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COLTS AT HEART
Members of the 1973 East Fremantle colts premiership team, left to right, Neal Robinson, Kim Barrett, Graeme Wood, Mario Turco and Tony Buhagiar. Above, the colts premiership squad that was incorrectly listed as the under 19s that year. Main picture: Nic Ellis
They are older, wiser and want to correct a historical error. East Fremantle’s 1973 colts premiership side celebrates its 50th anniversary at the WACA Ground on August 5, when the Sharks take on Claremont. They are all in their 60s now and Neal Robinson was one of nine players who moved up and down between the fourths (under 19s), colts, reserves and league that season — along with Tony Buhagiar, Steve Robertson, Mario Turco, Kim Barrett, Geoff Naughton, Mark Platell, Revel Oakley and Barry Marsh — and says it’s an annual joke among his teammates they never existed.
“The 50 years is remarkable for an unrecognised team,” Robinson said.
“In the the 1973 annual report the fourths names were placed under the colts photo and vice-versa and so for 50 years we have remarked that every time there is a reunion the fourths get rung up and asked to come in.
“Budgie was 16 turning 17, so was Mario Turco. If you think of the talent coming through it was ripening on the vine.
“The colts premiership was special because once the premiership was won everyone assumed they would go up another grade. But it doesn’t eventuate like that.”
The colts were coached by Norm Rogers, a club legend who had played 243 games, won a Simpson Medal, two premierships and was All-Australian.
“It was like a father-son relationship with us and he was one of the best to bring out the great football qualities in his players,” Robinson said.
“He also had some great sayings that we could never understand or that never made sense like ‘I want one half of you here, one half over here and the other half over there’,” Robinson recalled. “Another was ‘Bees sting, I want all of you to be the Queen Bee’ and ‘Let’s all run a quick, slow lap’.”
Turco played 121 games with East Fremantle and was a premiership player in 1979 before playing nine games with North Melbourne in the VFL.
In 1973, he was still a student at John Curtin High School, breaking State relay running records that still stand, while playing at school and in the WANFL.
“I was 17 years of age and it was such a big year for me and an interesting year for me and Budge and a few of us,” Turco said. “The previous year we’d played in a premiership for the under 18s at East Fremantle Junior Football Club. We both went down to East Fremantle and worked our way through from fourths to thirds to reserves to league.
“Budgie played a few more games than I did in the league but it was a rapid rise.”
He recalls the coach being an inspiration as well as an enigma.
“For four weeks during those finals, he didn’t change his jocks. Wouldn’t get them washed. Wore the same jocks every day for that month. His wife even confirmed it,” Turco recalled.
Barrett played just the one league game but was better known as the club’s long-time football manger.
“That year (1973) I played half a season of colts, three reserves games and (senior coach John Todd) Toddy gave me one league game up at Bassendean Oval in August,” he said. “I went back, finished the season playing reserves and then played in the premiership in the colts. I was lucky and very grateful but thinking at the time that it would be easy enough to build on that going forward. But I got married the next year and my career at the league level went south. That was my only league game.”
Graeme Wood also played in that colts premiership before chalking up 14 league games as a wingman, centre or half-forward.
He gave footy away in 1977 to become one of WA’s greatest cricketers, playing 227 first-class games and compiling 3374 runs in 59 Tests and making nine hundreds and 13 half centuries as a left-handed opener.
He made another three tons and 11 50s in 83 ODIs and was renowned for his batting against pace, particularly the daunting West Indies at their peak.
“What I remember from 1973 was we finished fourth and it was quite an even competition,” Wood said. “We beat Subiaco to go into the four so we scraped in really and then won the three games in the finals. Norm Rogers as coach, it would be fair to say that he wasn’t the greatest strategic coach going around but the guys just played for him because he was such a great bloke.
“I remember Norm telling us to get into four groups and do some triangle work.”
Buhagiar played 138 games with East Fremantle, including the 1974 and ’79 flags, along with 108 VFL games with Essendon and Footscray before becoming one of Perth’s leading hoteliers.
“It was seriously good footy in the 1970s and 80s. It was good footy, it was hard, and it was a long time ago,” he reflected.
They will share their reunion with the 1993 East Fremantle reserves premiership team.
Tickets are $55 which includes entry, food and drinks. Go to effc.com.au to book.
