1972 was a great  year for East Perth champion Ken McAullay.  He scored 86 and 49  opening the batting for Western Australia in the virtual Final against South Australia, helping bring home the Sheffield Shield, won the Tassie Medal in what surely was one of the greatest performances in the history of the medal, and won two  Simpson Medals, one for his performance against Victoria, and one as part of the East Perth Grand Final triumph over Claremont.His effort to win the Tassie should not be understated. Playing at fullback in the Australian Carnival, he had 4.4 kicked against him over the Carnival, and received 17 votes, star Victorian ruckman Len Thompson being next best with 8. It is rare for adjudicators to vote for a full back, so to win three prestigious awards in the one season from that position was testament to the man’s class. His stellar performances in that Carnival were against three superstars...Peter McKenna(Victoria), Fred Phillis(South Australia), and Darryl Sutton(Tasmania), and in the words of a leading football critic of the day “reducing them to pygmy size”.  Being named as All Australian was just a formality. It was therefore a tragedy for West Australian sport that after two years of frustration with an Achilles tendon, Ken McAullay was forced out of competitive sport three years later, in 1975, at the age of 25.  He had played 152 games with the Royals, plus nine distinctive appearances for his State. One can only wonder what might have been. McAullay was named in the West Australian Team Of The Century in 2000, and was also included in  East Perth’s official Team Of The Century. Induction into the West Australian Football Hall Of Fame followed in 2008.His cricket career with Western Australia as an opener realised 1110 runs at an average of 30.83.  The dream of playing for Australia was an honour that he was unable to achieve.Originally  from Merredin, McAullay debuted for East Perth in 1967 at the age of seventeen.  He soon became one of the best defenders to have played in the WAFL.  Not big by any standards, standing just six foot, which was short for a key backman, he more than made up for the lack of inches and weight(twelve and a half stone) with his ability to read the play plus uncanny anticipation and concentration, backed up with good hands.When we caught up with him we asked him about 1972. “Yeah”, he remarked. “It was a freak year. That 1972 premiership was even sweeter after playing in four losing ones”Looking back, he named Austin Robertson and John McIntosh as his hardest opponents. “Robertson was the best full forward I saw, and the times I played on McIntosh he was just too good” he told us.  Asked for the best he played with, he had no hesitation in naming Mal Brown and the versatile Brad Smith. Of course we had to ask him for a Mal Brown story and he didn’t disappoint. “I was playing full back and centre half back for WA and Brownie had me out of the play on a flank with East Perth” he said. “I was a bit upset at this so I fronted Mal about it. “If you don’t like the selections, become a selector”Big Mal growled.“So I did” “Then I found that I was outvoted by the other three so I stayed on a half back flank” Ken added with a wry grin.  It was Brown who gave Ken his nickname, which has stuck with him ever since. “ Mal nicknamed me  Noddy because I had a habit of nodding my head in apparent agreement during conversation.” he explained. “Quite often that wasn’t the case”  McAullay has some reservations about today’s game. He is most critical of the very ordinary set goalkicking skills of current AFL players.  Umpiring interpretations are also on his radar. “There is too much manhandling, pushing and shoving off the ball and outside of the play” he said. “A lot of the rules are still the same but the umpires interpretations have changed under the guise of play on and entertainment” He said he would like to see the onfield numbers of teams reduced to 16. “There is too much congestion around the ball and it’s very similar to watching little league ” was his comment.These days, Ken McAullay is a Senior Executive of the Insurance Commission of WA.  He still keeps in touch with the East Perth Football Club, goes to some games, and is involved with the WA Cricketers Club, which consists of past players.His interests are his family, gardening, and walking with his wife, Judy.  We asked for a final summing up of a great career. “I was young when I started, young when I finished. I have no regrets, I got as much out of myself as I could. I was happy that I was able to perform in the big games at a consistently high level ” he said.Ken McAullay’s parting words were:”It was a privilege and an honour to play for East Perth and Western Australia and to be inducted into the Western Australian Football Hall Of Fame”.