World Champions
Willetton’s Kim Barratt speaks to Cameron Palmer
Having founded in 1976 the Willetton Football Club as a still young club experienced a number of on-field successes across the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Willetton claimed nine club premierships, including six Colts premierships and three Reserves premierships between 1981 and 1995.
The one missing piece of trophy-ware though was a league premiership.
The closest the club came in those early years to claiming its first league premiership was 1985, when they were defeated by Kalamunda in the Grand Final. Kim Barrett who would captain that Grand Final side and later go on to be a Willetton Life Member and Club President, remembers that season and rival vividly.
“They were fantastic times and we had a really strong side, everyone says the most disappointing thing was that we didn’t have that success at that time” Barrett said.
“Like every Grand Final there’s a winner and there’s a loser, it was a bitter pill to swallow considering the success we had the last two times we played Kalamunda but by the Grand Final we were cooked.”
While the Willetton Football Club of the 1980’s may have missed out on the league premiership they sought, they did however win a trophy and title that was far more exclusive, ‘Tug of War World Champions’.
As one of the early adopters of the end of season overseas trip, Willetton made a biennial overseas trip throughout the 1980’s. One of those particular overseas trips took the club to Bali and competing as unlikely entrants in a ‘Tug of War World Championship’.
“Bali in those days had championships of tug of war and each country was represented,” Barrett said.
“We represented Australia with a couple of tourists tagged on and we beat the world, we won the ‘Tug of War Championship’ and we were actually presented with a massive basket with fruit, that didn’t take long to get demolished, but we got the basket through customs.”
They may not have had that league premiership to display in the Willetton clubrooms in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but they did have a basket that signified ‘World Champions’. That basket would remain on display with pride above the club’s bar until the club was refurbished and went missing amongst the move.
Indeed, someone somewhere has what they think is an innocuous Bali basket, yet really does represent ‘World Champions’.
It may have been after Barrett’s time with the club but Willetton would finally go on to win that elusive first league premiership in 1999, winning the E Grade flag and following up a year later by winning the D Grade premiership. Those premierships were a proud substitute for that ‘World Championship Basket’.
