With the Australian Rules/ Gaelic Football international competition being constantly in the spotlight, we went in search of the first Irish-born player to represent a WAFL club.  It wasn't easy. Through the O'Briens to the O'Shea's we went, then the Kelly's, the Lynch's, and the Murphy's, but eventually we found the man who was to the best of our knowledge the first true son of the Emerald Isle to grace Subiaco Oval.  Myles FitzGerald was on the seventh hole at Lakelands when we tracked him down.  “To be sure, to be sure, you're on the right track,” he laughed, as he sank a thirty metre putt. “Polly(Farmer) always reckoned I was the first Irishman to play in the WAFL, and I'm not arguing with the great man.” Born Brenden Myles FitzGerald in Macroom, a small town of around 2000 in County Cork, Myles made his league debut for Subiaco in 1961, at the age of twenty six. At five foot nine and a half and around twelve stone, his leaping ability enabled him to fill most positions on the ground, a legacy of his pole-vaulting prowess. A brilliant pole-vaulter as a youngster, FitzGerald was All Ireland College champion in 1950-51, and represented Ireland at the age of eighteen when the Northern Counties of England played host to the Amateur Athletic Union of Ireland. His older brother, Niall, was college champion in 1949, becoming a star gaelic footballer, and was a highly decorated player.  Myles recalls the improvisations he and his brother made as youngsters looking for a kick of the football. “We didn't have a football, so we would wash out a cow's bladder and blow it up,” he said. Their introduction to pole vaulting was the chance discovery of an old bamboo pole when cleaning out the shed. In 1954, FitzGerald left for Australia,an Irish newspaper of the day reporting Myles's decision with: “Ireland's Athletics loss will be Australia's gain.”  He joined his cousin, who was parish priest at the South West town of Nannup, and soon found employment at one of the local timber mills.  “It was bloody hard work, and not without danger,” he recalled, as we enjoyed a cleansing ale on the nineteenth. “The luck of the Irish must have been with me on a few occasions, there were some close calls, including the day I almost ended up under a monster karri log. I was the “hookie” at the time, putting the hook into the logs as they were winched in off the truck. On top of the log, I hooked the log, the hook slipped as the log was rolling, I jumped off, and it landed right behind me.” The Irishman got hooked into the local football team as well, and the transition from the gaelic code wasn't all that difficult for Myles. In his first season he was selected for the Nelson Football Association's second side's match against the Murray Association at Waroona.  Myles told us he had no problems in adapting to the different code and ball. “In some ways I felt my Gaelic football experience gave me an advantage,” he said. “ In Gaelic football you are always on the move, and I found I was usually quicker to the bounce of the ball. Gaelic football is a non stop game, and I rarely stopped and went back after a mark.” In later years he was to non plus legendary umpire Ray Montgomery, when he performed a “solo” (dropping the ball onto his foot then to his hand), in front of him, prompting a puzzled look from the man in white, to which Myles responded with: “get outta the way, Ray.”  A writer later wrote of FitzGerald: “He goes for the ball like a train downhill.”     The Amateur Athletic Union of Ireland had been in touch with him, advising that if he could jump thirteen foot six inches he would be considered for the Ireland squad for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. With nowhere to train at Nannup, FitzGerald moved to Perth in 1956, and made an immediate impact on the Western Australian athletics scene, winning the WA title in 1957, 58, and 60, and was runner up in 1959.  He recalled meeting a young Trevor Bickle and telling him: “you'd make a good pole- vaulter.” “When Trevor won the gold medal at the Perth Commonwealth Games he told me: “you should have this medal.”  “Trevor had a fibreglass pole, I couldn't afford one,” he laughed.    In 1957, Myles played with amateur side, Victoria Park, before trying out at Subiaco, where he played a few reserves games. But he missed his mates at the Park, and was back there the following year. It was in 1958 that FitzGerald also played with Metropolitans, playing both Amateurs and Sunday League each weekend. Metropolitans were a strong club in those days, boasting ex WANFL  players such as Dixie Lee, John Munro, Peter Kyle, George Woodhouse, and Neville Roberts(Claremont), Ken Ebbs and Ken Holt(East Fremantle), and Peter Gavranich(Perth). In September, 1958, FitzGerald played in two grand finals in two days. On the Saturday, Victoria Park upset the fancied Fremantle CBC to win the flag, but fortunes were reversed next day at Bassendean, when the previously undefeated Metropolitans went down to Hellenics. In 1961, FitzGerald was back at Subiaco Oval.  He remembers his first league game well. “I was originally down to play with the reserves,” he recalled. “I got a call Saturday morning that Noel Flynn was unable to take his place, and I was in the league side. A policeman, I was rostered to be on duty Saturday afternoon, so I rang John Watts and asked for his advice. “I'll fix it for you, and call you back,” Wattsie said. Sure enough, he rang back and said it had been okayed. On my next working shift, I got hauled over the coals for not turning up for work on the Saturday. Wattsie hadn't told them.” Myles played another ten games for Subiaco, interspersed with a few injuries, and played some of them at centre half forward. “It was a tough contract playing at centre half forward in the WANFL in 1962,” he joked. “In three weeks I copped Neville Beard, Ken Bagley, and Graeme John.” Subiaco coach Dave Cuzens effectively ended FitzGerald's short league career before a ball was bounced in 1963. “I turned up for a scratch match at McGilvray Oval, and never got a game,” he said. “On asking Dave what the problem was, he informed me that, as a policeman working shift work, I couldn't be considered for selection.” Ironically, Cuzens was to suffer a similar fate himself the following year.    Myles subsequently went to East Perth, where he played two reserves games before fellow policeman, Ross Ayre, who was coaching Meckering at the time, offered him twelve pounds a game, or fourteen if he took his car, to join him at Meckering. “That was more than I was getting for a week's work, so I went bush,” he said. Meckering played the unbeaten Beverley in the 1963 grand final and emerged victorious.Back in Perth in 1965, he turned out for Metropolitans twice before calling it a day.  With the advent of the Irish-Australian Internationals, Myles did a stint with Frank Sparrow, calling the games on radio. He also captained the Police football team, in which the line up read like a who's who of WA football.  In his brief career, FitzGerald played on and with some great players, and he rates Beard as the toughest, while giving his best played with vote to Laurie Kettlewell.  Age hasn't slowed Myles FitzGerald down. At seventy six he can regularly be found at Lakelands Golf Club, and is finding that jumping thirteen feet with that old bamboo pole was chickenfeed compared with sinking a thirteen foot putt with his new factory crafted golf stick.