struggling Tigers. “It was more the challenge than the renumeration that attracted me,” John said. Bottom in 1975, the young Tigers outfit responded to the new coach by reaching the 1976 grand final, losing by five points in a Derby slog. But it was a different story a year later, when they recorded a thirty seven point win.  Relinquishing the coaching duties in 1978, Turner continued playing until the end of the 1980 season.Coaching was in his blood, however, and it was the Bridgetown club that persuaded him to take over a rebuilding job, after losing half a dozen players. A two year tenure there produced the foundation for the club’s rejuvenation, with his groundwork contributing to premierships in 1984 and 86.Turner sold the farm and semi retired to Albany, but his reputation preceded him, and he soon found himself in charge of proceedings at the Royals, where he took the side to the finals in his only year at the helm.  In later years John continued his football involvement with Super Rules in a decade of coaching which included a six year period in which he didn’t lose a game, before finally hanging up the boots at the age of sixty two. These days he is on his son in law’s property outside of Cranbrook, with the sporting interest firmly on the bowling green, winning club championship singles titles at Emu Point, Denmark, and Cranbrook. Father of three girls, Carolyn, Leanne, and Jennifer, he has four grandsons playing football at Deanmill.Hardest opponent, John reckoned, was Claremont’s Wayne Harvey. “Hitting him was like running into a brick wall,” he said. Not surprisingly, Farmer got his vote as best he’d played with. “I modeled myself on Polly, his leap, his handball. I had plenty of opportunity to watch when playing with him. You needed a crowbar to get him off the ball, I’d get about four or five minutes.” In 1977 Turner was awarded a Silver Jubilee Medal by the Queen for his services to football in the Lower South West. A veteran of almost four hundred games of senior football, John Turner was a classic example of a country player returning home too soon. He admits to having regrets about that, but the subsequent success back home stamped him as one of the best coaches and players produced in the Lower South West. In the Pemberton area he enjoys legend status.