Almanac Tributes: Vale Derek Chadwick – 22 lives on

 

Derek Chadwick was my boyhood sporting hero. He played for East Perth of course so that helped. But he was also a cricketer, so I could follow him all year..

 

I first saw him play in the 1967 Grand Final, my first live WAFL game. Seeing Chaddy in a losing Grand Final wasn’t difficult. He did it in 1960, 1961, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1971. His career started in a premiership year, 1959, and ended in a premiership year, 1972. He didn’t make the GF team in 59 and retired due to injury midway through 72.

 

 

It all sounds a bit grim but I also took pride in Chaddy’s performances in State games… often as part of the incredible centreline of Chadwick, Whinnen, Brehaut. In 1961 he  was part of WA’s famous Carnival victory in Brisbane. And in 1964 he won a Simpson Medal in unique circumstances as it was for a three-game series against Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia not just one game.

 

I saw him play live maybe three times. TV came to the Goldfields in 1970 so I saw him when the Royals were the game of the day on the ABC. A movie of the WAFL Grand Final would be shown at the Boulder Town Hall some weeks after the event in the 1960s so I saw the horror show losses to Perth and Chaddy in action there too, through unwilling eyes.

 

So without much evidence I’ll say he was nimble, evasive, a sure ball handler and could kick accurately over a short distance. But most of what I knew about my favourite footballer came from newspapers and radio. He was also a ball player. Not only one of the best but definitely among the fairest. After the 1971 Grand Final a relation of mine, a West Perth supporter who’d gone onto Subiaco Oval after the game, told me he’d been disappointed to hear Derek Chadwick swearing as he left the ground. ‘Bugger me, he had plenty of good reasons for cursing,’ I thought.

 

As an opening batter for WA Chadwick was probably best described as dour as his contribution of 91 in an opening stand of 328 with Colin Milburn in Brisbane in 1968 suggests. He made 4082 Sheffield Shield runs for WA at a modest opener’s average of 34.3 but he was better than that. He made nine hundreds but after his highest score of 137 against Queensland at the Gabba in November 1970 went 21 innings without a 50 (twice out for 49). That didn’t do his average much good.

 

When Chaddy batted I’d leave him alone until he got established. I’d stay away from the radio for an hour or so and if he was still in when I switched back on would stick with it. There are two innings I remember well.

 

In February 1970 WA faced Victoria and their exciting, unorthodox new fast bowler Alan ‘Froggy’ Thomson at the WACA. Chaddy took him on, hooked him for six, cut him for fours and raced to 117 before being run out.

 

In 1971 a World Xl toured Australia replacing the banned South Africans. The team included my favourite cricketer Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, the greatest all-rounder of the them all. In a game against WA at the WACA Sobers didn’t bowl in the first innings. He opened the bowling in the second. This was a dilemma. Should I protect Chaddy or keep listening to the radio? I stayed tuned. Sobers bowled one of his perfect in-swingers and clean bowled Chadwick first ball. I went out into the yard with my bat and hit a tennis ball around.

 

Thanks Chaddy, 22 will always be my favourite number. Mum sewed it onto the back of my East Perth jumper in 1968 and it will last longer than me. RIP.

 

 

More from Les Everett Here.

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE