East Fremantle Football Club is without peer in Australia as a developer of AFL footballers, with well over a hundred AFL players(including three Brownlow Medallists) having been drafted from their junior zone.  The club is fortunate to have dedicated people who are not only happy to put a lot of time into junior development, but have been doing it for a long time.One of these was Len Anderson.Len was a driving force off the field at Moss Street. Along with his old mate, Wilson Onions, he became part of the furniture at East Fremantle, and Junior Development was his special interest.  From his days as Colts coach in the seventies, Anderson proved to be a solid contributor to the success of  East Fremantle’s  juniors. He was Chairman of Junior Development from 1983 to 2004, was recognised by the AFL with an award for services to football in 1999, the year he also received a volunteers award from the WAFL, and subsequently was honoured with the Australian Sports Medal for services to sport the following year.     Len Anderson began his  fifty three years association with the blue and whites in 1956. A former Kalgoorlie boy, Anderson had moved to Melville, where he played with the Melville Juniors before representing Aquinas College,  then lining up with Ex Scholars.   “I made my league debut with East Fremantle in the Derby preliminary final of 1956, against South Fremantle, the day Gero took that mark that we see outside Fremantle Oval these days,”he said. A full forward with an unorthodox kicking action, he was , however, an accurate shot at goal, and had a career conversion rate of 70%. At six foot,  Anderson was a natural full forward, with a reliable pair of hands and good pace, having been a State athletics title holder over four hundred metres as a junior. He played every game for East Fremantle between 1957 and 1960, booting goal tallies of 77 in 1957(a premiership year),89 in 1958, 91 in 1959, and 79 in 1960, being rewarded with State selection in 1959. In the pre season of 1961, Anderson broke a leg, which bought to an abrupt end the consecutive run of league games he had enjoyed over four years. It was to be the beginning of a frustrating period for Len, as he battled the after effects of the injury, and  was unable to regain his previous level of form. He subsequently retired from league football at the end of the 1963 season, after playing 108 games.“It was a tough decision, because I felt I could still be a contributor at East Fremantle, but at the time, considering the troubles I had experienced with injury, I had to think about my future, and there was good money  on offer as a playing coach in lower competitions,” Anderson said. And he certainly went on the coaching roundabout.After a season playing with Avon Association club,Tammin, Anderson took up the coaching reigns at Canning, in the South Suburban League, in 1965.  He showed in that season that he may have left WANFL ranks too soon, by notching a hundred goals. In 1968 he took over at the Metropolitans Club for three years, before moving to Mosman Park, followed by a stint at Gosnells. Len Anderson was always a part of the East Fremantle Football Club wherever he was playing, and it was inevitable that when his on field days were over he’d take on a role at Moss Street. When Alan Joyce was appointed coach of Old Easts, Anderson became his assistant, and began his long commitment to junior development by taking on the coaching job with the colts at the same time. He continued the assistant role with Ken Smith after Joyce left. In 1983, Anderson became a board member of the East Fremantle Fooball Club, a position he held for twenty two years, serving for eighteen of those as vice president and delegate to the WANFL. His work with juniors was capitalised on by the WANFL when he was made a foundation member of the WA Football Development Trust, with Brian Cook as inaugural chairman. A constitutional two year position, he stayed for ten. “I didn’t have the heart to stop,” Len joked.For Len Anderson, “I haven’t got the heart to stop,”  applied to his beloved East Fremantle Football ClubChatting to Len was chatting to a bloke who loves his footy. Reminiscing again, he spoke about his hardest opponents. “Ray Richards,(“he must have had four elbows”), John Watts, Brian Ashbolt, Joe Lawson, and Ray Schofield were all good players, although I got Schoey at the end of his career, but for mine the toughest to play on was West Perth’s Brian France.” And as for team mates, of course there were plenty, but Len came up with the usual one respected by most East Fremantle players of that era. “Jack Clarke.”A Warehouse Transport Manager with the PMG(later Telstra) in his playing days, Len enjoyed travelling to all parts of the globe with wife Fay and great mate and East Fremantle star player, Ray “Oscar” Howard and his wife Joy, until the sad passing of Oscar recently. He was also a keen fisherman.Len Anderson was awarded East Fremantle life membership in 1979, and WAFL life membership in 2001, highlights of an association with the club that has seen eight premierships.  His contribution to the East Fremantle club and Western Australian Football, as well as the AFL, in terms of his part in the development of juniors in the East Fremantle district, was a lifelong journey.