{xtypo_dropcap}R{/xtypo_dropcap}on Boucher had been at Swan Districts for five seasons when John Todd arrived as coach in 1977.

“I’d been a bit late getting into pre season training,” said Ron. “I was late onto the ground on the first proper training night, and Toddy barked: “Who the hell are you?” On the reply from Boucher, the coach said: “righto, twenty laps.”  After the final circuit of Bassendean Oval, the weary player asked Todd: “anything else?” to which he was ordered to get behind the great big bag and absorb the bumps and shirtfronts of all attendees. Normally this is a drill rotated and shared, but Ron was made to do the lot, as player after player thumped into his shoulder. When finally normal training was resumed, the sore and weary Boucher joined in.

When the coach called it quits, Ron Boucher went up to Todd and said: “Finished?”, and on receiving the affirmative, went on: “now you can stick it!”

He joined other former Swans players Mark Foxon and Laurie Andrews at Gingin.

Fortunately for Swan Districts and West Australian football, it was to be a brief separation, overtures from the club to the ruckman the following season proving successful, and Ron Boucher returned to continue a fine career.

Not overly tall at six foot three and a half, Boucher possessed a good leap, and was powerfully built. He was a most determined player who won the hard ball on most occasions, his sheer competitiveness making him one of the top ruckmen of his day. A target of opposition fans, he reckoned that was one of the things that motivated him. “I always regarded that as a compliment,” he said. “I enjoyed the sledging, from both spectators and opposition players. It was part of the game, and football is the poorer now because the way it’s been sanitised. I found it funny that I’d get “roo roo roo” at a State game, then a week later the same blokes would be going “boo boo boo.” {xtypo_quote_left}The esteem in which Ron Boucher is held at Bassendean was shown with his inclusion in Swan Districts Team of the Century.{/xtypo_quote_left}

It was a future opposition player that was originally responsible for Ron Boucher’s introduction to the game of football.

“I was a nine year old kid in Bunbury when David Hollins, who was two years older and lived across the road, got me to join him at Wendover Vale (later to become South Bunbury) Football Club,” he recalled. “I was lucky enough to have some terrific coaching as a junior, in Bunbury I was with Brian Depiazzi and Bill Hoskins, and after the family moved to Albany when I was fifteen I came under the tuition of Gordon Collis.”

A Brownlow Medal winner just four years previously, Collis had a marked effect on the young Boucher’s football development. “ He saw something in a couple of us younger blokes, and not only promoted us into the league side but took us under his wing,” he said. Collis was also responsible for Ron’s nickname, Roo. “I was tall and skinny, and could run, so he called me roo(all prick and ribs, like a roo dog)”

Ron was also a promising athlete in his younger years, competing in inter school competition at four hundred and eight hundred metre events, as well as shot put, high jump, and cross country, and also did some boxing.

Playing in North Albany’s senior side as a sixteen year old, Boucher represented the Great Southern League at Country Week, and was soon confined to his hotel room for most of the off field time in Perth because of the attention he was receiving from WAFL club scouts. A West Perth supporter, he weighed things up and decided on Swan Districts because he saw more opportunity there, which made his Mum, a black and white gal, happy.

Playing his first league game in round one of 1972, it would be another decade before Boucher figured in a premiership flag, although he saw finals action two years later, when the Swannies were beaten in the preliminary final by Perth, and they suffered a similar fate a year later at the hands of South Fremantle.  

After the year away in 1977, Boucher went from strength to strength. His battles with Stephen Michael and Graham Moss were crowd pullers, and the challenge had a marked effect on his own performances. “They were both very skilful players,” he said, “and you had to be right at your top to match them. Michael was hard and tough, and those who reckoned Moss was soft were way off mark. He was a great opponent who gave as good as he got. We all respected each other.”

Ron debuted for Western Australia in 1980, and partnered Michael against South Australia. Runners up in the grand final of that year, Swan Districts came up trumps in 1982, winning the first of three flags in a row.  It was also the year that Boucher won the Swan Medal as fairest and best. A knee injury that hampered him throughout the 1984 season and forced him out of the grand final, denying him a third premiership, was the catalyst for his retirement at the age of thirty. “I could have played on the big day, but the selectors couldn’t afford to take the risk, and we had two other good ruckmen,” he said. Seven games short of two hundred games, Ron called it quits.  

Boucher became involved in waste management in the twilight of his football career, when he was working with the Health Department in Perth. In those days waste management was not a priority, but in the past few years it has become an integral aspect of the growing push to look after the environment.

“No-one wanted to know about waste, it had a very low profile,” he said “People used to dump things at landfill and then burn it. But there’s a gradual change in people’s attitude to waste.” With Global Warming and an increased awareness of the environment, Ron said his job was becoming more and more important. “We all live on the same planet, and we have to do the best we can with the resources we have,” he said.

Working in Broome after retiring from league football, Boucher played with Towns, and was part of a premiership in 1985. Ironically, he later chaired the Association Tribunal. “They couldn’t put anything past me, I’d seen and done it all,” he laughed. On his appearances at the Protests and Disputes Tribunal, he said: “I wasn’t a hot head, I confronted my opponents, they gave me plenty, I gave it back, sometimes I got caught, fairly and unfairly. The Tribunal itself wasn’t always the way justice should be, a lot that happened wouldn’t be allowed in a proper court.”

But Ron wasn’t anti-umpire.

 “One day at Bassendean, with only seconds to go, the ball came in from the McDonald Stand side, and was well inside the point posts,” he recalled. “The goal ump went for the two flags and Swans lost by a few points. The crowd went bananas, and rushed onto the ground. Turning to the unfortunate goal ump, I said: “you’d better come with me,” and escorted him off.”

“Maybe that should have got me some brownie points from the Tribunal.”    

Ron isn’t all that enamoured with the ruck work at the top level today. “They don’t seem to tap the ball well or know how to get the ball out,” he observed. “We had ruck drills and certain plays, they don’t seem to be able to utilise their team properly, it’s often disorganised.”

Working in Busselton these days with Busselton Shire Council as Facilities Coordinator in Assets and Waste,  he still follows Swan Districts. “Last year’s grand final was a marvelous game,” he said. Son Chris looked a promising footballer until a motor bike accident put an abrupt halt to any football plans.

Moss and Michael head Ron’s list of tough opponents, while Phil Narkle and Leon Baker are his nominations as best team mates.

The esteem in which Ron Boucher is held at Bassendean was shown with his inclusion in Swan Districts Team of the Century. He was an inspirational player who epitomized the Swan Districts fighting spirit, and a quarter of a century after his retirement is still one of the favourites of club supporters.