When the great survivors would thrive
Bayswater’s Billy Choules speaks to Chris Egan
One of the great survivors of the Perth Football League, is the Bayswater Football Club, now known as the Bayswater Blues.
A proud club that has history in the Perth Football League dating back to 1946, throughout those 70 plus years, Bayswater have always found a way to survive.
Like all clubs, they battled through their formative years, they have had to contend with other local clubs competing in their area, had to change their club jumpers to redefine their identity and have had to reshape their culture and define their purpose in recent seasons.
While they are now looked at as great survivors, at a point in their history, it was not surviving that defined Bayswater, it was thriving.
In terms of on-field thriving, that would first occur in 1967 as the club won their first premiership in the ‘C Grade’ competition.
Former Bayswater Club President and player on that first premiership side Billy Choules recounts the lead-up to that first Bayswater premiership.
“We built a side together and the first premiership the club ever won was in 1967, under our junior coach that took us all the way through, so we had the coach all the way through, Jim Davies,” Choules said.
“We played Nollamara in 1966, in the Preliminary Final and we got beaten by about five points and I think that just kept everyone together in 1966 to follow onto 1967 and win the Grand Final against a very good Old Wesley side.”
The club would continue to thrive in an on-field sense for the next 15 years, culminating with a ‘B Grade’ premiership in 1982, as the pinnacle of their on-field success.
Off-field, this same time coincided with the club thriving in the community. Go back to the 1970’s and 1980’s and the Bayswater Football Club was somewhere people wanted to be. Embracing the live music scene of the era, Bayswater was able to attract large groups of people to enjoy in the atmosphere of a progressive club.
“We had a very vibrant club going through the seventies and the eighties, the club was just jumping at times,” Choules said.
“We would have 500, 600 people in our clubrooms on a Saturday night, because we would have a gig there, people had to stand outside waiting for someone to leave to be able to come in.”
So successfully were the Bayswater band nights on a Saturday night, local pubs in Perth were left astounded at how a footy club could be thriving so strongly.
“We used to get all our alcohol from the Hyde Park Hotel and they couldn’t believe we would go through 10 to 15, eighteen gallon kegs on a Saturday night, we were going through more than what they were,” Choules said.
“We had a real good name and it was a great time for the club.”
It is a timely reminder in what is chaotic times that with great people, innovative ideas and embracing great culture, any Perth Football League team can thrive. Even the great survivors.
