{xtypo_dropcap}M{/xtypo_dropcap}arty Atkins’s life in football took another turn when he was appointed CEO of Perth Football Club.

His experience, competitiveness, enthusiasm, and passion for the game complimented by a personable nature plus the respect in which he is held made him a good fit for the challenging job.  

Formerly football manager at Peel Thunder Football Club, Atkins is a record holder as a player at South Fremantle, with 266 league appearances.

A premiership player, he was club captain, and following his retirement served as football manager of the club.

Atkins has had an involvement with football since his arrival in Australia as a thirteen year old.

Born in London, Marty Atkins had a soccer and athletics background, excelling at high jumping and as a sprinter. On his arrival in Australia he lived with his grandfather at Baldivis. In need of a ruckman, it didn’t take long for the local football team to become aware of the big blondheaded new arrival, and he was asked to have a run. There were no soccer teams around, Marty’s granddad was a horse man, so the young Atkins decided that footy might be preferable to jumping on a saddle. 

Atkins took to the new game like a duck to water, losing the under sixteen fairest and best award at Kwinana on a countback in his first season. “I was a bit pissed off at losing on a countback,” he recalled.

It was to be devaju the following season, when he was once again involved in a countback for fairest and best, this time featuring three players. “And I ended up being placed third,” Marty added.

Atkins’s competitive nature and approach, a feature of his football in later years, was already to the fore, and the near misses only made him more determined to succeed. The next year, 1987, he won the Blackburn Medal as best in the Sunday League Colts competition, as well as the Kwinana club’s equivalent award.

Marty had come under the guidance of Tony Morley while at Kwinana, and he attributes much of his development in those years to the former South and State wingman. “ Tony was a very good influence on my football and attitude to the game,” he said. “And Allan Watters at South was the perfect man to follow him when I arrived at Fremantle Oval.”

Watters(father of Scott) coached Atkins in the colts in 1988. Doing a pre season with the South Fremantle league squad, the ruckman won the South colts fairest and best award and was third in the WAFL Medallists Medal.  His league debut came in 1989 against Perth. “How good was that?” he remarked. “At the centre bouncedowns I had Maurice and Willie Rioli at my feet.”

But he was almost lost to the red and whites after the 1990 season.

“I had played just four league games over the previous two years, and was feeling a bit disillusioned,” he recalled.  

Playing as a ruckman , with Craig Edwards, Dean Irving, Stevan Jackson, and others to compete with, he’d spent most Saturdays in the early game, where his form had been good enough to win a reserves fairest and best for the club and a third place in the WAFL’s Pendergast Medal in 1990.

It was the arrival of new coach Steve Hargrave in 1991 that set the scene for a long and auspicious career.

“Steve played me at centre half back,” Marty said, “And from there things turned around.”

After struggling for league selection for two years, Atkins was intent on cementing his position when finally given the opportunity in 1991, and went from strength to strength, his performances quickly rewarded with State selection on Tuesday, May 12, 1992 at Adelaide Oval. In the return game at Subiaco just over a year later he was awarded the Simpson Medal for his display in the home side’s twenty four point win and went on to represent Western Australia five times.

Marty recalls an altercation with South Australian star Gary McIntosh.

“Gary was chasing me and shouted: “You Swedish bastard,” so as I ran back I informed him I wasn’t a Swede at all, I was English, to which he retorted: “You reckon I care?”

After the disappointment of losing the 1992 grand final to arch rivals East Fremantle in a year in which they had beaten them four times, Marty savours the memory of the come from behind premiership victory five years later, but has bitter recollections of 1999. “It was our hundredth year, but it was soured with mixed feelings surrounding the Fremantle Dockers host club situation, some of the allocated players understandably not having the commitment to the guernsey we would have liked, and a sometimes hostile attitude toward the club from some quarters because of the host arrangement,” Atkins recalled. “The refusal of the Dockers to release players for the finals was also a point of conjecture.”

Atkins was at the centre of controversy following an incident during the second semi final against West Perth. Although it went unreported by the umpires on the day, footage was shown on television during the week that led to him being suspended for the grand final, a big blow for the Bulldogs. “It wasn’t anything premeditated or with malice,” Marty said. “I got a knee in the back and was face down on the ground, with legs and arms everywhere. I had to get out from underneath, and what happened was a reflex action.”

“Next thing I was the lead story on the news per favour of Trevor Jenkins, a West Perth supporter. I thought my clean record would get me a caution, but the verdict was a suspension. I was distraught at the Board’s decision and to this day consider it a harsh one.”

Atkins captained South Fremantle from 2000 to 2004.

When he played his two hundred and fifty ninth game to become South Fremantle’s longest serving player, it was an emotional and humbling experience. “I don’t put myself in the same class as Tom Grljusich, who was the previous record holder, but I consider it an honour to be up there with the likes of Tom, Gero, Frank Treasure, Cicco, Don Byfield, and John Colgan,” he said.”

When Atkins retired from league football at the end of the 2003 season as a thirty four year old he was still among the leading players in the WAFL. “My body was telling me that it was getting a bit tired and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take,” he said. “There were some promising young blokes at the club and I thought it was time.”

Among the two hundred club at South are the names Brad Collard and Tom Bottrell, and they are both held in high regard by Atkins. “Brad is a legend, a much under rated player who is still working behind the scenes, while you wouldn’t get a more loyal club man than Tommy, both on and off the field.”  Bottrell commented: “The biggest regret I have is not being able to retire with Marty Atkins. We’d played a hundred and ninety eight games together.”

Ironically, Atkins and Bottrell are now holding CEO positions at Perth and Swan Districts respectively.

There was no parting of the ways for Atkins and the South Fremantle Football Club, however.

He was offered the position of football manager immediately following his retirement. It was a big decision for a man with fifteen years service with WA Police to make, but was to become the first step in a new career in sports management, a commitment close to his heart. Marty’s five year tenure as South football manager included two premierships, and the development of many young players.

There was to be no respite from footy action either.

Marty Atkins lined up with Donnybrook in the South West League and showed he’d lost none of his ability by winning the club fairest and best award three times in four seasons, and was runner up for the 2004 Hayward Medal. He then took on the playing coach role at Wesley-Curtin Amateurs and won the CJ Jamieson Medal as Amateur Association first grade fairest and best at the age of forty.  

Umpires were kind to Atkins over the years, the votes they cast winning him many awards, so it was ironic that it was an umpire that was the catalyst for the end of his football career.

“In my eighth game of 2010 I got red carded for wrestling,” he said. “I told the ump: “That’s it for my career.”

Marty is justifiably proud of his career with the WA Police football teams in Interstate carnivals. He played in fourteen, was six times named player of the series, eleven times All Australian, captained the WA side for five years, and was coach for two.

Marty spends a lot of his leisure time running to maintain fitness, and has two daughters, Monique and Jasmin, who have inherited their father’s leaping ability as netballers.

Atkins played on some champions of the game, but named two West Australians as hardest to beat. “Laurie Keene and Alex Ishchenko were big buggers and athletic,” he said. He added Travis Edmonds as a tough competitor, while Brad Collard and Maurice Rioli were two great players he played with. 

It’s a long way from Crystal Palace to Brownes Stadium. An all time favourite with South Fremantle fans, Marty Atkins not only made the transition to Australian Rules, he became one of it’s stars, and is now looking forward to what may be his biggest challenge yet…breaking the premiership drought at Brownes Stadium.