Club Medal Men Have a Place of Honour - By Bill Forrest

THE honour of winning the fairest and best award in any team at any level carries a high degree of satisfaction and achievement and some great football names have claimed the reward at the East Perth Football Club.

While the presentation of an award for the “Most Brilliant Player” was made in the club’s early days, the award has been officially listed on the club’s Honour Board since 1926 and after several name changes and formats, it has now become known as the FD Book Medal.

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Larry (Plum) Duffy heads the Book Medal list, winning the award in 1926 as a seasoned rover who was on his way to playing in all seven premierships from his debut year of 1919 through to 1927.

William (Billy) Thomas was the first player to win back-to-back medals in 1928-29, but that was quickly superceded by a hat-trick of wins to Herb Screaigh in 1932-33-34 and a fourth three years later.

Graham (Polly) Farmer won his first fairest and best in his second season, 1954 and he continued that dominance for six of the next seven years – broken only by his teenage friend and Sister Kate’s colleague Ted (Square) Kilmurray in 1958.

Players like Derek Chadwick, Mal Brown and Peter Spencer collected successive medals, with the latter two also adding a third down the track and there have been several other multiple winners such as Stephen Curtis, George Giannakis, Peter Miller, Ryan Turnbull and Aaron Marley.The effort of Marley, a tough and courageous defender from the coal mining town of Collie, is worthy of mention. Always something of a reluctant city player, the country product became a “medal specialist” in his career. If he wasn’t winning a fairest and best or a premiership medallion at East Perth, he was claiming the Hayward Medal for the South West League’s best player or the Pike Medal for best-afield in a grand final – or just another premiership medal with the Collie team of Mines Rovers and later with the amalgamated Collie Eagles.

The 2000 season wasn’t only a premiership drought-breaker, with the club’s first flag in 22 years, but it was a three-way tie with Marley joining David Swan and Rod Wheatley, who collected his second the next season.